trinkets and baubles
Posted on | November 20, 2011 | No Comments
my o my.
i’ve been waiting for some weeks, with impatiently tapping foot, for elizabeth taylor’s stuff to be shown online at christies.
i’ve waded through PAGES of awesome jewels and frocks and i’ve got a little something all picked out.
isn’t it gorgeous? wouldn’t the five brooches look FABULOUS pinned up in the right sort of hairdo?
i really like those old mine cut diamonds; such a soft glow to them, rather than a lot of jazzy flashy brilliance. not that there isn’t a time and place for that too.
on the whole though, i was slightly repulsed by the sheer amount of stuff.
how could you possibly enjoy so much stuff?
i bet that even out of that cornucopia of jewels, elizabeth herself had a handful of favourites that she wore over and over.
well, that bloody huge gorgeous krupp diamond was hardly ever off her finger.
if it was mine, i’d wear it all the time too.
but the rest of it? not so much.
and the nonstop work of storing and cleaning and repairing and organising all those clothes and jewels? fuhgettaboutit.
still, i had a most enjoyable couple of hours sifting through it all and if it had come to australia, i would have loved to have seen it all in person.
financial crisis? what financial crisis?
Posted on | October 25, 2011 | 4 Comments
i do wonder what kind of dual-economy madhouse we are all living in when i receive an email from a brand new retailer, on her second day in her brand new boutique, in a teeny weeny town (but i note that it is slightly larger than malanda!) requesting more soaps pronto pronto, because she has already sold out of my large wholesale minimum!
crazy times!
i hope she is taking photos….i had a sneak preview of some of her soap displays and i am hankering to blog them up!
listening to…
Posted on | October 9, 2011 | 3 Comments
….red hot + blue.
a tribute to cole porter.
i’ve had this album for a long time and i don’t think i’ve ever sat down and listened to the whole thing properly.
we were making soap in the workshop during the week and suddenly, i had to stop and run over to check the ipod….was that actually roland gift singing “love for sale”?
why yes, it was.
and it’s the tip of the iceberg.
too darn hot by erasure
night and day….u2.
you do something to me…sinead o’connor.
and my favourite: debbie harry and iggy pop duetting hilariously on well, did you evah?
well, did you evah?
steve jobs
Posted on | October 8, 2011 | 1 Comment
i came to computers late in life….about 34 years old.
i googled soapmaking and a whole world opened up for me.
online friends taught me how to do everything from opening a second window (omg!) to cut and pasting to emailing images and links.
i struggled along with various PCs for about 7 years, because that is what everyone had; and then i started paying attention to one of my cousins, who is/was an apple fanboi.
his enthusiasm was utterly contagious, and it didn’t take long for me to buy a macbook.
suddenly, computers made SENSE to me.
i could easily play with images, music, text. i could chat with people all over the world.
within weeks i had ripped my entire lifelong music collection to itunes, bought a few back-catalogue things (i had never managed to successfully do this on a PC…..i tried and i was billed, but i am still whistling for the actual music) and had bought an ipod classic.
the iphone 3 followed a couple of years later, and was about ten million times faster, cooler and more useful than the top of the range palm pre/pro (who can even remember?) rubbish i traded in for it.
nowadays, my office computer is a shiny new imac with lion osx….my husband and i travel with and play on an ipad each (because trying to share one of those things is im.possible)….he has an ipod touch with all of his music loaded onto it….and i’ve still got my original ipod classic and iphone.
we are an apple family.
we like finding recipes, taking photos, listening to music, emailing friends/family, chatting on the phone….pretty much every day.
steve jobs made a tremendous difference to the ease and enjoyment with which we do these things.
his designs and ideas have a huge and ongoing positive impact on myriad things i do for business and for pleasure every single day.
