soap making!

yes. remember last winter when I bought all the soapmaking supplies...

well, they've finally blended themselves together and become soap!
Its been a fun learning process which has made my house smell so nice.

Making Soaps and Scents is a pretty good book featuring recipes with ingredients that I could find in my small town and area. 

a scale is needed actually.

this recip is from that book.  Its my base. makes a nice soap.

BASIC VEGETABLE SOAP

12  oz. coconut oil

12  oz. olive oil

20  oz. vegetable shortening

heat/ melt these together

16 oz water

6 oz. lye

mix these together (WITH SAFETY GLASSES, GLOVES, SHOES, ...lye will BURN YOU!)

the lye will quickly heat up the water.

when each of the two mixtures reaches 97-100 degrees F, pour lye mix into fats (carefully) in a steady stream. mix (about 15-30 minutes) until trace. Using a stick blender speeds things up considerably.

Add your choice of fragrance or essential oils, and any other additives now.

pour into molds. cover with wax paper or saran wrap and let it sit for 48 hrs. 

cut into bars and let it cure for 3 weeks.

enjoy!

lye/water mixture

 

oils heating up

lye and oils together, blending with a stick blender

Trace:   "when the mixture turns opaque and liquid soap drizzled off the spoon leaves a trace on the surface"

 my DIY soap mold made from an old drawer and lined with wax paper.

The first batch I ever made turned out great!  Its easier than I thought to make a good bar of soap.

 This was my second batch.  Lemon poppyseed, Calendula chamomile, and lavender lime.

this calendula chamomile bar is REally nice. Calendula is my new favorite herb.  

Its kind and good for the skin, or any skin related problem.

It would be really nice for a baby or young kid.

 

The brown is a coffee/chai bar!  she smells nice and the coffee exfoliates.

This is my fourth, latest and best soap batch yet.  

made with goats milk!!

and featuring my new natural color pigments given to me by a very special person.

There's an "antibacterial bar" with tea tree and mint... 

any ideas on a better name for it than "antibacterial bar"???

That doesn't exactly have a nice ring to it.

and this is the green Forrest bar (juniper, pachouli, cedarwood...)  and blue n purple Lavender bar.

 


i am happy with it.

This is the main thing I am going to sell at the Santa Supermarket Christmas Bizarre here in our little town!!

first snow visitors

November 5th - first snow in Southern Saskatchewan. 

Also, the day Madeleine & Dan arrive in their comfy camper for a short but sweet visit!  They are on their way to Montreal from the Okanagan. 

I met Madi up in the Yukon and hadn't seen her for about 5 years!  A lot has happened and changed in both our lives since then, but seeing her again, we picked up right where we left off!  

That's what I love about old friends.

 We decided in the day to have a bonfire that night...

AFTER we had a private bowling party at a friend's bowling alley! an experience true to this town. 

Right before leaving, someone looked out the window and noticed an inch of snow!!

So, on our walk home the question was - should we still light a fire?

 we all agreed that yes. Keep up with the Yukon spirit.

Got the winter gear out from the box downstairs and had a blast!  and had some wine  ;0)

Fire is warm.

du feu

 Long lost friends make it even warmer outside!

Safe travels, guys!  Thanks for the visit!

ps-

Attie loved Madi too!  She painted her nails, gave her fake tattoos and stickers, did her make up!  

That's how you get a 2 yr old to be your best friend immediately!

various quests for happiness!!

 I am on Day 4 of a " 30 days light of yoga"

meaning, i have decided to to 2 sessions of one hour per week and the rest just half hour or less... or more if that is what happens.  a little stretching goes a long way!

childs pose!

I am not sure if It is because of the yoga or the slightly raw food cleanse I am at the end of, but I feel GREAT!

I feel inspired.

full of energy

excited about the day

less worried about what I need to do

and with this, comes good into my life from outer sources.

Are you aware that inner happiness CREATES outer happiness? its not the other way around.  

but how do we become happy inside when we feel sad or off???   

The question everybody wants an answer to!

