Obsession

Recently The Mister gave me a handful of books. One on beekeeping. One on home dairy-ing. One on soapmaking. That man knows how to give good gifts, I am telling ya. I keep seeing my new books all cozied up in the bookshelf and I think,

"Make all of the Things!"

and I get those fun little butterflies on my insides that you get when you are excited.

When I got them (the books, not the butterflies) I truthfully had a hard time choosing which to read first. The beekeeping one is prettiest (is it bad that prettiness is a deciding factor?). Dairy is close to my heart, but I had an ADD moment when I first picked it up or else my kids were "mom.mom.mom"ing, or possibly both. At any rate, I found it might be best to leave that one for a time when my focus was a little less missing. So that left pretty beekeeping book vs. soapmaking and I found myself cracking open the soapmaking book so I could savor the pretty book later. Plus that whole focus thing... 

This book was written in a comfortable, conversational way that eased on past the whole ADD business and next thing's next I was ordering soaping supplies, requesting more soaping books from the library and watching every YouTube video on soaping. Every Single One. ok. Not all of them, but I'm still working on it. Give me time. Guys, at this point I had not even made a batch of soap and...I think I was in love. 

Anyway, I made my first batch of soap and I may or may not have come uncomfortably close to creating a smallish fire in my kitchen, but the point is that I did not. Yay me! If you did not light your stove on fire today you should take a moment to congratulate yourself. And if you did--well, there's always next time.

I learned some valuable things in that first batch like 

*Don't bother with the double boiler business to melt your oils. It might seem smart, but it's not.

*If you think you are going to make a plain batch of soap to start with you are probably wrong and you may as well measure out your essential oils and stuff ahead of time.

*Keep the fire extinguisher handy

*Don't be lazy. Get out the fancy thermometer. 

You know. Useful stuff like that. and....I think I am still in love (almost fires notwithstanding). So at this point I'm drooling over soap curing trays and wondering how much space I can devote to curing bars of sudsy joy.

(Affiliate links to the books Martell gave and the one I borrowed from the library. They are all stellar. )