RIP mr jobs. we’ll sorely miss you, but we’ll remember you with gratitude every single time we see a luminous apple.
garlic lovers, rejoice
Posted on | October 3, 2011 | 4 Comments
we love garlic around here, but nobody adores the job of peeling the stuff.
after seeing the smart saveur clip below, we are now lining up to peel the garlic!
i’ll do it! NO, let ME!!
this really truly works, and is a great dinner party trick too.
and i use bowls that are about one fifth the size of the demo models, so don’t feel you have to dig out the gigantor bowls for this.
How to Peel a Head of Garlic in Less Than 10 Seconds from SAVEUR.com on Vimeo.
more photos from japan
Posted on | September 24, 2011 | 4 Comments
really old
Posted on | September 21, 2011 | No Comments
and then there was this weird little pottery pilgrim’s bottle.
10th century, liao dynasty, green glaze, gangwa ware.
i fell in love with the glaze on this piece and the shape of it, not to mention the sheer utility of it.
a bit of rope through the hole, hang it round your neck, and off you go on your pilgrimage!
it looks like it came out of the kiln yesterday.
it was a good thing that there was a sheet of glass between me and the pilgrim bottle.
i totally wanted to pick it up and feel it’s cool curves and slightly rough glaze.
i bet you do too, now.
really really old
Posted on | September 21, 2011 | 2 Comments
at the tokyo metropolitan museum, we spent hours poring over amazing samurai swords and pottery and kimonos and calligraphy and prints.
but these two items really captured me…..both of them ancient and both of them just kinda cool in that design-y way.
check these out.
first up is the 3500+ year old jia wine warmer from the erlitou culture, shang dynasty, dated 16th to 18th century BC.
that is hella old. and very beautiful.
big in japan
Posted on | September 20, 2011 | 4 Comments
we certainly felt big in japan when we visited our soap in a couple of perfect potion’s kyoto shops.
both are simply beautiful shops, with that unmistakeable perfect potion scent of blended essential oils as soon as you walk in….fabulous displays, and charming staff.
the temples and gardens were amazing, but seeing our soap here was a highlight too!
shop #2, with the gorgeous staff:
shop #2 with the gorgeous soapmakers:
shop #1 with the gorgeous staff:
lashings of soap:
the golden temple, kyoto
Posted on | September 19, 2011 | 2 Comments
this is possibly one of the most famous sights in japan, apart from mt fuji of course.
(we saw mt fuji from the train en route to kyoto and she was completely magnificent).
we were there on a boilingly hot late summer day, no breeze, just a bit of cloud cover….and it was difficult to get a bad shot of this amazingly beautiful temple:
fushimi inari taisha
Posted on | September 17, 2011 | No Comments
i took a lot of photos at this fascinating shinto shrine.
it is the main shrine to the deity inari, who is the deity of rice and foxes, amongst other things.
the foxes favourite thing to eat is inari sushi…balls of rice stuffed into fried tofu.
this is one of my favourite things too! coincidence!
bazillions of vermilion and black painted wooden gates (torii) form various tunnels that lure you hypnotically along the hillside.
as you walk through, the sunlight flickers above you, and the green foliage flashes through red and black torii.
the torii have all been donated over the years, as offerings to inari.
it is one of the strangest and most wonderful places i have ever been.
and i’ll be uploading more photos as i go along.
miso mayo
Posted on | September 17, 2011 | No Comments
i do have some photos of japan to upload and organise (temples temples temples and our soap in kyoto) but in the meantime, i want to talk about a very simple dish we ate a few times in kyoto.
it was simply miso (usually a lighter sweeter miso, not one of those dark and mysterious type misos) mixed with mayonnaise and served with sticks of carrot, celery, daikon, cucumber and big bites of cabbage.
we are absolutely addicted to it and have been making it at home since we landed.
i guess about 7 parts mayo to 1 part miso is pretty good and you can adjust it how you like.
i also add a handful of sunflower and pumpkin seeds to the dip….only because i like them in everything. they didn’t do that in japan, but the flavours work together.
we make a big platter of the vegetables and a bowl of the dip, and keep it in the fridge with a damp clean tea towel over it to keep everything madly crisp.
