Just in time
Just a couple of minutes past 1:30 this morning I was awakened to the crashing sounds of silence. I always sleep with a fan on in my room and it was off. It was also (as my dad used to say) darker than the inside of a pants pocket in my room. Since I have a huge-ass light just a few feet off of my bedroom window it's never dark in my room unless the room darkening curtains and the door closed - which it wasn't. I was groggy so it took me a minute to realize the electricity was out. Good thing just a couple of months ago when there was a threatened ice storm I made sure I had fresh batteries in my camping lantern (which was still on the floor near my bed) and in my little sound machine (to replace the sound of the fan - it's very hard for me to sleep in a quite room). Strange that I've lived here for 12 years and been through some really gnarly storms and haven't had the lights more than flicker hesitantly a few times and yesterday there was just gentle to moderate rain and wind and a few distant thunder rumbles and I completely lost power for hours.
I got back to sleep fairly quickly, woke at 3:30 - no electricity. I woke at 5 am - no electricity. I woke at 6:30 and there was still no electricity but I was just about slept out so I got up. Then came the question of breakfast and I realized the only thing other than salad fixings or cold canned food to eat in the house was - a single hard boiled egg. So I had the egg, took my pills and settled down in my really silent apartment to read my fully charged Kindle for a bit and contemplate the immediate future and whether I was going to need to venture forth into the sprinkly wetness outside for some breakfast. Just shy of 7:30 everything awoke! Yay!
Now I've had breakfast, watched a couple of cooking shows (my Sunday morning tradition), and decided I'm probably not doing the laundry that was slated for today even though it's supposed to stop raining late in the morning. I'm just not feeling it. Besides, I have some lotions and potions to make. I have another bottle of shaving lotion to make and I promised samples of an emulsified sugar scrub (think thick cream with skin scrubby goodness in it) and a new foot butter to make. Don't get me wrong, I still love my green glop foot butter but with summer coming and not wanting to put on thick socks after each application, I'm going for something not quite so greasy for everyday application to tide me over to using the heavy stuff once a week. About a month ago I made a 'Blossom Body Butter' which didn't go over well because it's pretty sweet. It smells overwhelmingly of ylang ylang which is not only sweet but almost cloying. But the texture is fantastic! It's super thick and silky and it melts in fairly quickly. I've been using it on my feet and it works really well. So yesterday I tried for a bastardized hybrid of my foot butter and this body butter. Oh, it turned out lovely but it's a thick lotion and not the thick cream that I wanted. I used a different emulsifying wax. The other kind, the BTMS 225 makes a very thick lotion if I don't keep the percentage down and I forgot about that. So today I want to make another batch and increase the emulsifying wax on just this batch so it'll be super thick and then combine the two. No time to playing with lip balm today even if I did get my little shipment of flavor oils on Friday.
Oh, and then the man who's getting the shaving lotion asked about something for his wife's hands. Ever since menopause she's developed (only during the summer and fall, not the winter strangely enough) what sounds like a case of hyperkeritosis on her hands. That's a super-thickening of the skin that doesn't slough off and she gets practically raw flesh on her joints. He said the doctor told them there wasn't really anything to do about it which I know after only 5 minutes of research is bullshit. Now whether there's anything that I can do for her is a big question mark, but I'm going to try. What I really need is urea, a substance that helps slough off dead skin cells and moisturize. It's available in a product called Hydrovance that I can get but the pH can get hinky and really requires a pH meter (the strips are fairly useless for this kind of application) which I can't afford right now. So I'll do what I can. Sodium lactate (which I have and is pretty darn cheap) is not only a great humectant but when you go over 3% it becomes a nice exfoliator. It can also make you sun sensitive so I'll have to tell her it's best as a night time hand treatment. Also, sodium lactate, unlike glycerin, washes off your skin easily and not a good choice during the day when you wash your hands fairly often (hopefully). So a nice glycerin (which does hang around even after you've quit using it) laden lotion for the daytime and something with about 5% sodium lactate for night time. But because I have zero energy and ambition for that project today (and it still needs some research) I'll send along a sample of the really healing hand salve I make for the lady at work with the cheese grater palms that's helped so much.
And in closing - veggies! I raided the garden yesterday in the gentle rain for some greens to stir-fry.
From left to right are: snow pea shoots (the damn things have doubled in size since the last pic with nary a blossom in sight), 2 baby toy choys, stir-fry broccoli and in back of it some spinach. I added in a little green onion, some garlic, soy sauce and sesame oil. It was delicious! Unfortunately that huge pile of greenery cooked down into just about a cup of greens. I didn't use the tougher lower stems of the pea shoots just the more tender leaves and tips. Next time there will be a few shrimp and some water chestnuts! I've already made the additions to my shopping list because the other broccoli and bok choy and tatsoi will be ready by next weekend. It's amazing how much more flavorful something is when you can cook it without minutes of picking it.
