Best Laid Plans

All day, while I was working, while I was driving, shopping, walking, cooking, I’ve had ideas for posts running through my mind and then, the email….

It was from my sister. She’s planning a soap-making day on Saturday, which I’m going to, and it included times and an ingredients list. I’ve made soap once before, except it wasn’t really soap-making, so much as glycerine soap melting and adding things to make pretty smelling soaps. There was no actual saponification process. Oh yes, saponification is now in my vocabulary! 🙂 Simply put, it’s the process that turns oils and caustic soda, or lye, into soap and the reason I know this, is that I’ve spent the latter part of the afternoon and most of the evening reading about it and watching Youtube tutorials on the subject. Which drove all other post-related ideas from my mind.

I like the idea of making my own soap. I enjoy the thought of doing something that feels self-sufficient and natural, of using a product without chemicals I don’t recognise. Mostly though, I love that my sister is gathering us to do it together at her house. There’s something very nurturing and connecting about it. So I get to do something new, in the company of my sister, my mother and her friend. Roll on Saturday.

I knew I’d bought those wooden crates for something…..

Walking With My Sister and the Week’s Roundup

I feel utterly wrecked right now but that’s okay because I deserve to. 🙂

I met my sister at the beach this morning and we walked, sometimes holding hands, mostly swinging our arms and talking. I knew we’d walked further than the last time I walked there and the sun was shining but it was nice being there with her, walking together.

For some of the walk, the clouds hovered above us and cut the sunlight to a more bearable glow, which I was very grateful for. Towards the end of the walk, which I discovered later was 5.1km long and took us just over an hour, walking on sand, a strange thing happened. Maybe it’s not as weird as I think it is but my hands started swelling, not so much visibly, though they were very red in the palm, more that they felt puffy and unwieldy, as though the Michelin Man had lent me his hands for a bit. The rings on my fingers were tight and when I flexed them, they felt huge.

It didn’t last long but I think I’ll do some research on why it might have been.

We went for coffee and water afterwards and it was good…relaxed…. but now I’m home and exhausted. By the time I got here, I was aching, despite having downed lots of water and then a snack lunch of chicken and tomatoes.

Thank you again new neighbours, those tomatoes are good!

I’ve had a bath in Epsom Salts, which was magical but I still feel as though I’d like to lie down for, oh about 12 hours….

Excitingly, for me, my new sports bras came too, hooray!

I know there were trillions of things I wanted to write about when I sat down at my desk but it’s time for the school run, so I won’t.

Except to say that it’s weigh-in day tomorrow and even though I’m already reaping lots of positives from this experience, I’m quite curious as to what the numbers will say…