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We have been spending much of our time making Christmas presents, and since Christmas is not the "ghost of Christmas past" yet, I can't show what we have been working on. However, I can show you what looks like a character from that movie. My husband read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" for his school's Band concert (the band(s) are excellent - we so enjoyed the show. Go ERHS Band and Ms. Perez!) I made his costume to look like the character I remembered from the book. He did an excellent job with the reading as well. I am so proud! We also used this picture for our Christmas card which includes our own Twas the Night Before Christmas poem.
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Another adventure I have had is something I have been wanting to do for a while now, and that is making soap. So many times you read about how to do something, and it just seems to bring fear about trying it. I am here to say, "Fear Not! I bring you good tidings of great joy!" It is not as hard as some people make out, and maybe not as precise as some make you believe. I mean just think about the pioneers and what lack of equipment they had. What I didn't have, though, that the pioneers probably had is someone to show me how from another generation. So for the first time, it is good to follow the directions and be safe. I got the scale and the stick blender, and we already had safety glasses and gloves. Little did I know that after four twenty second intervals of use, the stick blender would die (the instructions that we went back and read said not to run it for a full minute. Even though I let it rest between the 20 second intervals, it apparently needed more rest.) We made the soap mold out of scrap lumber.
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The soap did not come off perfectly per the instructions and the stick blender dying did not help. Even after much hand stirring, it didn't seem to "trace". However, I poured it into the mold anyway, and it seems to have done just fine. I decided to use my food dehydrator to cure it on, since it is already equipped with the ventilated shelves and I am not using it at the moment. I found out from a youtube video that lard soaps seem to require more stirring before they trace, so that may be why.
One Christmas present I can show you is the angel my youngest daughter crocheted for me to put in the package for my four year old Angel Tree recipient. I just traced and and stuffed an angel to sew it to. I am so glad God stocks families with persons that have different strengths!
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