Soap and Second Sock Syndrome

Beverly likes poptart-type toaster pastries. See? Mostly she wants me to break off all the crust with no jelly in it. Then she likes to eat half the body of the pastry and then get little blobs of indeterminate flavors of jelly on the floor. On her hands. On the soles of her feet, and on the side of the refrigerator. Oh and on her face. See?



I FINALLY got a new listing up. "Misty," one of the Floozy Girls. Misty's parents named her for the morning mist rolling in off the ocean at Cape May, where Misty liked to play under the boardwalk when she was little (and a little bigger too!). She is aptly named, because that is about what she has inside her head. She makes up for it by the size of her bust, which she stuffs into fluffy, pastel color sweaters that are 2 sizes too small.

Yesterday we made Lavender Baby soap. Mmmm! This morning I cut it into bars, and took a picture, because it was pretty. Smells pretty, too. Baby fragrance with just a little Lavender EO. This is my daughter's favorite to use on her kids. Available in Richard's Rossoaps shop in a week or two, when it's cured. I love it when we make soap, because my house is a good-smell-o-rama.

Ok just a little more stuff about soap. Richard decided we should do a plain Lard and Lye soap, just for the tourists and ignorant people. Not that it is ignorant to make soap out of lard. On the contrary, lard actually makes a very hard, white bar of soap with a creamy lather that is soft to the skin, and, unlike beef tallow (which is in ALL commercial soaps... the label will say, "sodium tallowate"), does not contribute to eczema or acne. What I mean is for the tourists who come here to Eastern TN and expect all of us to be barefooted, wearing our hair in a bun with a long dress and apron (or bib overalls), and chickens running around in the yard. Hey, just because I have chickens doesn't mean...

But I digress. We will go to craft shows and people will pick up our wonderful, beautiful soaps, and the conversation will go like this:

THEM: "Don'tcha have any of that there LAAA soap?"
US: "All soaps have lye in them. It is what turns the oils into soap, and isn't active in the final product. All our soaps are just soap, with no remaining lye in them."
THEM: "No, I mean, you know, LAAAA soap, like Mee-maw usta make, with lard 'n' such."
US: "No, all our soaps are made with vegetable oils and goat's milk, which has amino acids like human skin, and so they are very good for your skin."
THEM: "Waaaaall, I don't know about all that stuff. I jest remember ma Mee-maw makin' Laaa soap, and I shore would like to get hold of some of THAT stuff."

So we made lard and lye soap. We were going to call it Granny's whatever whatever, but the grandkid that can talk calls Richard "Grumpy," so we called it Grumpy's Back Porch Lard 'n' Lye Soap. Actually he mixes the lye on the FRONT porch, where this picture was taken. But who wants to split hairs? This is the label I came up with. My daughter says he looks demented, which should suit the local crowd just fine.

On my last note of the night: I am knitting a sock again. Last Spring I knitted a pair of socks for Diantha, which she loves. Then I started on a sock for Veronica, and knitted it in June and July. I might note that I would knit on my daily walk but no other time because I just don't have much sitting-around time. Anyway I finished the first and started the second, and had to lay it aside to do Christmas presents in order to get them done in time. Which I didn't, for all of them. ~~ sigh ~~ Anyway, in all my delay in getting back to knitting the ssssssssSSSecond sock (do I actually have Second Sock Syndrome? I think I do! Horrors!), some little person around here took my needles out. Size ONE needles. In Tofutsies yarn, which is the splittiest little yarn you ever don't want to knit on. So I have understandably put off messing with it.

The other day Veronica, my good-naturedest child in the WORLD, walked thru the kitchen and somehow her completed sock was laying on the corner of the island. She picked it up and looked at it, then wistfully said, "Mommy, I LOVE my sock. And I will love the other one when you are finished, even if you don't finish it in time for my birthday."

Her birthday is May 5th. I am knitting quickly.