Emergence

As I typed the title up there today, I was instantly and perhaps predictably reminded of a nascent butterfly struggling from the crysalis. It's a tired metaphor to be sure.  But, it's all I have today.

It is coming up on eight months since Mom died...on the 19th.  I still have really bad days.  Days when I can't even believe it's real.  Days when the realization catches me unaware and I'm back on the floor in a heap with fresh wounds.  That sounds really dramatic. But, it's basically the truth of the matter.  The truth cuts.  Every time.

Every day I wish her back.  Every day I look at her picture and wonder what the HELL happened to make her so sick even though I know it was the lifetime of smoking cigarettes.  In spite of that fact, she didn't deserve what she got.  Nobody ever deserves that.  I wouldn't even wish it on the worst serial killer in the world.  Perhaps I am too compassionate.  I'm not sure that is really possible.  Some days I think of my compassion as an almost sacred duty in a world that is sadly lacking.

So I've become hyper aware of things that are bad for me.  I have, in fact, come full circle back to my self-awareness.  For the last eight months, and probably the year before that as well, I've been utterly unconcerned with my own well-being.  I've gotten no pleasure from eating or exercising or living.  It was all stuff I just did automatically.  Just keeping the lights on as it were.

I doubt it is a conincidence that this should happen in the spring.  Everything around me is becoming aware and emerging into the sunshine again.  Things are growing.  The fruit trees are flowering like madness.  The world continues to turn and the days continue to lengthen.  And with every robin sighted and every freshly germinated seedling, I am reminded of my promise to my Mother.  She told me, "Go and enjoy your life!  Make me proud."  In my pre-grieving state, I promised I would all the while not really believing it would be possible.

But, today, I'm starting to think that it is possible again.  I know I've said this before but the feeling is stronger today.  However, the feeling is also fleeting.  If I think on it for too long a time, it darts away to hide again behind the hole in my heart.  So I have started to give that feeling a side-eye glance from time to time approaching it like a skittish puppy who has lived a feral life and offering tidbits to coax it out into the sunshine and maybe even into my arms.

I have begun to court my own happiness.

You see, I've had a realization.  It wasn't a bolt from the blue.  It just sort of crept up on me in the night when I wasn't looking.  My Mom said to me, "Go and enjoy your life! Make me proud."  I heard her words but in my mind I separated them into two distinct things discreet from each other.  It was as if she had said, "Go and enjoy your life!  But make sure you do something super fantastic or I won't be proud of you."  I don't think that's what she meant at all.  I think she meant that it would make her proud to see me enjoy my life whatever that enjoyment might mean to me.  She meant for me to define that enjoyment and just enjoy the hell out it.

My Mom was a stoic woman.  She was not given to outbursts of emotion like I am.  She always said I was too sensitive for my own good.  I often wondered how she managed to raise me at all...her especially sensitive child.  She never tried to crush it out of me.  She never tried to make me tougher or more stoic.  She always, always let me be me.  Even when she didn't agree.  Maybe especially when she didn't agree.  Because she knew that, in my own time and in my own way, I would emerge and become the person I was meant to be.

Today, I am one step closer to it.  And I know she is proud.

Spring is Here!

Although, it doesn't really look like it today, spring is here.  I woke up this morning to snow falling with the kind of intensity usually reserved for frigid January nights.  When it finally stopped, we had been blessed with about two inches of the wet stuff.

I've had about enough of that.

So instead of spending my day clearing the garage and puttering in the garden, I spent my day potting up some of this year's crop of bedding plants.  Seedlings, that is.  Green gold...

I've been in the house for TOO LONG.

Anyway, here are the highlights:

I went a little crazy with the cole crops this year.  I have two kind of brussels sprouts (Brawny and Purple), a Romanesco broccoli, broccoli raab, and baby choy.  I can't get a good pic of the choy, though.  Try as I might.

Romanesco broccoli

Brawny Sprouts

Another broccoli

Purple brussles sprouts

Then there are the peppers.  Thirteen kinds of peppers.  Here are a couple pepperocini types. 

Next come the tomatoes.  Only seven kinds, I think.  They're pretty small yet, but soon I'll be potting them up like the rest.

I haven't forgotten the herbs.  I planted two types of chives, some sage, thyme, basil, and corn mache.  It's my first try at corn mache. I don't even know what corn mache is, really.  But it was recommended to me by a very knowledgeable gardener.  So what the heck?

