Everything which starts with the letter S

Soap, socks, sheep, sewing, sawing and siblings

Last week, I mentioned wanting to try an old, but new to me, recipe for pumpkin patch pie. The little girls and I stuffed a pumpkin with apples, dried cranberries, cinnamon and sugar, too much nutmeg and baked it. In the end, it wasn't as good as we'd hoped, but still worth another shot after some adjustments.

Our savory fall dish before, during and after baking.

I tried a couple new soap recipes. The first was a deodorizing kitchen soap made with coffee. I found the recipe in a book of hot process soaps checked out from the library. Before returning the book, I copied down the most intriguing recipes. The first I tried was a goat milk soap. It was a nice soap, but through it I discovered a preference for cold process. Fortunately, most recipes can be used with either process, so I used cold process for the kitchen soap. It was a large batch. I have a  mold Darren made from a rain gutter, which turns out the perfect size bars; it was filled, as was a 9x9 pan.

Homemade soap, one with a surprise ingredient.

The second soap was from a recipe I created around a surprise ingredient: breast milk. I know! It's a little crazy, but I just couldn't bring myself to throw it out. The bars look pretty; it was kept in the refrigerator for the first 24 hours to preserve the color, and I'm hoping it will have amazing skin conditioning benefits.

We had our first Ladies' Sewing Day in three years. It was great time, and we produced some really cute pillowcases. We use the "hotdog method" for our pillow cases. They turn out nicely, complete with accent trim, with really basic sewing skills. If you can use an iron and sew in a straight line, you can make a pillowcase! Our first sewing day we donated the pillow cases to the pediatric unit of the local hospital. Since then we've made quite a few more, some for keeps, some for gifts and some more to donate.

Laney revels in time spent with Auntie Casey.

I had the opportunity to work on the sawmill with my brother this weekend, which was a lot of fun as well. I haven't spent any time on a mill since my dad had his, and it felt good to be at it again. The weather was beautiful!

There is just something about sawmill work in particular; it's hard enough you feel the exertion, but not so hard as to be miserable. Also, seeing a pile of scraggly, dirty logs disappear into a gleaming stack of clean lumber is quite gratifying.

Sawdust flying as the fog burned off, and a sawmill selfie.
The weather could not have been more perfect.

The second Owlie sock is past the halfway point. I really hope there is enough yarn to finish, because I love how these socks are turning out. They are going to be so cozy! It's kind of fun, too, knowing exactly where the wool came from.

In addition to sock knitting, I've made some decent spinning progress. The singles for my shawl project are finished, and I've started plying. My pattern of slightly under-plying fine yarns seems to be holding true, but it should be fine.

Darren and I have started Body Beast again. He is following the Huge calendar, which is the full 12 week program with the workouts stacked for getting huge. The other 12 week option is the Lean calendar, which is what I did. It uses the same workouts, just stacked in a different way. This time, I am doing the 4-week Beast UP calendar, which utilizes a couple new workouts and is designed to push you just a little bit more.

I ran a little experiment this week. The object being to compare the Beachbody portion container system with counting macros. Both are methods of keeping nutrition on track. I've been using the container system since June of 2015, but I was curious if it might be better to switch to tracking macros now that my goals have evolved. I discovered using the Beachbody portion containers aligns almost perfectly with my macro target! I'm really pleased about not having to switch to a new system. I have the containers down pat, and now I know they can still be useful for reaching my new goals.