The best laid plans of mice, men and soapmakers

 As I had frozen cubes of goat's milk left over from the last batch of soap I made I thought I had better motivate myself and use it up. I chose an old recipe which I think was originally from Rhonda's book 'Down to Earth' and I replaced most of the water in the recipe with goat's milk. I ran it through the Soap Calc calculator which gave me a different amount to use for the lye and also added fragrance oil to the recipe.The plan was to add micas to produce very light colours but, as you can tell from the photos, we had some drama!

Heading into winter

 The weeks are rolling by and we are currently experiencing very cold weather which apparently is about 10 degrees colder than the average May temperatures and the chill factor is taking some time to get used to. Last week we had very scary storms and one night I thought our roof or a tree had been struck by lightning and I actually ducked as I expected the roof to cave in. Some parts of town had small hail and a lot of rain but we only had some light rain here and thankfully no hail at all. The storms have gone and have left us with very cold weather for a while. 

The Joys of Efudix

I am sure that most Aussies would have heard of the skin cancer cream called Efudix if they have sun damaged skin and have been referred to skin cancer specialist. I had the joy of using the cream on my face a number of years ago and it is quite the experience I can tell you.

Left up in the air

Just a quick blog post for those who were interested in hearing about the results of the recent swab test which was taken to unearth why I had become so ill after the recent skin cancer surgeries and also developed a painful rash.

How things change.

After being housebound for a number of days I ventured out the front to the mailbox midweek and thought I had stepped out into the African jungle. I knew we had had a few storms and possibly a few inches of rain but I didn't realise how quickly the garden would change after the downpours.

Thank you!

I just wanted to thank everyone for their care and concern after my recent skin cancer surgery. I was pleased to hear that the second lot of surgery was successful and the doctor got the invasive cancer out completely. That was just as well as I didn't know how I could undergo another lot of surgery as I have developed a very painful infection which has kept me laying low for a number of days.

The good news and the bad news

Firstly the good news as we always prefer good news to bad news don't we? The recent rain has really had an impact on the purple African Daisy that I grew from a cutting I brought back from Mt.Isa. My friend Barb wanted a cutting and I have been trying to get one to take so I have planted another one today and hopefully this one will grow. The plant is looking a lot more healthy for some reason. Perhaps it doesn't like the town water. I did find out its name as my daughter remembered it  and told me and it had a Biblical ring to it ...like Jerusalem or Mt.Zion or something like that but I have forgotten once again but whatever its name it is very pretty. So Barb, hang in there :-)