Soap, childhood dreams, and living pretty sheltered.

Last Friday, I made my first batch of bar soap. After talking about it and wanting to try to make it for over a year, I finally got all the things together and jumped in. Before I started, I watched a video on the process. Ruby watched it with me. As they were stirring the soap on the screen, Ruby kept standing up, getting closer and closer to the screen, up on her tip toes, trying to see into their pot. Every time she’d sit down disappointed. She just couldn’t see into that pot.

My kids don’t watch very much TV. A good thing, I’m certain, but every once in a while – when a soap making video has them captive, and they try to see what’s in the pot by getting closer – I wonder how much this whole lack of popular media is hurting them. Then I think of their lack of knowledge and many things worldly and decide they will be just fine.

Anyway, the soap. I made lavender/lime scented soap, my whole house smells lovely still, and I’m anxiously waiting for 30 days to pass so that it will have cured and I can try it out. Already I’ve purchased more ingredients to make a few more batches. A coffee soap (supposed to be fabulous for getting those onion/garlic smells out of your skin in the kitchen), a bar to grate for my laundry soap, and a batch of cherry almond are next. Fun stuff. Lye rather scared me, but it really wasn’t so bad.

Sterling tells me he’s only going to use the homemade soap once it’s ready. He’s found sniffing that box of soap multiple times a day. He’s also going to build me a giant brick house once he’s an architectural engineer and he’s going to build his house right next to mine when he’s a grown up. Since I planned to live in the house 1 mile from my parents when I grew up, and now I’m another 599 miles past that… I’m not holding my breath. But one can hope.