You may be the only one who knows the answer.  I bet if you sit down with a pen, paper, and adequate time, you can find what it is you need to do to maintain a healthy and happy mind.

For me, there are 5 things that come to mind:

1) eating well, enough veggies and proteins

2) getting outside/ getting exercise

3) proper elimination!

4) enough sleep (although this doesn't seem to be That important for me...)

5) feeling an active part of my community of positive friends and family

Although, I know there are other barriers to happiness that seem out of our hands and I am NOT claiming to have the answer to happiness for you or even me!  Some people need medication to be happier, which, in my opinion is the best thing you can do for yourself if found in that position.  My own mother has suffered with depression on and off for years and I believe that going un-medicated has resulted in a manifestation of cancer and a lot of it.  She had been medicated from time to time, but the last 10 years had refused drugs. This is when the breast cancer showed up. It was removed, then returned elsewhere... then showed up all over the place.

mind. body. soul.

our mental health is in our own hands and is the most IMPORtant thing. without good mental health, the rest of our lives can fall apart! If our mind is unhealthy, so will our body and soul be.

I do not discount the necessity of feelings other than happiness!  There are certainly times for sadness and anger. They have their place and make the lighter times feel much lighter. Crying is a great release of negative energy and must never be discouraged.  You know if you are in balance.

The journey to happiness every day is different for everybody.  Do whatever you have to do to find it!

Today, give yourself a pampering or a gift. Make time for yourself. Take care of the temple that is your body.

Any work you can do for your inner happiness is the most important.  Its work for you, your children, friends, partner, family, the clerk at the bank!  

This is Donna De Lory, 

a wonderful musician who I love to be in the background when i am doing yoga!

The light in me honors the light in you =  NAMSTE

Emmett's quilt- a collaborative quilt

my sister just had a baby and I/We recently had the joy of presenting him with a quilt put together by many loving hands!

When she was about 4 months preggers, I put the word out to all the aunties, grandmas, friends asking if they'd like to make a quilt square for a quilt.   I was amazed at the response! Especially since a lot of them hadn't done much sewing.

I ended up with 12 wonderfully creative squares!!

The squares getting ready to be sewn together.

Here they are individually:

Auntie Lorraine\s monkeys

my colorful spiderweb

Charmaine's pony

Auntie Mavis' once favorite shirt - now a quilt sqare!

Cousin Sara's Barney

Cousin Jill's taggy square

Auntie Janet's animals

Auntie Sara's log cabins

Longitme friend Alyssa's Birdies

Great auntie  Bernie's pony

(lifelong sew/knit/crochet/crafter,... still sewing with the shakiness of parkinsons!

a serious crafter never quits!)

Auntie Dana's hearts

and without even talking, mother and daughter both did hearts!

Our dearest mother's square, sewn in the hospital where she battles cancer.

I brought her all the materials and we had a sewing party!

(cousin Sara was there too, can you tell by the matching fabric?)

now for the edging...

 

 

 and....

 Voila!

here's momma at the baby shower

and little boy blue!

 

We love you baby Emmett!!

Time for a Cleanse! Some options and reviews

I have been thinking about cleansing lately. and then I found this Holista Body Clean Detox kit  in my cupboard that I bought about 3 yrs ago, but couldn't use because I was pregnant or breastfeeding.  So I decided to do it now.  In conjunction with changing my eating habits drastically for the length. 

Here are my guidelines:
- No meat
- No dairy (except good plain yogurt)
- few, but only Whole grains.
- no white flour 
- loads of raw fruits and veggies
- lots of nuts and seeds
- loads of water
- juiced juice everyday.

 This holista detox is basically 2 pills. One has psylium (lubrication for the bowel), Chlorella and Spirulina (chloryphyll sources which pick away at the intestinal walls ) and another pill with Milk Thistle which supports the liver and promotes toxin release.  I am finding it quite effective with the mainly raw food intake.  