That's the basil with some leggy corn mache draped over it.  Swiss chard in the background.

So far, I think I'm off to a good start.  But none of this would be possible without the assistance of my able-bodied husband, his drill, and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of zip ties.  Yesterday, he built the annex to the original seedling station.

It's just plastic, snap-together shelving, clip lights, and roughly a metric ton of zip ties.  A little bit of heaven in the living room.  Yep.  You read that right.

Yes, it seems like a lot of plants to me, too.  Perhaps come May 7 I'll see you down at the farmer's market and you can take a couple of peppers and tomatoes off my hands for a reasonable fee.

Now if the snow will just melt and let spring get underway, I'd be much obliged.

Fragrance Oils vs. Essential Oils: What's the big deal?

There are lots of different kinds of soapers in the world.  Some are all organic (I'm not).  Some are all colorant free (not me).  Some use only essential oils to scent their soaps and eschew fragrance oils entirely (not me, either).  So what's the big deal about essential oils anyway?


Here's what I know about essential oils:

• They are extracted, in one way or another, from natural plant matter.  Because they are made from natural materials, there tends to be some variability in the end product.  Some of them are just squeezed out.  Some require steaming to extract the oils.  I hear there are other methods, but I don't know about them for sure.
• Essential oils can be very concentrated.  The name brand oils you see out there being sold for aromatherapy or other uses are often diluted in a carrier oil or the manufacturer recommends that you dilute them yourself so they can be applied directly to the skin.  That's not something you will want to do with full strength essential oils.  Some of them, like peppermint and cinnamon, can cause unpleasant reactions when the concentration is too strong.  
• You won't see me using those brand names in my soaps for a couple of reasons: 
1. As I just said:  Some of them are diluted so they aren't very strong smelling when they become even further diluted in the soap.  The carrier oil isn't always specified.  The type of oil can be important to soap making.
2. They are expensive.  For my soaps, I use about an ounce (give or take) of concentrated essential oil per batch of soap I make.  In order to use enough of those name brand oils to get an equivalent fragrance strength, I might need to buy several ounces for each batch.  That's not cost effective at all and the soaps would be very, very expensive.
• The cost of essential oils is typically higher than fragrance oils.  Because they rely on the production of natural materials, the cost can vary quite a bit from one year to the next depending on the availability of the plant matter.  If a crop fails, it might not be available at all. 
• Over time, essential oil scents will fade in stored soaps.

 On the other hand, we have fragrance oils:

• Fragrance oils are scents that are largely lab created.  As a chemist, I don't see lab creation as necessarily an automatic bad thing.  After all, there is no such thing as strawberry essential oil for a very good reason:  There isn't any oil in a strawberry!  Or at least not enough to make it a viable candidate for essential oil production.  Besides, strawberries are way too tasty to waste on smashing for their miniscule amounts of oil.  If you're going to smash strawberries, make jam!
• Because they are artificially created, fragrance oils can be allergy inducing.  There are some that I absolutely cannot abide.  Back in the day, when I worked in the lab, there was a product I helped to develop that had the flat out nastiest fragrance added to it.  Trouble is I was the only one who objected.  Everyone else thought it smelled pretty darn good.  It gave me a headache.  Icky.
• Fragrance oils tend to be less expensive.
• Fragrance oils can cause problems when making soap because of the composition of the oil.  Some do.  Some don't.  Some aren't worth the risk.
• Fragrance oils can smell, well, artificial.  
• Fragrance oils often stick in the soap better than essential oils and will degrade less over time.

I prefer to use essential oils and I will use them when possible because I know people tend to prefer them.  But in some instances, like the strawberry situation I mentioned before, it just isn't going to happen.  And, no, it is unlikely I will attempt to make a strawberry soap any time soon.  Mostly I don't like soap to smell like food.  But I make a few that do.

There are only a few instances in which I will choose a fragrance oil over an essential oil:

1. When the essential oil is not available or is so prohibitively expensive as to make it impossible to use or;
2. When I am unable to formulate a soap recipe that will hold onto the essential oil scent.  For example, my citrus soaps will sometimes be scented with fragrance oil instead of essential oil.  Citrus essential oils just don't stick.

I don't really buy into the ideas that essential oils can cure this or fix that thing.  There might be something to it, but that's not what I'm about here.  I make soap that gets you clean and maybe smells good while it's getting you clean. That's it.

I think that lots of essential oils smell good and some just plain smell awful.  We all have our preferences.  What scents do you like best?