Also, the hummingbirds and orioles haven't shown up yet - that I've seen - but the little Downy Woodpeckers have learned the joy of sipping nectar. They wouldn't be able to reach the nectar in a hummingbird feeder but even the hummers prefer the wide openings of the bigger oriole feeder so that's the only one I put up.
This entry was originally posted at http://ixchel55.dreamwidth.org/354294.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
I got back to sleep fairly quickly, woke at 3:30 - no electricity. I woke at 5 am - no electricity. I woke at 6:30 and there was still no electricity but I was just about slept out so I got up. Then came the question of breakfast and I realized the only thing other than salad fixings or cold canned food to eat in the house was - a single hard boiled egg. So I had the egg, took my pills and settled down in my really silent apartment to read my fully charged Kindle for a bit and contemplate the immediate future and whether I was going to need to venture forth into the sprinkly wetness outside for some breakfast. Just shy of 7:30 everything awoke! Yay!
Now I've had breakfast, watched a couple of cooking shows (my Sunday morning tradition), and decided I'm probably not doing the laundry that was slated for today even though it's supposed to stop raining late in the morning. I'm just not feeling it. Besides, I have some lotions and potions to make. I have another bottle of shaving lotion to make and I promised samples of an emulsified sugar scrub (think thick cream with skin scrubby goodness in it) and a new foot butter to make. Don't get me wrong, I still love my green glop foot butter but with summer coming and not wanting to put on thick socks after each application, I'm going for something not quite so greasy for everyday application to tide me over to using the heavy stuff once a week. About a month ago I made a 'Blossom Body Butter' which didn't go over well because it's pretty sweet. It smells overwhelmingly of ylang ylang which is not only sweet but almost cloying. But the texture is fantastic! It's super thick and silky and it melts in fairly quickly. I've been using it on my feet and it works really well. So yesterday I tried for a bastardized hybrid of my foot butter and this body butter. Oh, it turned out lovely but it's a thick lotion and not the thick cream that I wanted. I used a different emulsifying wax. The other kind, the BTMS 225 makes a very thick lotion if I don't keep the percentage down and I forgot about that. So today I want to make another batch and increase the emulsifying wax on just this batch so it'll be super thick and then combine the two. No time to playing with lip balm today even if I did get my little shipment of flavor oils on Friday.
Oh, and then the man who's getting the shaving lotion asked about something for his wife's hands. Ever since menopause she's developed (only during the summer and fall, not the winter strangely enough) what sounds like a case of hyperkeritosis on her hands. That's a super-thickening of the skin that doesn't slough off and she gets practically raw flesh on her joints. He said the doctor told them there wasn't really anything to do about it which I know after only 5 minutes of research is bullshit. Now whether there's anything that I can do for her is a big question mark, but I'm going to try. What I really need is urea, a substance that helps slough off dead skin cells and moisturize. It's available in a product called Hydrovance that I can get but the pH can get hinky and really requires a pH meter (the strips are fairly useless for this kind of application) which I can't afford right now. So I'll do what I can. Sodium lactate (which I have and is pretty darn cheap) is not only a great humectant but when you go over 3% it becomes a nice exfoliator. It can also make you sun sensitive so I'll have to tell her it's best as a night time hand treatment. Also, sodium lactate, unlike glycerin, washes off your skin easily and not a good choice during the day when you wash your hands fairly often (hopefully). So a nice glycerin (which does hang around even after you've quit using it) laden lotion for the daytime and something with about 5% sodium lactate for night time. But because I have zero energy and ambition for that project today (and it still needs some research) I'll send along a sample of the really healing hand salve I make for the lady at work with the cheese grater palms that's helped so much.
And in closing - veggies! I raided the garden yesterday in the gentle rain for some greens to stir-fry.
From left to right are: snow pea shoots (the damn things have doubled in size since the last pic with nary a blossom in sight), 2 baby toy choys, stir-fry broccoli and in back of it some spinach. I added in a little green onion, some garlic, soy sauce and sesame oil. It was delicious! Unfortunately that huge pile of greenery cooked down into just about a cup of greens. I didn't use the tougher lower stems of the pea shoots just the more tender leaves and tips. Next time there will be a few shrimp and some water chestnuts! I've already made the additions to my shopping list because the other broccoli and bok choy and tatsoi will be ready by next weekend. It's amazing how much more flavorful something is when you can cook it without minutes of picking it.
Also, the hummingbirds and orioles haven't shown up yet - that I've seen - but the little Downy Woodpeckers have learned the joy of sipping nectar. They wouldn't be able to reach the nectar in a hummingbird feeder but even the hummers prefer the wide openings of the bigger oriole feeder so that's the only one I put up.
This entry was originally posted at http://ixchel55.dreamwidth.org/354294.html. Please comment there using OpenID.