Castles on the Rhine

I meant to add more details to the airplane photo post but here is how it went:
10 minutes before boarding I decided to post a picture for the kids.  I try to log into blogger and forget my password.  Try again: Fail.  Try again, finally right.  7 minutes to go, the people are standing in line all around me.
Start a post.  Try to upload a picture: Fail.  Can't do it that way on a phone.
Quickly set up my blog to accept emailed posts like I did when we were in China.
Type email with details, try to attach a picture: Fail.
Board the plane.
Realize I must open the picture and email it that way.  Type up a post with details and hit send: Fail.
Watch the flight attendant yell at people for not getting seated quick enough and say "we must go, just sit down and we'll fix it once we're in the air."  Listen to the pilot come over the speakers and say "we must depart, sit down, turn off cell phones."
Try furiously one last time to send the picture, type as few words as possible and hit send.
13 hours later when I finally had internet again I checked to see it really did post and only once: Success!

So, for the details.  J has a conference for work in Germany this week so I decided to come along as his +1.  We left a few days early to enjoy some sites together and our children are with wonderful Meme back home.

We flew overnight and arrived in Frankfurt around 7:30 am but jet lag seriously kicked our butts so that first day was spent walking around like zombies and crying over lunch because the only choices available were all fried food.  Seriously, it was that bad.  I made it 25 hours before falling asleep but it has proven to be worth it because today I was up at 4 am and still haven't fall asleep and it's now 11 pm.

Today we took a tour with a local company to visit a castle on the Rhine river along with a couple wine tastings, boat ride, lunch and a gondola ride.  It was all so very cool and awe inspiring except the gondola ride; that nearly made me wet my pants.  And then when we got to the top and I found the bathroom I had to pay to use it and I didn't have the right kind of coins.  ACK!

This is the castle we toured; it is privately owned now by a family and is open for tours and also has a cafe.
After the tour we enjoyed a piece of plum cake on the patio and this was our view.

Pictures from around the castle:

The basket was used in ancient times as a punishment for criminals; they'd hoist them into the basket and leave them there for awhile.

These are two that we saw on our boat tour.  I lost count after awhile but I think we saw 8 castles today.

One more interesting stories from today is that this castle sitting up above this small town on the Rhine river is currently owned by a Japanese businessman; he has his helicopter fly him from the Frankfurt airport to his castle when he comes.

I only took pictures of the gondola ride with my cell phone because I was too scared to bend over and get the camera out of the backpack.  That might rock the cable car and well, I was already breathing shallow.

Leaving

On a jet plane. In 10 hours we will be in Germany.

PPD- Phone Photo Dump

Make your own: Brownie Mix

This makes a lot.  I only made half the amount the first time to make sure I liked them well enough to mix 15 cups of stuff at once; I did.

It's hard to find a good recipe for homemade brownies when boxed brownie mixes are easy, fairly inexpensive and just... well, good.  But, they are also made with enriched, bleached flour and partially hydrogenated soybean oil; no thanks.
These brownies are a really close substitute for the boxed brownies.  They are moist and fudgey with a crunchy top.  I make our brownie mix with whole wheat pastry flour and raw sugar so I feel somewhat better about eating the entire pan myself,  feeding them to my family.

In your largest bowl, mix:

• 6 cups flour (you can use any kind you'd like, I used freshly milled soft white wheat)
• 8 cups sugar
• 4 tsp. baking soda
• 4 tsp. salt
• 1 8 oz. container unsweetened cocoa powder

Mix it well to really incorporate the baking powder and cocoa powder evenly.  If you use all purpose flour you could store this in your cabinet or pantry in a ziploc bag or plastic storage container; just attach a piece of paper to it with the baking instructions.  I store ours in the freezer because the freshly milled flour will turn rancid at room temperature.  This time I divided up the mix into individual bags because I was avoiding the house cleaning before my mom arrives to save time later.  This large recipe made 7 batches of brownie mix.

To make the brownies, mix:

• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/4 cup oil or melted butter
• 2 cups brownie mix
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts, optional

Preheat oven to 350, grease an 8" pan.  Your mix will probably be quite thick, spread it into pan and bake 30-35 minutes.

Summer Movie Series

Alternately titled:
Where I listen to toddlers shriek, get kicked in the back and smell poopy diapers to save a few bucks.