not that it gets much chance to dry out or get old around here.
matsuya ginza
Posted on | September 6, 2011 | 3 Comments
we arrived in narita late last night, after a slightly delayed, but otherwise uneventful flight.
maurice got us onto the jr express train to tokyo, then we hopped on a very short tokyo metro ride to ginza.
our exit was the furthest-flung imaginable and my leg had begun to play up, so the last bit through the almost-midnight strets of the ginza seemed to take foreverrrrrr.
maurice heroically shouldered both bags to give me some respite….he’s just lovely like that.
it was raining very lightly and gently, but warm; quite pleasant after the flight.
after checking in to our hotel, we showered and fell into a very comfortable bed and slept dreamlessly until 8am.
after breakfast this morning, we hit the streets with no agenda.
we window-shopped all the luxury brands and went to the matsuya ginza department store.
they have an underground food hall that has to be seen to be believed.
we paced the aisles, salivating and joggling each other’s elbows to look at the gorgeous presentations.
we looked at fabulous luggage and pens and shoes and handkerchiefs and kimono fabrics and furoshiki cloths and jewels and kitchenwares and ceramics and eventually ended up in the top floors at a restaurant with hot plates built into the table tops and no english menus.
we pretty much asked the waiter for her favourites: and noodles and pork and egg and yam and cabbage and stuff started rolling out from the big grill out the front for us to grill up a bit more on our tables.
we had iced jasmine tea in big glass mugs.
everything was delicious and none of it was like anything we had ever eaten before.
just perfect!
i needed to rest my leg by this stage, so we headed back to the hotel.
we thought we’d read…..two hours later we both woke up, dressed up, asked the hotel reception staff for a dinner recommendation, then headed out to a place called en, just around the corner.
the people on the street were all dressed to the nines and there isn’t a speck of litter anywhere.
and everyone is so polite and friendly. it’s just fabulous.
en is a japanese restaurant: shoes off, tatami mats, low tables, entire staff shouting out in unison when you enter.
we sat looking into the kitchen from a bench, and it was dinner theatre of the best kind.
nobody rushed or looked stressed. no voices were raised. food rolled out at intervals, in no particular order.
every dish was a work of art.
we had tuna sashimi, tuna and avocado salad in miso, chilled silken tofu, garlic rice, chicken sausage, yam pancake.
i had a glass of sweet plum wine on ice and it was divine.
we will probably go back tomorrow night….there were loads of other things we wanted to try!
we called back into the matsuya food hall on the way home and picked up a piece of chocolate layer cake and a gorgeous little fruit tart with grapes from some paris-based patisserie.
these were careully packed into a box so they wouldn’t move, there were two kinds of stickers applied, the receipt, a postcard….then another girl was brandishing a huge fancy heavy paper bag, to slide the whole shebang into…..at which point i drew the line in the name of the environment, and off we merrily went into the night with our boxed cakes, only to be caught in an absolutely torrential downpour.
the rain was bouncing off the footpaths, such was the force of it.
i cannot run of course, so i limped through the rain with maurice beside me and we had a pretty good laugh en route and got soaked to the skin within seconds.
then we couldn’t find the room key, so we rode up and down the elevator like dripping maniacs, looking everywhere (no key, no ability to choose a floor).
it was just lovely to get back to hot showers, hot tea, our cakes (made it through the rain unscathed) and dry sarongs.
tomorrow we’ve got a 3am start, and we are off to the famous fish market (gotta be there early early early to catch the action, apparently) and then on to some place maurice has been to before, for a sushi breakfast.
this and that
Posted on | August 30, 2011 | 2 Comments
o dear….it is like a ghost town blog around here!
i can hear the wind whistling through the empty streets and see the lonely tufts of tumbleweed rolling.
you must forgive me…i have been IMMERSED in google+.
and today, i deleted my google+ account.
why, you may ask, as you scratch your puzzled head.
and with good reason.
i was utterly delighted with the idea of google+ just a few weeks ago. and now, deletion?
i’ve been following the NYMWARS…..google’s insistence on members having their real name out there, preferably following an anglicised convention of first name + surname.
lots of people have been screaming about this and with good cause.
