Cleanliness

Years ago, I used to make soap. I used to devote hours and hours each weekend to making soap and bath salts and bubble baths and body scrubs. I used to splurge on vanilla beans and very carefully scrape out the insides to create the most delicious smelling concoctions. I once made somewhere around 150 bars of soap for a friend to use as wedding favors. It was wonderfully therapeutic and such a creative outlet for me, though I hardly ever made any of it for myself. But soap making involves melting and heat and tiny little bottles and so, it should come as no surprise that the last time I made soap, I was seven months pregnant with Luke.

My three giant containers of soap making supplies have languished in the crawl space for four years, until finally, Julie asked me to teach her to make soap. Although I was fumbly and out of practice, managing to burn the first batch, and of course, little hands were in the way, we made soap.

And then? I used that soap. On myself. It's delicious, full of cinnamon, cocoa, and cloves, it smells so good that I kind of wanted to take a bite out of it, but common sense prevailed and instead, it made me skin sing and I wondered why I didn't do this more often, why I didn't carve out the time to make soap and even better, why I don't carve out the time to treat myself (I know, easier said than done).

It was a weekend of indulgences, with a new bookcase that I probably shouldn't have bought because we are budgeting and will be paying off Tommy's medical bills until he's 112 but it was kind of necessary because the old bookcase was so wobbly that we were going to end up with MORE medical bills from it falling on Tommy. It was supposed to go in the living room, until we got it home and it looked much better in the kitchen. I kind of love when that happens, because it's like an added surprise in a new found item. Shane is happy because he can put his favorite cookbooks out of the reach of Tommy's hands and I'm happy because I can put my Skittles out of the reach of everyone's hands. Basically, everyone wins in our house except for the short people.

(This is the worst picture ever because it was taken with my phone at night and I keep forgetting that my phone has a FLASH, but I assure you it is very pretty.)

It was a very cleansing weekend. Soap, life, friends, newness. All wonderful, and I hope yours was nothing less.