Although Psyllium isn't completely trustworthy in my books. I have heard for one that it can be a little aggressive. 
Then (from a colon hydrotherapist):
"Psyllium is a seed that when it hits the large intestine, it absorbs 10 times its weight in waste off the intestinal wall.  This sounds great, but most people's bodies are not equipped to pass the matter......that no one should take this on until they've invested 2 years in a good clean vegan diet (70 percent raw) with a lot of bowel cleansing..."
(from "The Raw Food Detox Diet" by Natalia Rose)





This, reminds me of another, probably the last cleanse I did, last March.  

With that one, I was doing Stanley Burroughs MAster Cleanse.
I have done the master cleanse many times. It is tolerable and I have seen results.  It consists of easing into a food fast where you drink as much of a 4 - ingredient lemonade as humanly possible.  The Lemon and Cayanne pepper go in around your body and pick away at the hidden toxins, sending them towards the bowel and on their way out.  The Maple syrup makes the drink tolerable AND gives you a bit of calories so that you are not completely drained.  

It is important to help the bowels move as there is no fibre moving through and helping. Laxative herbal teas and a nasty, but effective "internal salt water bath" will do the trick!  I am always amazed at how far into the cleanse I get and Still have so much elimination happening.   I usually do it for 3-5 days, but they claim it is okay to do this cleanse for upwards of 3 months! 

When easing out of the cleanse, you really relize how much we need to chew!  It really gives the whole digestive system a much needed rest.  I would recommend this cleanse.



Do we really need to cleanse?


I think YES. certainly. 
If the year was 1897, I would say no need to do this. Everyone then ate only local, non processed foods they could grow themselves...
However, we live in a world today where even if you are quite health conscious today, you are ingesting toxins without even realizing it.  Most of the cosmetic products on the market are filled with carcinogens and horrible toxins which our skin, the SPONGE that it is, sucks in immediately.  

Here is a downloadable list of what to look for in your shampoo, tooth paste, lotion...  go look. you will be surprised that when it says on the bottle "made with Natural ingredients"  There are also a gazillion bad bad ingredients.
so there's that.
Then there's the little white "preservatives" and whatnot in our peanut butter, dressings, pesticides on our fruits and vegetables, chlorine and other nasty chemicals in our treated water, ...

Our bodies don't know what to do with these non-food items, so to our great advantage, it stores them all as fat!  This IS a good thing actually, because it is an effort to keep the bad stuff away from our organs.   Even better would be for these things to not be in our body at all. If there gets to be too many toxins, They do get to your organs and you get disease. simply put. 
Before disease, you get (probably have now) things like headaches, fatigue, low immunity, ... As I do.

This is where cleansing comes in.

 Colonics are most beneficial to do during a cleanse -or anytime really.  They are the most effective bowel cleansing available.  It is a gently stream of water flowing thru and releasing the gunk on the walls of your arteries from 20 years ago...  but that will be a topic for another day!

hey ho to cleaning our innerds.

Chocolate minty nut bars

Here's a wonderful and joyously healthy bar.

  chocolate and mint, living in harmony!

can you believe this taste infusion?

Chocolate Minty Nut Bars

1 cup Nut butter of your choice

1 cup syrup, brown rice, barley, maple...

5 oz. unsweetened baking chocolate (can use carob chips)

1-2 tsp MINT extract (or about 5 drops of peppermint essential oil)

4 cups flaked cereal such as Nature's path millet rice cereal or raisin bran

1 cup chopped nuts

1/4 cup oat bran or wheat germ

1/4 cup hemp hearts (optional)

Heat nut butter and syrup over medium-low heat (or with double boiler). Stir in chocolate until melted. Mix in cereal, nuts and bran.  Press into a lightly oiled pan and refrigerate until firm.  Cut into bars. enjoy!

for more Great and healthy recipes, 

go to Diet, Desserts and Dogs - Wellness Weekend!

30 Days of Yoga!

I stumbled upon Lindsay's 30 days of yoga challenge  at her blog cook.vegan.lover. and I am SO ready!!  It can be from 10 minutes to 2 hours a day...

Starts November 1st. 

whos in?!

shanti  shanti  shanti

peace peace peace