1. their online name might just happen to be their brand….and that may not actually be the name on their bank accounts or the name their mother calls them.
2. people are concerned about stalkers
3. google is gathering personal information, so they can sell us off to the highest bidder/s.
ok, so i read my way through the first layer of concern…i could empathise, but it didn’t affect me.
my name is also my brand and it’s also my real name. i like to keep things simple like that.
the second point…stalkers are scary, but kind of rare, and who would want to stalk a soapmaker who loves cats and gardens and travel, anyway? i figure a stalker would have bigger fish to fry, then someone like me. seriously.
but the third point grabbed my attention.
on the whole, i like google.
i use a lot of google products and i use ‘em daily.
but this all seems a bridge too far.
i read a lot about google wallet (google this for more information) and frankly it seems like nobody will be happy until we are all chained to a handful of huge bland brands.
me, i like choices. and handmade things. and supporting the little guy (whenever the little guy is producing a quality product). and less interference in my shopping habits, all round. because purchasing is ultimately what it is all about. and on the net….if you aren’t buying something, then YOU are the product.
so, strictly based on the third point, i’ve pulled my g+ account.
all of my content there has been wiped out as though i never existed.
my sincere apologies to anyone who is waiting for a g+ invitation from me.
……………………………………………………………………….
and in other news.
i took myself off to bali for 11 restorative days earlier in august.
i had my broken limb massaged daily, i lounged about reading and listening to music and chatting with people, and i ate a lot of very spicy food, and enjoyed myself thoroughly.
i confined my walking to a bumpy 100 metre strip of monkey forest road in ubud….everything i needed was contained therein.
i achieved my long-held goal of travelling with one small bag (cabin luggage only) and it was easier than expected.
i loved being able to pack up and go in a mere five minutes, and i loved not being at the mercy of an outside laundry.
i had a total of 11 separates and the holiday ran out before the outfit combinations did.
with my small bag, i even managed the tarmac debarkation of the aircraft in darwin with some aplomb.
i took barely any photographs….it wasn’t that kind of trip.
and i was in no shape to be crouching or climbing or leaning over for better shots.
all of this has encouraged us to continue with plans to visit japan next week.
we intend to visit the tokyo fish market, the osaka aquarium, a lot of kyoto temples and gardens, and to see the autumn foliage.
and get to grips with some sushi!
at least one thing stayed the same
Posted on | July 19, 2011 | 2 Comments
i saw my podiatrist yesterday and did the thing where you stand on the computerised pad and then walk over it and your bio-mechanics show up on a computer screen, all colour-coded and what-have-you.
he sucked his breath in when he saw my x-rays and was mightily impressed by the degree of dislocation my ankle suffered *quote: that is about as dislocated as you can get*
after the breakages and the surgery and the hardware and the swelling, i was expecting that i would need a new insole at the very least, but lo and behold, it appears that things are pretty much the same in the foot department.
i am strangely excited by this.
everything else in my leg has changed, all the way from my toes to my hip….but my flat foot remains just as flat as before, no worse and no better.
naturally, i am favouring the good leg a bit when i walk, but when i am standing, i am still very even with the weight distribution between the feet.
this is a good thing, apparently.
he very kindly gave me a complimentary consultation and of course i don’t have to cough up another five hundred bucks for a fresh orthotic….this year at least.
google+
Posted on | July 18, 2011 | 2 Comments
so, i guess you’ve heard all about google+ already?
i have been there for a few days, playing with the circles and checking things out.
it is easier and nicer than facebook, and not as shallow and demented as twitter.
if you would like an invitation, please send me your email address in the comments….i won’t publish it.
if you are already there and you’d like to find me, i am www.gplus.to/soapmaker
see you there, perhaps.
