Project Lavender Soap

Ok, now this is one of those days when I wonder about different measures used around the globe. I found a very simple soap making recipe in Becky's video, see here:

Here are the ingredients and half the metric amounts - I like to make a test trial first:

50 ounces olive oil
50us fl oz = 1478.7mL
1478.7 : 2 = 739.4mL

15 ounces destilled water
15us fl oz = 443.60mL
443.6 : 2 =221.8mL

6.3 ounces lye beads
6.3oz = 178.60g
178.6 : 2 = 89.3g

Lets begin. I will take pictures and document the process...*excited*
...Done. I am warm now. :D And the soap forms are covered with boxes (by boxes?) and packed in towels to stay warm for a while:

 Here is my lavender and the rosemary growing in my garden.

 

 Here some cut lavender blossoms and self made lavender wands.

Ingredients and tools necessary: Lye, distilled water, olive oil, a scale, silicon forms, a whole plastic spatula, dried lavender blossoms, glass bowl. Do NOT use any aluminum pieces. It would react with the ingredients.

Perfect. The lye: 89g. The lye put into the water. ATTENTION!!! Easy and slow! This gets damn hot and its dangerous for your breath and your skin!!! Windows, doors open if possible. Keep your face distant from the water and lye mix.

 700ml of olive oil do not equal 700g of olive oil. *nerd*

 Rolling the dried lavender blossoms between your fingers with gentle pressure makes the little petals get loose. They are collected in the yellow bowl. How I measured the smaller amounts. I was just curious. The cups are on the scale just for fun.

 Just to show how much petals there were. I had said "a hand full". Here you see the exact amount.

 The lye+distilled water mix needs to cool down. I was separating the lavender petals in that time. Then it comes together with the oil and then got mixed with the dried lavender leaves until it became sticky. You can see that on top in the blue bowl here. If it leaves traces, or shows this slight stickiness on top, its ready to get filled in the forms. I use silicon forms. In the red bread form I added some whole blossoms on top.

Good night pre state soap. I keep you warm to process. It takes about one day until its hard enough to cut it.

I just watched that and like to share this garden video as well, because I like the prepping of the ground. I dont quite get the paper part, but I will read about it. Enjoy:

Life in Tilburg and my new travel companion

It is spring and my garden is showing first results of the effort I put in it.

Meet my new travel companion:

Memento mori

...

Cooking on Valentines day

Cow fried in lemon grass, onion, carrot, cooking with some in pieces cut pickles (cucumber) ...

...adding water and reducing it again...

...and potatoes with it.

Delivery Day

So this is how it looks like when I order myself a few presents. *grin* You can find back all products on hema.nl.

blister foil :D

Shopping at the farmers shop: potatoes, eggs, icecream, butter, goat cheese, advocaat, meat

Starting to unpack: wireless doorbell, rain pants, Espresso can, pillow cases, different hooks

About communication and empathy and misunderstandings

Daily life – as exciting as soap operas…

Remember people telling you just to say what you really meant or what you really wanted? As in that would help to make other people understand you. I do. So I started changing my way of communicating and nailing facts to the point. I also changed the way to ask questions. Its quite useful. Communication is a great tool. And its also the reason for a lot of misunderstandings. These misunderstandings are caused by tradition. Meaning by how we get used to interpret situations and words. Think about it and step out of your own box from time to time (recommendation:  a movie named "People vs. The State Of Illusion").

So I consider myself a direct and pragmatic communicator. Do not trick me with irony, sarcasm or cynicism. Because I will either start trying to help you or try to find out why you reacted mean to me. I already experienced this following scenario another time. Maybe more than once. So I like to share what happens, when you just say what you really mean. Reading it is funny first. Then it makes me sad. Why being direct when people prefer the old ironic and indirect pattern?

[deleted dialogue]

So, did I learn something new? No. Just that it seems to happen again and again. I wonder by what facts I should decide to stop trying explaining myself - or continue. Hmm.

Oh, there is something else besides misunderstandings and nailing it to the fact: explaining yourself to make you understood. And saying I am sorry, even though there is nothing you did on purpose to hurt someone. I keep saying that to good friends of mine: Why do you say sorry? You don't have to. You did not do it on purpose. There is different ways of saying sorry as well. Some use it inflationary not meaning it, some nearly never say I am sorry. Well. There is a big variety of how to react to one another. Listening helps. Empathy helps. Experience helps. Forgiveness helps as well. And sometimes its just better to leave instead of trying to make somebody understand that doesn't seem to be interested in learning something new.

...Read the chat history again and found: "Sorry. My English is not that good". Thinking about that...I don't think this has something to do about good English or not. It is acting in well known pattern. This argument is about communicating in a different way than one is used to. Make yourself understood. Speak and write in a way that you will be understood. And the communication will become easier each time. Also known as getting to know each other. :) ... I am a little slow, but is it possible that he only excused himself for his English instead of saying mean things?

...He is online again and we continue chatting..More mixed signals, as my big bro D would say. I got more confused. He asked if we were good. I do not think that he actually is. I deleted the chat history to stop giving more interpretations to different topics. If he likes to chat he will write. How much patience is it worth to learn that I try to understand people who don't even give a sh*t. I have another friend named D. I am pretty sure he would tell me just to let it go. I work on that one.

Adel Ait-Ghezala Rescue Effort

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