It always starts the same each summer.  I get excited about the FREE movie series shown each week during the summer and convince the kids that it will be fun.  They turn up their noses at most of the movies because they've already seen them or those are "too baby" but I can get them to commit to a few we skipped during the regular showings.

We pack a backpack with juice boxes and snacks because a free movie means free; none of this $5 kids pack from the concession stands for us.  We are simply here to watch your DVD on the big screen, thankyouverymuch.

First, you must arrive at least 30 minutes before the movie if you want your party of 5 to sit together.  Don't try to save seats because every mother coming in for the next 30 minutes is going to give you the look of death for robbing her and her children the opportunity to sit together for the free DVD showing.  If you do arrive after most of the seats are taken, be warned that now every mother sitting in the seats with an empty one near them will give you the look of "don't you even think about parading yourself and your 4 kids down this row, this seat is saved."

Very important- Look who you'll be sitting in front of.  This is the free movie full of 2-legged chair kickers and boy do they put on their practice shoes each week.  Try to sit in front of the parent accompanying the 2-legged chair kickers.  If the accompanying parent needs to make a bathroom run, be sure to use that opportunity to tell the 2-legged chair kicker to cut it out.  Nicely, of course.

Hopefully the movie will start on time because entertaining children for 30 minutes gets a bit difficult, even for the best mothers and daycare providers.  Finally, the lights go down and the movie starts...after the operator figures out how to switch over to the computer playing the DVD.  It can become quite comical to watch someone else navigate a computer while 200 people watch in anticipation.

Thirty minutes into the movie the toddler behind you starts asking about his shoe that fell off his foot.
"mommy, my shoe"
"my shoe, mommy"
"my shoe"
"mommy"
"my shoe?  mommy?"
"where's my shoe?"
"mommy, my shoe"
"my shoe, mommy"
Repeat this for the remainder of the movie.  I was about to offer up my own shoe for the kid.

Just as your thinking that the end of the movie needs to come soon or your chiropractor will be getting rich tomorrow, you smell it.  The smell of 100 toddlers and babies that all ate breakfast about two hours ago in one windowless room.
First kid: "mom, what is that smell?"
Second kid: "dude, who stinks?"  (This is a boy, of course)
Third kid: "mom, I think it's that kid right..."
Mom: "stop it, they are babies.  you pooped too, ya know."
Mom:  "dude, that stinks.  that's awful, what'd you feed that kid?"

And then you make a bee line out of the theatre as soon as the credits roll.

I'm going to suck as an old person; or senior citizen as I make my children say.

Make your own: Powdered Sugar

I thought powdered sugar was this special stuff made from something that was sugar like at one time but transformed into poofy powder by some highly complicated process.

That is until I was lazy one day and needed to make some frosting and realized I didn't have any powdered sugar.

Punch up Mr. Google.  

I'm telling you, Google automatically fills in the first three words of each of my searches now with "make your own fill in the blank."  Just today it was "make your own rice krispies" and guess what?!  You CAN make your own rice krispies!  Matthew was actually the one who wondered if it was possible so I'm thinking about making a video with him explaining that.

So anyway, back to the powdered sugar.  It's very simple, involving only 2 things.

Sugar and a blender. 

Oh, and maybe some dish cloths because your countertop might look like you poofed a bag of powdered sugar all over the place.

I made the powdered sugar today with two different sugars, one is the traditional, refined white sugar and the other is unrefined sugar, or evaporated cane juice.  This is sometimes called raw sugar, turbinado sugar, sucanat or rapadura.  They are essentially all the same but rapadura is refined the least amount.  Cane juice actually has minerals in it and the process of refining it takes those nutrients out, so we try to use raw sugar for most everything in our house.  I buy our evaporated cane juice either at a nutrition store, Whole Foods or through Azure Standard, a co-op that delivers once a month. If I run out before placing an order with the co-op I will pick up a box or two of Sugar in the Raw at the grocery store.

The process:

Dump your sugar into the blender and turn it on.  You may need to stop occasionally and knock the sugar back into the center of the blender.

To really freak your kids out you can remove the center piece of the lid and yell that the blender is on fire; they will usually come running for that.  But be warned, they will then start licking the air because it tastes like powdered sugar.