make your own pita bread
Posted on | July 17, 2011 | No Comments
my oven needs cleaning.
in fact, it is shamefully filthy and it is now smoking like a train whenever anything goes in there.
it’s just going to have to wait until my leg is really a lot better.
however, just because the oven is horrid, doesn’t mean that everyone around here is suddenly tired of warm, fresh bread.
o no, it does not.
so i scoured the webz and dug up a pita bread recipe, and a frybread recipe and sort of mashed the ingredients and the methods together and came up with something quite edible.
you will need:
2 tsp instant yeast
1 cup warm water
mix together and let it sit for five minutes.
add:
2.5 cups of flour
2 tsp sea salt
2 tsp olive oil
mix it up into a shaggy dough.
now start kneading it, and add more flour as you go.
you want a pliable, satiny ball of dough and that will take about 10 minutes of serious kneading and about a cup more of flour.
when it’s done, cloak it, and roll it into an oiled bowl (so it gets a light film of oil all over) and throw a clean tea towel over it.
let it sit for an hour, somewhere warm, until it has doubled.
knead it for a further couple of minutes.
cut it into eight pieces.
form each piece into a ball, cloak it, set it somewhere warm and replace the tea towel over the lot.
leave them for about 20 minutes.
now, roll each one out….you might need a bit of flour to stop the rolling pin from sticking.
don’t go crazy with flour, keep it to a minimum.
they will roll into nice little ovals, quite naturally.
let the flat breads sit for another five minutes.
get your biggest heaviest cast iron frying pan out and oil it lightly, and heat it to medium hot.
i have a lodge pan that i bought on ebay some years ago….i love that thing.
now, cook up your pitas, one or two at a time….or more if they will fit.
2 to 3 minutes each side.
when you cook the first side, they will puff up fabulously with a big air pocket in the middle IF you haven’t cheated on the kneading.
when i flip them over, i flatten them down with a metal spoon, so they cook evenly.
otherwise i get burnt bits and raw bits together….unappetising.
stack your cooked pitas in the same old tea towel you began with, to let them steam and soften….or if you prefer crispy bits, leave them out to cool.
i made mine with freshly ground whole wheat flour, set to powder fine.
the breads are more tan than the commercial ones and taste especially nutty and tasty with all that bran and wheatgerm and good stuff.
there is a batch of yoghurt brewing and if i look into my crystal ball, i see raita with garlic and cumin and shredded carrot and a heap of fresh mint…..scooped up with refried pita triangles.
*drool*
a blast from the past
Posted on | July 16, 2011 | Comments Off
there has been some chitchat lately around the interwebz about soap makers all copying one another and who was first with a certain look, and then the copiers usually shout “but it doesn’t even matter who was FIRST and there is nothing original anywhere anymore anyway”.
there was a hideous blog post recently, with some woman calling out a bunch of etsy sellers as all copiers without an original thought between them, all the soap looked the same….i was horrified to see my own website there, just one amongst a heap of derivations.
i was going to share a link with you….but she has put a password-protection on her blog, on that particular post.
what the poster failed to note, was that my soap wasn’t derived from anywhere but inside my own brain.
when i first started selling my soap in late 2001, i had never seen anything remotely like it before….and neither had anyone else.
this is partly why we had such a huge and immediate success with our soap….if it had just looked like everything else, then how to explain how it took off like it did, in a small town in far north queensland, just after 9/11, when everyone was in shock-horror and tourism had ground to a complete halt locally?
when we bought an apartment in oct 2002, purely to make soap in (we had expanded out of our own kitchen and needed dedicated premises…and what is more, could afford dedicated premises)….i mentioned it online, and was publicly called a liar.
this was long before i owned a computer, or even a camera…..so i had to enlist friends to take photographs, upload them to the internet, and create a geocities site for me…..so i could at least show the doubters some photographic proof.
of course, geocities closed down a couple of years ago and with it went my images.
