Of Lavender Soap, Icy Roads and Awesome Husbands

So Sunday was a good day. It was freezing rain outside, so we slept in late and had a nice relaxing morning. Then I decided that it would be a great time to make the Lavender soap I've been planning. I measured my oils, my water and my lye, brought them all to temperature, and mixed them together. My plan had been to use Grape juice to color the soap a slight purple color, but just to be safe I tested the juice in a small amount of my soap mixture first. I'm so glad I did! When I mixed the juice and sample lye soap mixture it turned a bright, beautiful................ BLUE!  Not quite what I was going for. :-) Instead, I decided to use a little bit of Blackberry puree. It won't color the soap much, because I didn't use much, but it adds interest. :-)

(Frozen wild blackberries from our back yard)

Then, I added the Lavender essential oil. Ahh, it smells wonderful!

Then, when it got to the right consistency, like this ^ I poured it in my wooden mold, and put it on my counter.

While I was waiting for it to set up, I got to smell the lovely lavender while I was doing dishes! :-) Then, last night I pulled it out of the mold and cut it into bars. Here's the finished product!

They will be sitting here on my counter for the next week at least. Lucky me! :-) In a few weeks, they'll be ready for use!

Now, I have to go back to Sunday afternoon. While I was making this soap, my sweet husband came in and told me that he had a surprise for me, and that we would have to go to town for it. So right after the soap went into the mold, we bundled up and went got in our truck. The freezing rain had given way to snow, and we already had close to 2 inches of it. We realized when we got out to the highway that the snow plows hadn't even made it out yet! It was a very interesting drive the 30 miles or so to town. Thank God for 4 wheel drive!

(Our yard)

We slid around a little bit, but there was almost nobody on the roads, so it was harmless and fun. Look at how icy the roads were!!

The surprise? He was taking me to a movie I really wanted to see, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader! I grew up reading those books, so I really enjoy the movies. He was so sweet to take me!!! And you know what's even sweeter? He told surprised me last night with a trip to go see my family in FLORIDA for Christmas! :-) My parents and 7 (yes SEVEN) of my brothers and sisters live in Central Florida. I'm soo excited to get there! I have the best husband ever! :-)