After blending for just a minute or so you will start to see powdered sugar forming.  Blend until you like the consistency.  The raw sugar ended up being only slightly darker than the white sugar once powdered.
Matthew did a taste test of the two different powdered sugars and concluded that the raw sugar had more flavor and after testing myself, I conclude he is correct; the raw sugar definitely made a more flavorful powdered sugar.  I combined the two and it is now safely stored in a Ziploc with the baking products in my pantry.

So, now when you think "I really need powdered sugar" for your fancy french toast but you're still cozy in pajamas, you can make your own and save a trip to the grocery store.

Make Your Own Series

I make many of things we use in our home myself.  This is partly due to frugality, partly to cut down on the amount of chemicals and unhealthy ingredients found in processed foods and largely out of laziness.  Yep, as backwards as that sounds, it's days that I don't want to get ready and run to the grocery store for that one missing ingredient in my recipe that leads me to figure out how to make something on my own.  Once I find that I can make something easily I have a hard time buying it at the store the next time I run out.  I flip to the ingredient list and see a lot of mumbo jumbo that I can't pronounce, or even worse is once I've learned what the mumbo jumbo actually is, and I put it back.  I now have many ziploc bags labeled with things like powdered sugar, white cake mix, pancake mix, brownie mix, etc. lining my pantry shelves instead of boxes.

So I thought I would share these things with all of you so if you find yourself one ingredient short and too lazy to go to the store, you too can make it yourself.

I'll start with a reminder of my post about making your own laundry soap, found here.
I now make my own laundry bar soap that I grind up instead of buying the Fels Naptha and Kirks Hardwater Castile soap.  I'm giddy about my next batch of laundry soap because I scented the bar soap this time with the same mountain fresh smell that I miss from Tide.  Giddy about laundry soap, oh my.

Common Objections to Adoption

Almost every time we have someone ask us about adopting Claire we hear the statement, "Oh, I'd love to adopt but insert reason here."  Many times that reason is money.

Is it expensive to adopt?  Yes.
But, it doesn't come all at once.  We were able to cash flow a lot of our early adoption expenses because the big expenses were spaced a couple months apart.  The biggest expense was travel and we did use credit to finance a lot of it.
But, did you know there is a tax credit for adopting?  Yes, to the tune of ~$12,000!  Does that make it sound a little more doable?  You do have to front the expenses and you can file for the credit (which is now a lump sum refund) the year following your finalized adoption.  Even the government sees that it is a good thing to get orphans into families!

I challenge you to really look at your list of reasons you can't adopt and see if maybe pushing beyond your comfort zone is something you'd consider.  There are approximately 149 million orphans.... that's right, million!  Can you change the life of just 1?

My faith in humanity...

has been restored.

Friday, May 6th we ate at Subway and then took the kids to Home Depot to gather supplies for that weekend's worth of work on our master bathroom.  When checking out at Home Depot I realized my wallet was gone.  At first I didn't panic; it must have fallen out in the car, I thought.   But it didn't.

Over the course of that weekend I called Subway 3 times, visited twice more and visited Home Depot twice to check and see if someone had found my wallet.  They didn't.

We canceled the cards that were in my wallet immediately Friday night and on Monday I started the arduous process of replacing my IDs, insurance cards and the like.  My driver's license had a different address on it so I contacted the residents of that address to let them know they might be receiving a package with my wallet in it.  I wanted to believe people are good and the contents of my wallet weren't being used for deviant purposes, but he longer we moved away from May 6th, the more I thought I'd never see the wallet again and my faith in humanity dwindled.

Until yesterday.  We ran some errands and returned home to find a post-it note on the front door; it read "I have your wallet" and it included his name and phone number.  Could it be?!

I called him and learned the story of my wallet's last three weeks.  His son had found my wallet and brought it home for his dad to find me.  He mailed it to my old address and it was then returned to him so he resorted to the internet to see if I lived locally.  All that information we have floating around the internet actually served some good!  

He lives only a couple of blocks from us and handed me my completely intact wallet yesterday, 24 days after I mistakenly left it on a table at Subway.  I held my hand out to shake his but truthfully, I wanted to hug him.  He restored my faith in humanity.

I have a secret

Well, not so much a secret in the sense that I don't want anyone to know, but a secret that only those within my circle know.  I've not found the way to blog about it without sounding negative or inviting a pity party over for the evening so I've just avoided it.  But, in avoiding it I feel like I'm hiding it, like I'm ashamed but that isn't the case either.  So, I've just avoided it.  