but this evening, in a moment of idleness, i considered the wayback machine and ran my old site through it.
lo and behold, this popped up, complete with images….the first recorded date they have is oct 12th 2003.
i posit that even this, almost 2 years after i had started making my unique style, and 11 months after i had started selling it, was still long before anyone else was making “my” kind of soap.
of course, if anyone has any images of this style that pre-dates mine…i’ll eat a bar of my own soap, provided you can show me where you may have posted those images online before mine were posted.
you can click on any of the images and be taken to my flickr page, where it clearly says: This photo was taken on November 12, 2002 using a Kodak DC290 Zoom.
and because we love photos:
new kittens
Posted on | July 11, 2011 | Comments Off
finally, some photos!
mr knut:
mr bolli bollason:
all together now:
google+
Posted on | July 11, 2011 | Comments Off
via my soapmaking connections, i finally wrangled a google+ invitation.
i’m here: gplus.to/soapmaker
so if you are in the neighbourhood, please add me and i’ll add you back.
so far, it seems a lot cleaner and a more intuitive user interface than facebook (which i never got the hang of anyway, and in a fit of pique, finally closed my account 2.5 years ago).
kittens! soap! walking!
Posted on | July 6, 2011 | Comments Off
KITTENS: our oldest cat, miss mousie, the savage and beautiful, has shipped off to parts unknown.
maurice has combed the neighbourhood for her, but she has simply vanished.
she was 13 years old, mightily bad tempered, and very independent.
i think she has succumbed to something or other, poor old thing.
we have looked and called and phoned the pound for two weeks, to no avail.
the only thing left to do, is to obtain more cats.
we still have a little bit of hope that she will just waltz in one night, but as the days go by, it seems less and less likely.
ever since we picked up norbulingka from the rspca, we have been besotted with norwegian forest cats.
beautiful looking, hardy cats, with a wonderful history of sailing with the vikings.
i located a very pretty little boy at a breeder in victoria and we broke our own rule of rspca-refugees only and purchased this delicious little fluffy bundle (a smoky gray stripey fellow) pretty much as soon as we saw his photograph.
we collected him at the airport and we named him bolli bollason, after a tenth century icelandic hero who sailed to norway and wowed them all.
on tuesday we were in the city….i was having physio….and we just thought we’d check the rspca.
lo and behold, there was knut….a wild-looking little darling with a squirrel tail and stripes and divine cocoa-coloured eyes.
we were able to collect them both on friday and by friday night, they were already friends.
they are around the same age, about 16 weeks.
of course, the big cats are highly miffed at these midget interlopers…..it’s a fulltime job keeping them placated and soothed.
it will take a few exciting weeks, then everyone will settle down.
i keep promising photos, but taking photos of anything with a bit of a mobility problem, is turning out to be much more difficult than i anticipated.
WALKING: i’ve been slowly coming along with my leg! my leg!
i cast off the walking frame a while ago and the blackthorn walking stick not long afterwards.
i can walk on my own, but not far and not fast.
lots of physio lies ahead, to rebuild strength, flexibility and balance…..but i see small improvements every single day, which is really encouraging and quite thrilling.
there is nothing like being confined to a bed for a couple of months to make you really relish your ability to move even small distances under your own steam.
part of my therapy involves a daily scar massage, supplied by maurice.
a mixture of vitamin e oil and my own blend of helichrysum/fennel/cypress essential oils (not the most lovely thing i have ever smelt, but very effective for the job at hand) is massaged into the dramatically big scars up either side of my ankle, and he is increasing pressure daily to help break up the scar tissue.
this week we are incorporating calf massage as well, because that is one withered tight sad little muscle at present.
to complement, i am doing a handful of basic stretches….calf stretches, a stretch that involves turning my foot inwards against a resistance band, and standing in bare feet and raising myself slowly on my toes.
this last is especially challenging, but will work wonders i am sure.
