Good Morning Thursday Soap Making & Catch Up

   Hi Everyone,  I am loving the sunshine and cooler weather. I needed to take most of this week off, as I was getting too tired, with the drive in and it is easier to stand to pack the glass so that has been getting to both of our backs. I had worked on outdoor projects all last weekend too.  

  So these coming weeks, my home needs a thorough cleaning before winter hits-so am taking one room a day to clean.  Then also working outdoors too.

       So much to do here and there it seems.

  Couldn't ask for nicer weather although we could use some rain-but none in sight so far.

  The small Wal mart garden center nearest me no longer has any garden soil, so Tuesday when I drove in to "work", afterwards I drove into the city we used to shop in. They have a Lowes there so I bought 6 bags of the 2 cubic feet size for the project I am working on now. The Lowe's store and similar type stores nearest to us at the lake is quite a drive and in very busy traffic-so I don't care to do that.         This worked out well this time. Wow the city of Lebanon has grown sooo much, no longer an easy going town-instead bumper to bumper traffic now to get any where in that city. It was just starting to get that way when we moved away. I do miss the many different stores like the Aldi, but I like living near a more rural small town.

  This morning, I decided to get out my melt and pour soap making supplies and make the pineapple sage soap recipe I shared awhile ago. I doubled the recipe to make 16 ounces which gave me several small guest size soaps. I also added in dried lavender from last year to infuse in the warm soap base with the fresh pineapple sage leaves. It turns out a lovely green, so am happy with the results.  Decided to make a second batch of guest soaps just now.

Some photos

   This is the pineapple sage plant  now in full bloom.

This double boiler works out well for melting melt and pour soaps. I use a high quality non detergent all natural base from Wholesale Supplies Plus.  Once the soap is just melted I turn the temperature down very low add the lid-this keeps the soap warm but not too hot-and time for around 45 minutes. I check it off and on and stir, til I get the infused color I want from the pineapple sage leaves.

Pour into molds using a small strainer-Here you can see the pretty green color. 

This is the first batch poured into guest size soaps

I took a few photos of what I am working on outdoors  

    A look up the driveway-after this photo I spent two days trimming those bushes back, so no longer taking up driveway space-that was quite the job.

This is on top looking down. I am using long scalloped edge bricks along the driveway from the bushes to the top  We wanted to prevent people from parking on this spot, and to get rid of the trimming of the weeds and grass too.

This is quite the project-as this ground is hard as a rock, and it has allot of small rocks in it. This is horrible soil. Takes me around an hour to "chisel" out the soil to place one edging piece. I killed off the weeds and grass in this area, so that needs to come out and then I will work in the garden soil, and plant a ground cover and daffodil bulbs-for now.

Breakfast this morning. Larry likes omelets, so I heated up the left over fajita mixture and the sprouted brown rice and chorizo and placed on top -so an open faced omelet. It was good

  For our main meal at 2 pm I am making us Belgium waffles-they are treat since they are full of carbs. I have real maple syrup, and I am going to heat up a no sugar added apple pie filling for a topping.

  Came back to share photos of our Belgium waffles-delicious! We also added cherry preserves

Gluten free 

Larry's wheat

  That's it from me for a bit-