I am the mom to a child on the Autism spectrum... and it's hard.  
There are few days that pass by that I don't think "this is the hardest thing I've ever had to do, God, please don't let me screw this up."  We didn't get an Asperger's/Autism diagnosis until Jacob was nearly 11 years old.  For years we chugged along with speech therapy, doctor's appointments, medication and living in a semi-constant state of frustration on both his part and ours.  One blessed teacher raised the concern that she thought something else was the root of our issues and another full evaluation ensued.  She was right.  Once we researched Asperger's, we realized we were reading our child on paper.


So, from then on we had the "why" to many of our frustrations; things that were once cloudy suddenly became crystal clear.  The lack of physical contact, the tactile issues, the loud noises that bothered him, all of it; it all made sense now.  But, having the "why" didn't give a clear answer on the new question of "now how do I deal with it?"  I felt bad, and still do, about getting so upset with him over things in the past that I now realize were most likely beyond his control.  Now I try to remember those behaviors, but there are still days, many of them in fact, that I have a hard time remembering the why of our situation and pass straight through to "I can't deal with this today."  The why gives no magic fix, no miracle jar of patience, no magic pill can fix it; it is just simply a reason why some things happen.

But, along with the issues of Asperger's that are hard to manage at times comes the silver lining that makes Jacob, Jacob.  
He is brilliant.   
We've always suspected Jacob was a bright child but this year it was confirmed to us when colleges started pursuing him to take resident courses over the summer.  Living in the dorm and taking college classes for a month as a 13 year old; that certainly wasn't something I remember being offered in my youth!  This past week we took Jacob to a statewide recognition ceremony for the Duke TIP program.  He was nominated for the program due to scores on his annual standardized tests and then took the ACT in December.  This was the regular ACT and he scored the same as an average senior in high school.  Duke TIP invited all the 7th graders from the state who scored high enough to a recognition ceremony and Jacob was very excited to attend.  In the auditorium I felt at home; a peace that comes from watching my son feel like he belongs with the peers around him.  I saw him acting comfortable and even striking up a conversation with a boy behind him; something he has been working towards for two years.  Jacob is usually a child of few words and that day he was chatty and told me several times that he was excited to be there.   
It was my slice of Italy when I usually try to accept the fact that we arrived in Holland many years ago.

Did you know that Bill Gates, Alfred Hitchcock, Isaac Newton, Jim Henson, Thomas Jefferson, Michaelangelo, Mozart, and even Albert Einstein were all diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome?  

This gives me hope.Hope that Jacob will not be limited by the challenges of Asperger's in his lifetime.  And as we chug along deciphering teenage behaviors from Asperger's behaviors we cling to that hope that his intelligence will carry him above Asperger's and he will accomplish all he sets out to in life.God gave us this child, our oldest boy, for a reason.  It wasn't an accident, it wasn't a mistake, and though sometimes I want to get bitter and mad at the doctor who messed up the end of my pregnancy and find someone to blame, I can't.  Jacob being born to two young 20 somethings was a very deliberate act of God.  We have him, and he us, for a reason.

i LOVE gay people

*gasp*  Did she just say that, or title a blog post with that?

I did.

You want to know why?  Because, despite the two verses in the Bible that some people believe refer to homsexuality there are countless others that tell us to love all people.  It doesn't say love heterosexual people, it doesn't say love people of our own race, it doesn't say love those people who think like us, it says love all people.

It says "love your neighbor as yourself"  Leviticus 19:18, Matthew 19:19. Matthew 22:39, Mark 12:31, Luke 10:27, Romans 13:9, Galations 5:14, James 2:8

It says "God is love"  1 John 4:8

It has a a passage of verses just about love, "⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."  1 Corinthians 4-7

It boggles my mind that all the verses about loving each other get thrown out the window when the topic of homosexuality comes up.  "Oh, that's wrong; God says so."  Really, because I think God says judging people is wrong too.

So yes, I truly do love gay people.  I'm not threatened by them, I'm not scared of them, I'm not scared to have them around my children, and I'm not ashamed to be friends or family with them.  In fact, just saying them makes me feel bad; like they are something different than myself.  In fact, they are not.  They  are human beings who deserve happiness, love and acceptance just like any and all of us.