SOAP: we made a full moon soap last month and i was all set to get photos of it and sell it online…..instead it has been snapped up by the locals at various markets and it looks like none of it is going to make it to either of the web shops.
however
there is always another full moon coming up….and the july one falls at a very civilised time in the afternoon, so we shall be soaping for sure.
i’ve got a few days to dream up an essential oil blend and i shall blog it when i’ve thought of it.
i know it seems….
Posted on | June 26, 2011 | Comments Off
….as though i have been harping on about my leg! my leg! lately….but the damned thing is really on my mind.
and hanging off the end of my torso constantly.
after what felt like an interminable time in a wheelchair, things have started to move rapidly.
i refused to have any truck whatsoever with crutches….dangerous, painful, wobbly brutes of things…..and was loaned a walking frame.
i hobbled about the house on this for a couple of weeks, putting increasing amounts of pressure on the broken leg.
the whole thing is still swelling up at the drop of a hat, so prolonged strolls were out of the question.
the great day came last wednesday when i actually picked up the walker and took six halting steps entirely on my own.
i demonstrated this again on thursday, showing off for my mother, and she promptly turned up here later with a genuine irish blackthorn walking stick/shillelagh.
she also furnished it with a brand new rubber tip, so i wouldn’t slip and break, well, my leg.
i didn’t like the look of the thing at all, but gave it a go.
and now we are inseparable.
it is amazing how fast you can get used to something.
i am locomoting very nicely with it and it is now only five days since i took my first independent steps.
i use it for balance mainly, so it is in my right hand, while my left leg is the broken one.
it has a knob of polished root ball on one end, for the handle….or for turning around and clouting people over the head with.
the shaft is covered in the stumps of thorns and the weird crinkly blackthorn bark texture.
you can totally see how blackthorn got it’s reputation among druidic types.
the parisian surgery feels good….it all feels straight and solid in there, and painless to boot.
the french surgeons weren’t just handsome….they were good carpenters too.
i feel incredibly lucky that i got such excellent care.
my job now is to rebuild muscle strength, flexibility and get my balance back.
much as i think the blackthorn walking stick adds a certain haughty je ne sais quoi to my usual get-up, i don’t wish for it to be a permanent part of my accoutrements just yet.
cold moon soap plans
Posted on | June 14, 2011 | Comments Off
i am astro-soaping again!
tomorrow at 6.14am, here in malanda, it is the peak of the cold moon.
we are all getting up before dawn, so i can make a proper full moon soap.
i’ll prepare the essential oils tomorrow before we start…..but i am dreaming of a blend of lime/vetiver/bergamot/geranium/basil/patchouli…..something really different.
i reckon it is going to be a darker blue soap than my usual full moon soaps ; i’ll help it along with some charcoal; with a white swirl, and some silver mica.
photos later.
slow but steady progress
Posted on | June 11, 2011 | Comments Off
since wednesday, i have been stretching my foot and leg, and hobbling with the walking frame, about doing some partial weight-bearing on the poor deformed limb for a couple of minutes at a time.
i can stand up on both legs now and rock my weight back and forth gently between my feet.
every morning, i wake up and my leg feels a little less alien and a little less peculiar.
the surgery scars are all pink and healing and no longer so painful. the cast-blister is settling down. the bruising has almost gone.
it is all very encouraging.
i mixed some fennel oil with olive oil and maurice massaged it into my foot….it does help with the swelling.
i shall add some cypress oil next. and lavender, just because i love it.
right now, i feel capable of doing a lot more….but i have to ration myself, and keep my foot elevated quite a lot of the time.
we are making plenty of soap in the rationed intervals and i have been very pleased with how well it is all going.
the soap looks and smells exactly as it should, and there is even talk of creating a full moon soap on the 15th.
van gogh cats….there’s an app for that
Posted on | June 10, 2011 | Comments Off
lately it seems that you can get an app for almost everything.
so, when i wanted to turn some favourite photos of some of our beautiful moggies into paintings, i knew where to look first.
fennel:
norbulingka:
miss mousie:
