About Me and My Blog

I am a Christian wife, mother, grandmother, teacher, friend and who ever else I am. I have been married for thirty-one years to my best friend, Greg. We live in a small town in East Texas. I am the FCS County Extension Agent. I enjoy sewing, camping, gardening, spending time with family, traveling, riding with Greg on his motorcycle. I am learning about beekeeping, soapmaking, rainwater catchment and other farmish type activities.
The name of my blog comes from a sermon I heard once about a time when Paul had been arrested and was being taken to Rome as a prisoner. The ship, on which he traveled found safe harbor, for the winter, at a place called Fairhaven. The captain of the ship wasn't content with staying so he set sail again and later was ship wrecked. I apply this to my life in that I want to be content with where God has me and what he has for me. If I am not I may end up like the ship that carried Paul, shipwrecked.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Recycling soap

Today, I decided to take all those little pieces, of leftover soap, I have been saving for several years and melt them down and remold so we can use them.  After reading a bunch of different ideas online about how it should be done, I did it how I wanted.  Here is what I did.

First, I took all the little bits and pieces of soap and washed them off to get any dust and stuff off of them.
Next, I put it in my double boiler and covered it.
Every now and then I would stir and chop it a little with a knife.  I did add a small amount of water.
After a while it began to look like pea soup.
I sprayed a muffin pan with pam. I continued to stir the soap every now and then.  The more I stirred the smoother it became.   When most of the chunks had melted I poured it in the tins.  I then took a piece of waxed paper and smashed it down a bit and tried to smooth it on top.
After I figured out how easy it was I went and found some bars of hotel soap and novelty soaps that look pretty in a dish, but are really to small to use.   I melted them down as well.  The yellowish ones are the ones from the soap scraps.  I ended up with twelve soap muffins from soap that would have eventually been tossed, most likely.



Thursday, November 10, 2011

Fall days

Since Greg has been working on Saturdays, I have had a lot of time to do the things I enjoy.  Fall is probably my favorite season.  These are some of the things I enjoy.

  
 French onion soup

 Mixing ingredients to make the soap recipe from the latest MJF magazine. 

 This was my third attempt to make soap and this recipe proved to be a success.
 I have two planters growing with lettuce.  I actually was able to pick some and we ate it.  I still have something eating it.  I was seeing little worms, but now I don't see them.

 Apples are on sale this week so I bought a bag.  I remember when I was a little girl and we used to go as a family to Colorado so my dad could hunt.  There were these little dug out fruit stands and we would stop and buy fresh apples.  I love that smell.

 I went to a garage sale this past weekend and found all kinds of sweet things for Sean and London.

 Laundry drying in the cool breeze.  It surely doesn't take much to make me smile.