What would happen if *gasp* one of my children told me later in life that they are gay?  I can tell you- absolutely nothing would happen any different than before they told me.  The would still be the same child I kissed good night, walked the floor with and stood up for when bullied.  My ultimate goal as a mother is to raise my children to love the Lord and all people, regardless of race, sexual preference, special needs, etc.  The best and only way to do this is to lead by example.

So, here I am publicly telling my children and the world that I love all people and will raise them to do the same.  The circle of hate needs to end.

I ♥ Faces Photo Challenge | Pet Faces

This week's challenge over at I ♥ Faces is all about pets.  I've taken a couple photos of our dog, Toby, since I started the 365 challenge and it was hard picking which one I wanted to enter in this week's contest.  I decided on this one because this is how Toby spends most of his day while the kids are at school.  He'll usually raise his eyes up to look at me but never really raise his head off the floor.

Go over to I ♥ Faces by clicking the logo above to see all the other adorable pet entries this week!

All things FEET

All of you that have a foot phobia, go ahead and find something else to do because otherwise you're going to read this and say "eww, feet" the whole time and then blame me for the 5 minutes of your life that you wasted on reading a post about feet.  You don't even like feet anyway.

OK, for the rest of you that have stuck around and really want to hear about feet, here you go.

Did you know you can get eczema on your feet?  Seriously, is that for real?
Is the skin on your feet super, overly dry?  So dry that maybe your husband might say "honey, you really need to get that checked out" and you probably reply with "oh, it's just really dry, it is winter, you know."  And then he follows it up with "seriously, haven't you heard about some disease that makes you have lizard skin? You really need to get that checked out."

OK, so I waited a few months to get the super, overly dry skin on my feet checked out.  We're headed to FL next week and a light bulb went off....Florida, hot, sun, FLIP FLOPs... Oh shit, the lizard skin!  (oops, sorry mom, no worries, I already bit the soap; good thing I make my own now.)

Guess what she told me?  The coconut oil, vitamin E, super expensive creme I've bought?  None of it will work.  It needs a steroid cream because its eczema on my feet.  One day of cream and my feet are pink again, who knew?!  So, here's your daily tip.
If you husband tells you might be developing some rare lizard skin disease, go to the doctor!

Feet story #2
Emily's feet grew from a size 7 to a size 10 in about 7 months last year.  Talk about an expensive shoe bill!  I nearly birthed a cow in the sports store when the size 9, then 9.5 didn't fit and I had to reach up and pull the size 10 from the top shelf.  I had half a notion to buy the sports wrap and bind her feet right there but I thought surely we'd come to the end of the growth cycle.

Since last fall she's had a lot of pain in her feet after activity and she's a very active girl so we heard her complaints often.  I finally thought this wasn't growing pains so we made a trip to the pediatrician who referred us onto the podiatrist.  Her appointment with the podiatrist was today and after one look at her feet and x-ray he asked me "is your husband tall?"  I get asked this ALL the time when I have Emily with me and he isn't with us.  My response, as usual, was 'no, he's 5'10"" so then he looked at me quizzically.  I knew what this look meant because I see it just as often as I'm asked about my husband's height.  I quickly replied "I have a very tall grandmother" and he said "ah, there it is."  It must be in the doctor's handbook to trace down the tall DNA gene or something.  He told us what we've heard many times, Emily will be tall.

As it turns out, Emily got screwed when they handed out the feet DNA and has some issues that we need to work on resolving.  One way to hopefully resolve it without surgery is orthotics made for her shoes.  As with most insurances, ours won't cover custom orthotics and buying a new set every shoe size change would become quite costly.  I mentioned to the doctor that she's been in a size 10 for a few months now so maybe that means she's leveled off on the foot growth and orthotics might be a good idea.  Right about the time I said she's been in a 10 for a few months Emily piped up with "Yea, and they're getting small!"  Oh my, seriously?  Size 10.5?

When I was a teenager my mom and I had the same sized feet, pretty much.  But, she always hated it when I wore her shoes, "you'll stretch them out," I'd hear.  I'd always think "yea right, how can I stretch out your shoes?"  When Emily blew through her size 8-9 shoe range and tried to take my shoes guess what I said to her?  "No, you'll stretch them out!"
You'll stretch them out is really 'mom code' for "get my nicely cared for shoes off your feet before you wear them outside and get mud in the treads or let the shoelace drag on the ground because I don't buy shoes for my teenage (or tween!) daughter to wear;  get your own damn shoes!"

