A Time for Soap

If only I had more time to do all the things I love doing. I love to sew, write, read, make soap, bake, garden, paint, and still have time to hang out with my family. There just are not enough hours in a day. There is always something on the list, like the overalls I just finished that my daughter is wearing while playing the piano. She is growing so fast that I cannot keep up with her wardrobe needs anymore. I am facing the reality that she might have to wear what "all the other kids" are wearing. Maybe that will have to be ok.

I took the girls to dance today and stopped to talk to a friend. I had given her a bar of soap to test out for me. She loves it and said she wants to buy a bunch for the holidays as gifts. I've given it to other friends and they too want to buy more. The realization that I do not have enough to survive the holidays sent me into a bit of a panic this evening. What can I bump to make soap? If it takes a few weeks to cure, I better get busy. For the longest time it seemed like I had so much laying around but now thinking about the holiday season and the potential for people to purchase several bars at a time, I definitely do not have enough.

I've decided soapmaking and sewing have a lot in common. The ingredients are like fabrics and the process is soothing like sewing. The finished garment and finished product beg to be shown off even if they are not perfect. We are definitely harder on ourselves when it comes to perfection. I see the wavy topstitching lines on my daughter's overalls. I see the flecks of color in my soaps that should have been mixed better. I see the uneven bars of freshly cut soap. I see that one leg is an 1/8 inch longer than the other. These are not things that anyone else would ever notice. To me they look like big neon signs. I suppose it's these errors though that keep us going, keep us creating. We want to be better than we were. We want a goal to work towards. So it is the same with our walk with God. He wants us to be better than we were too. He wants us to keep our goal in focus. Moving further in a craft is like moving further along the spiritual path. We will make mistakes but it is ok.

A Little R & R

We left for our favorite little island last week hopeful for good weather. The weather in Atlanta was not looking good and the weather forecast for Tybee Island did not look that great either. We packed some good books, dinners, and games and resigned ourselves to just enjoying some time together even if the weather was uncooperative.

Hubby was planning on working on my RenaSoap website while we were there but as we could only get spotty internet service and only on the balcony, we decided it was a sign to just rest. I could say that you cannot deny God when you see the beautiful shells that litter the beach. You cannot deny God when you hear the squeals of my daughter at the tiniest of hermit crabs scooting across her hand. When the sun shines down on the beach and the dolphins play in the surf, I am definitely reminded of our divine creator. I think it's easy to see His glory in the glory of the world. It is harder to see it in the everyday.

As we headed to the beach, on brand new tires, we got to see God's providence in the "everyday". We blew out a front tire going 70 mph. At first we weren't convinced it was a tire because hubby said the the truck didn't pull at all. We pulled off at the conveniently located exit. I say conveniently located because this stretch of I-16 is notoriously void of exits. Sure enough the tire was completely flat. Hubby changed it to the spare which looked ridiculous on our SUV. Again, conveniently across the street was a Ford dealership. We ventured over thinking worst case, they could at least put the spare on the back. The owner was a wonderful, God fearing man and found us a used tire that would be better than the spare. He told us if we found a replacement tire in Savannah, we could bring the used one back and he would refund the cost of the tire. The Lord provides in miraculous ways sometimes.

The weather at the beach was beautiful. The weather channel had predicted rain and storms but we had sunny skies and warm breezes. As we watched the weather unfolding back home we began to wonder if we should rent a boat for our return. We didn't know what we would be returning to and we could not get in touch with our neighbors. As we made our way home, the sun sparkled through the clear blue skies. The rivers seemed a bit high but we couldn't find any damage. It wasn't until we got home and saw the small mud slide in our back yard and talked to our friends and neighbors that we realized what we had missed. Our area got 12 to 18 inches of rain in 24 hours. People's houses are ruined and some have lost everything. Insurance does not cover ground water unless you have flood insurance. I found this out when our basement flooded. Praise God, our basement was dry. In these bad economic times, I can only imagine what this will do to our area. I cannot imagine paying a mortgage on a house that's uninhabitable and so people will walk away pushing the foreclosure crisis further in Atlanta.

I know this post has little to do with soap, but I feel it's important to ask for prayer. Praise God for your dry house and sunny skies. Pray that God will provide miraculously for those that have lost everything.

Soap Kitchen Taking Shape

I am so excited that this is coming to an end. By "this", I am referring to my flooded basement and subsequent gutting and remodeling. The kitchen is the last big part. God really does have better ideas and better timing than I do.

I wanted to remodel our main kitchen but when the basement flooded and we realized we were going to have to really fix it, the main kitchen got to take a back seat, again. Fixing it involved completely gutting it down to the studs, jack hammering the floor to install french drains, re-framing, drywall, and new floors. At the beginning of this mess, I was so depressed. I did not want to spend all this money in the basement where nobody would really see it. It was right up there with the new HVAC equipment we had to purchase the prior year.

I honestly did get angry. I did not see how this could be a good thing. I cried out to God and He showed me how silly I was being. This was not life threatening. This was not sickness or disaster. This was a minor inconvenience. This was merely a small bump in the road. But God uses even the small bumps to teach us. He uses these inconveniences so that we leave ALL things to Him, not just the big stuff. Before the demolition had finished and the dust had cleared, we had realized this was a blessing.

The kitchen in the basement would make the remodel upstairs much more bareable. I have some annoying food intolerances so eating out frequently makes me really sick. It became obvious how crazy I had been to think I could go without food for the 4-6 months it would take to remodel the kitchen. God knows me better than I know myself and He amazingly and sometimes miraculously meets our needs.

When all is finished, this kitchen will make a wonderful soap kitchen. I will have storage for all my finished soaps and all my soapmaking supplies. It will also be a wonderful space for my guild to have sit-n-sews without burdening my husband and girls. My girls have finally decided they like sewing and this space is so wonderful for all of us. We all have room to sew and not get in each others way.