I've heard other "retired" people ask the same thing... "when did I ever have time to work?" It's kinda funny because when I was working full time, I thought I'd have so much time to do whatever I wanted once out of the rat race. I certainly do have more time (12 hours more per day!), but I am still so busy! But that is good and I am busy with things that I enjoy... but still, where does the time go? I guess it's true that it flies by when we're having a good time.
This past week I've been working on planting the winter garden. It's been slow moving because it's gotten warm again here and by 11:30 or noon with the sun is beating down on the garden (which is a good thing, of course), it just gets too hot. Even Sophie gets under the okra leaves or underneath the old wooden utility building to escape the sun.
Plus, the part of the garden I'm now planting in wasn't used during the summer garden other than letting the melon vines wander all over it... so that means I've been hand "tilling" it to get out all the small rocks and roots of wayward weeds. I love working in dirt though. It's as though it sucks all the negativity or "bad" out of me and gives me a dose of positive energy and light.
I've planted sweet onions, three kinds of lettuce and the broccoli so far. I hope to have the rest planted by the end of this Tuesday, weather cooperating. Here is the lettuce patch right after planting, mulching and watering - which I am a little concerned about since I know the deer probably have their eyes on it.
To the left in the picture above are all the melon vines that are beginning to really die back. The tall plant in the back is the Clemson Spineless okra and it's probably 7 feet tall now and still cranking out lots of okra pods. In front of it is a smaller heirloom okra that I didn't like nearly as much, and some of my jalapeno and serrano peppers that just keep on producing. I have so many now that I'm drying them. And to the right is my lemongrass plant that I'm getting ready to do something with before the old weather arrives.
Since the melon vines are dying back, I'm thinkin' that the smaller watermelons might not ripen up before the first freeze hits here, but I'm letting them try. Here is one with some morning glories wandering about the other morning.
And five that were ripe enough to pick. These are much smaller than the 33 pounder I have in the refrigerator downstairs, but are still ripe.
In the afternoons I've been fiddling with my old Bath and Body recipes. I want to make some new soap for Mike's shop - something for guys that gets grease and dirt off. It will be fun coming up with a recipe and scent for it. And quite the opposite for what I want to make for myself: another olive oil soap for my skin.
When digging around in all my ingredients and old products, I found the hair souffle I made last year; thankfully it had been refrigerated. I thought it was my body butter since I'd never put a label on it (a big no-no), but it was my long lost hair souffle! It's very light and I never tested it out when I made it (with so much going on then) so am doing that now. I'd forgotten how scrumptious it is in texture and scent. I've been testing it and other things in my hair while wearing buns and braids. Here is a braid picture from last week. It was a bit blurry since lighting in our new bathroom is the pretty dismal for self-portraits... so I used a filter on it to help define the edges.
I always like my braid "tail" to be about as long as the unbraided hair on top of my head, but I didn't braid this one quite long enough, it appears. My hair was a bit oiled up here.
In addition to Fox's Shea Butter Conditioning Cream (which I am loving), I made myself some scalp oil for general scalp and hair health, created with sesame, calendula & chamomile infused jojoba (I need to infuse some more; I love it so), meadowfoam and rosehip seed oils plus some standard hair EOs - rosemary, lavender, cedarwood and thyme. I'm going to make an alternate oil too with different carrier and EOs so I can switch out every now and then. And I made some new body/massage oil since I ran out of the one I always use.
With the change of the weather, I always start thinking about making more body butter and face cream and all kinds of fun bath and body products. Here and here are some things I've made in the past. In the summer it's just too hot to even think about stirring hot soap and whipping up creams that will never firm up because of the heat. Yes, we have air conditioning, but it's just never the same when I make products in the summer.
Along with the garden and making B&B products and cooking and doing research and creating Mike's newspaper ads for his shop and everything else, how on earth did I ever have time to work full time? It just boggles my brain and I am happy to have those extra 12 hours a day.
Hmmm... with all those extra hours, I really need to write shorter, more frequent posts; this is too long!
Recent Comments