Now that Emily wears shoes nearly 2 sizes bigger than I do, I don't have to worry with her borrowing my shoes anymore.  Small victories.

Bread (alternately titled: My Time Suck)

These are two loaves of bread that I baked yesterday.  Take a guess on which one is whole wheat bread.

Well, duh genius, the one on the right. Right?  Or, correct? for you English aficionados.  I'm sure you were able to guess the bread on the right is wheat based on the color but I'm about to blow your mind.
They are both whole wheat bread!

Yes, that is right.  Merely an hour before these slices were rising into beautiful loaves of bread they were wheat berries in their whole form.  The slices on the left were made from hard white wheat and the ones on the right were made from hard red wheat.  Hard red wheat is the standard wheat used in wheat bread, hence why you were able to guess the slices on the right based on their color.  Hard white wheat has all the same nutrition as red wheat but it has a lighter color and milder flavor.   I use white wheat for nearly everything I bake but J likes a hearty, nutty red wheat loaf occasionally so yesterday I baked two different kinds.

I alternately titled this post "My Time Suck" because that is what it's become.  Not that I mind it but now you know what I'm doing a lot of the time instead of writing posts on this blog.  About 7 months ago we made the jump into grinding our own wheat and making our own bread products.  I'm sure you are thinking "that is just crazy, is she for real?"  I know you are because I thought the same thing when I first learned about it.  I even added "seriously, people do this kind of thing when bread costs $2-$3 a loaf?!"  It was not a cheap investment but once we listened to a conference and really researched all the health benefits from grinding your own grains we decided it would be a good investment in our health and our children's' futures.  It's certainly not for everyone but it has worked for us.

I've been wanting to write a post on this crazy adventure so I figured I'd start with this and the promises that I'll dive more in depth soon.  That is, as soon as I clean the flour off the countertops and wash the pile of dishes this adventure brings.

Want to learn more?  I've learned a ton at www.urbanhomemaker.com (where I got our bread recipe), and www.kitchensterwardship.com
I've ordered most of our products from www.pleasanthillgrain.com and we started this journey after listening to Sue Becker from www.breadbeckers.com

Making Homemade Soap

A couple of years ago I started making my own laundry soap.  Then I stumbled across a video at GNOWFGLINS on how to make your own bar soap and it started my internet research (about the only kind of research I do) on exactly why it would be better for me to play Dr. Soap in the kitchen rather than pick up a 12 pack of Dove soap from Sam's Club.
I found that historically, soap was made from lard, lye and water but now we buy soap that has many synthetic ingredients.  Some of these synthetic ingredients are there for a good reason, such as making the bar last longer but many of them actually remove the moisture in our skin instead of providing moisture for our skin.  Plus, I think just as it is in many other areas of our health, we can do without most synthetic ingredients.
So, now I will show you how to make your own "cure everything lye soap" that sells for $4 a bar or more at those fancy historical theme parks.

Here are the basics:
You take lye (sodium hydroxide) and mix it with water to dissolve it, then you mix your fats/oils in a separate bowl and once you mix the two mixtures together it creates a chemical reaction where the lye bonds to all the fats/oils and creates soap; this is called saponification.  It is no longer lye or fats; it is soap. Although, the qualities of the fats you used will still benefit your skin.
Pretty cool, right?  It makes you want to strap on your safety goggles, rubber gloves, old apron and say "Let's get started!" Right?

Is it cheaper?
At first, no. I spent about $40 to buy the initial supplies to make our own soap, but I've only had to replenish my coconut oil and palm oil since my first order last summer and I've made 6 batches of soap (about 18-24 bars each).  Even the cheapest bar soap at the store will eventually be more expensive than making your own because the $40 in supplies makes more than 40 bars of soap.  It just takes more than one batch to see your savings but your skin will see the difference immediately.

I purchased my first supplies from the The Soap Dish (no affiliation, no money, mkay FTC?)  They are like most other online companies trying to combat methamphetamine abuse; as they will only ship lye (sodium hydroxide) if you purchase it with other oils or supplies.
(Side note: After making this purchase I did find drain cleaner at Lowe's that is straight sodium hydroxide.  Before the time of online stores, most people purchased their lye from a local hardware store in the form of drain cleaner.  Very few stores carry straight sodium hydroxide now due to the methamphetamine movement, so if you decide to look for it locally be sure to check the ingredient label.  The only thing listed should be sodium hydroxide (lye); there shouldn't be any fillers.  If you do find it you can come home and make soap with simple oils in your kitchen- using only olive oil would make a pure castile soap.)
I have made another purchase to replenish my supplies from Oils By Nature (again, no affliation, no money).  They had a bit better price on bigger quantities and when I had a mess up with the order they were very friendly and fixed it right away, at no cost to me.

