Monday, June 11, 2012

And another thing

Time sure flies around here.  I was going to try to keep up blogging more often and here it's been almost three weeks since I blogged.  This is what I've been doing in the interim:  This first shot is a picture of my back hall before I cleaned it.  That bookcase is solid maple and we've used it as a catch-all for gardening stuff and etc., for 18 years.  I cleaned it off and took it to the shed/shop and sometime this summer I'm going to strip it and refinish it and put it in the library where it belongs.  The door goes to the back yard; the garage door is on the left and the door to the half bath is on the right.
The after shot. Bill made the bench on the left and used it for all kinds of stuff -- hats, gloves, knives, miscellaneous.
I did clean it out, but forgot to take an after picture -- this is the before!
And my latest adventure:  I've been wanting to try my hand at making soap for a few years now and finally got up the courage yesterday afternoon.  These came out of the mold today.  They need to cure for 6 weeks, but I'm pretty happy with my first attempt.  I've been following this blog for years  down--to--earth.blogspot.com.  Rhonda is very knowledgeable on a lot of subjects and I love her writing (and envy her writing ability too!).  She published a book a few months ago and I bought it and have read it twice.  She's doing the whole simple living thing and what I really like is she encourages everyone to do their own version for their own reasons.  My reason for making soap?  I like the idea of no chemicals and all natural.  I've been buying handmade soap for a couple of years now from the Oregon Soap Shoppe near here and really love it.  But I just wanted to try making some myself.  It took me half the day to get everything organized and set up -- the soap making itself didn't really take all that long.  I learned a lot and maybe next time I'll add some fragrance, or not.
And last but not least of what's been happening the past few weeks.  We made it through the second anniversary of Bill's death, and our happy occasion was the day before when Mikey turned 2!  Will graduated from preschool -- he'll be 5 this summer and heading off to all-day kindergarten in the fall.  Briana graduated from 8th grade and will be heading off to high-school in the fall.  The picture below was taken Saturday when we celebrated all 3 events!
Gratitudes:  Family
Trying something new - always good to expand the horizons.