My original order from The Soap Dish included:
Coconut oil 76 degree
Palm Oil
Stearic Acid (has acid in the name but it is actually a fat, it hardens the bar)
Shea butter
Castor oil
Sunflower oil
Lye
I used these fats along with olive oil that I had purchased locally for our first several batches.

To calculate any recipe I use SoapCalc.  You can research all the different qualities of fats and then decide what kind of bar you want to make by adding the individual fats; it will then calculate how much water and lye you need to use.
Example: I choose our bath soap to be heavy on the conditioning oils and lighter on cleansing but I make our laundry bars heavy on the cleansing oils and lighter on the conditioning because I need it to clean the dirt out of our clothes; not nourish our skin.

When cooking, I am the type to throw some of this and that into a pan and not measure anything.  You CANNOT do that with soap making.  Lye and the water/lye mixture is extremely caustic and you must have the correct ration of fats:lye in order for your mixture to make soap and not a harmful bar of caustics.  To make sure all the lye will be saponified you "superfat" your recipe by 5-6%.  That means you have 5-6% more fat than you scientifically need, just to err on the side of caution and ensure that there isn't any unreacted lye in your soap.  SoapCalc's lye calculator defaults to a 5% superfat recipe but you can change it to a higher percentage if you want.

OK, so I put my fats into the lye calculator at SoapCalc and then told it I wanted to make 2 lbs of soap and divided out the percentages of each oil.  It then gave me the weight of each oil, the amount of water to use and the amount of lye needed to produce a 5% superfat.  It also gave me the chemical make up of the final soap so I can see how hard, creamy, bubbly, conditioning, etc. the soap will be.

This batch has the following fats and measurements.  The information in the parenthesis is what that particular fat contributes to the final bar of soap.  Don't use these measurements for your own batch though; please put your fats into the lye calculator and print our your own; just to be safe.

12 oz. distilled water
4.4 oz. lye
8.1 oz. coconut oil (hardness, cleansing, creamy lather)
8.1 oz. olive oil (hardness, creamy lather, conditioning)
7 oz. canola oil (conditioning)
6.4 oz palm oil (hardness, creamy lather, conditioning)
.9 oz. sunflower oil (conditioning)
.6 oz. shea butter (conditioning, creamy lather)
.3 oz. castor oil (extremely nourishing to skin, bubbly lather)
.3 oz. beeswax (hardness)

Gather safety equipment: white vinegar, gloves, safety glasses, old apron, long sleeves, long pants and wear shoes. Fill a gallon pitcher full of water and a cup or so of white vinegar; use this to clean up anything that touches lye.  The vinegar will nuetralize the lye; I pour the vinegar solution on the bowl, thermometer, spatula, etc. a couple of times and then wash with dish soap before I take off my gloves because the idea of washing things only once really freaks out my husband who avoids the kitchen lab like the plague when the lye is out.

Weigh water in a glass bowl.
Weigh lye in a separate bowl then slowly add to water while stirring.
(Always add LYE to WATER and never water to lye.) This will create some fumes so if it's nice outside, I do it outside (with the kids nowhere near!) but if it's cold I do on the stove top with the exhaust fan running.  If you add the lye very slowly the fumes won't be so bad.
Adding lye to the water will create a chemical reaction and it will get very hot; don't try and pick up the glass bowl for awhile.  Place a thermometer in the bowl and wait for it to get to 110 degrees; this usually takes at least 20 minutes for me.

Measure your solid fats by weight into a bowl, then place them in the microwave for 30 second intervals until they are melted.  Measure your liquid oils and combine with your melted oils.  I usually measure the liquid oils directly into the big bowl I will be mixing the final soap in.
Wait for your oils to reach 110 degrees.

Once the lye mixture and fat/oil mixture both reach 110 degrees, carefully pour the lye mixture into the fats/oil mixture.

Use an immersion blender (I found an old one at the thrift store for $2!) to mix the mixture; be careful not to spray it everywhere.  It will turn creamy as the saponification takes place.  You are looking for the mixture to "trace" which looks like pudding or custard.  When you move the blender around and the trail stays then you have reached trace.
After trace you can add anything you want to, such as oatmeal, honey, lavender flowers, fragrance, etc.

Time to mold!  I use $2 drawer organizers found at Wal-Mart to mold our soap but you can buy official soap molds or just use a dish from your kitchen.  Sometimes I line my mold with parchment paper, sometimes I just rub some coconut oil on it to help release it.  This particular batch was extremely hard to remove from the mold, so don't do what I did; line your mold with parchment or freezer paper for easier removal.

Smooth your soap out, lightly tap it on the counter to settle it and then put it somewhere safe, out of direct light for 24 hours.  After 24 hours you can unmold the soap and cut it into bars.  Most of the saponification has taken place so it will not hurt you anymore; in fact my soap is already producing a bubbly lather after 24 hours!  Once you cut the bars, stand them on their sides on a tray and place in an area out of direct light to finish the curing time(I put ours in a bathroom closet.)
Some say one month is a long enough cure time, others say 6 weeks.  The longer it cures, the harder and more creamy the bar will be.  I cure our soap for 6 weeks just to be safe that all saponification has taken place; plus, the bars are harder and will last longer.

Now you have this somewhat soap, somewhat-not mess left to clean up.  If you clean it now it will be more like cleaning oil.  If you wait 24 hours it will be like washing off soap.  I usually clean it up right away and just deal with the oily residue but this time I waited 24 hours and it was so much easier.  I just stashed the bowl inside the closet so I wouldn't have to look at it for a day.

So, there you have it; a tray of 14 bars of soap that is so much better for your skin than the bars purchased at the store.  If you were to package these and sell them as "old fashioned lye soap" just like the fancy historical theme parks you could rake in around $56 for that tray.

I hope you'll don your safety glasses, gloves and apron and play Dr. Soap in your kitchen lab soon!

New Restaurants

Have you heard?  I am opening up two new restaurants.

One will be named "I Don't Know" and the other will be "Wherever You Want."

So, those times you're in the car and ask everyone "where do you want to eat?" and get the standard reply of "I don't know", you will have a place to drive to.  I predict it will be full of families with many indecisive members.

The other restaurant named "Wherever You Want" will most likely be full of couples. Young, dating couples, middle aged couples with children (who have left them at home) and of course, older aged couples as well.  So, when one asks the other "where do you want to eat?" and they get a reply of "oh honey, it doesn't matter, wherever you want" they will have a place to take their significant other.

Seriously, I can't believe these restaurants don't already exist.

One Year!

Can you believe it was a year ago today that we walked into a Beijing orphanage as the parents of 3 children and walked out as the parents of 4 children?!  Head over to our adoption blog to watch a video I made for this special day.

http://lovejourneytochina.blogspot.com/2011/01/one-year.html

I ♥ Faces Photo Challenge| Innocent Wonder

I found another photo challenge website and decided to give it a go.  This week's challenge theme at I ♥ Faces is "innocent wonder."

I have chosen this picture of our youngest daughter, Claire, who was adopted from China exactly one year ago.  She always loves to laugh and has shown us innocence as she has learned what it's like to be a 7 year old in America.  Everything is new, everything is good and she approaches it all with a smile on her face.

A funny

While mixing up sourdough crackers and english muffins this morning, I stand cackling with laughter in my kitchen while watching TV. Loudly; alone in my house.
Why?

A man asks his wife what she'd like for their anniversary, which is quickly approaching.
She tells him she wants something silver and shiny and will
go from 0 to 150 in 3 seconds.
He bought her a bathroom scale.

Admit it, you're laughing now too.

365 Project

I want to learn more about photography.
I want to learn how to use all those dials and buttons on my camera.
I love looking at photos that other people take and it inspires me to pick up the camera and take more of our own.

So, as a way to challenge myself and learn more I am trying the 365 Project.  I made a new blog just for the daily photos; we'll see if it lasts 12 days, 120 or the full 365 days.  Thankfully 365project.org uses themes for each week because otherwise I'd run out of ideas after a few days.  I've learned that the kids only like the lens in their faces a few times a month and have coined the term "mamarazzi" and use it often, so this will give me ideas for photos that leave them out of it.

To follow my 365 Project, bookmark my photo blog and see how far I make it.
www.cnj365project.blogspot.com