Water

Oriental, from the seat of a bike, is a pleasant view. There's water around every corner. I've shown you pictures of the beautiful Neuse. We also have ponds that rise and fall with the tide. They nestle down between streets and blow cool breezes onto house porches.

They're full of reeds and frogs.

This one usually has a large floating dragon, but he's currently being repaired. See the shrimp boats down in the harbor?

Late afternoon sun glistens on the water in Fulcher's shrimp yard.

The big boats, each with a romantic name:

The sultry elegance of the shimmering water, up against the business of shrimping, always gives me a little jar.

The Oriental Yacht Club, from the water side:

There's a sparkle to Oriental, a flavor of fun and exuberance, that's catching.  Even though we're at the far end of nowhere, if you can visit sometime, you should. It'll be worth the drive. Many come here for a look, and stay for twenty years.

The Daily Eater ...

... AKA, Adam's new way of meal planning and prep.
Adam and I went to the little grocery store yesterday that's right around the corner (as in, 3 minutes walk). They always have sale items, b/c it's a small store with limited inventory. We picked up an eggplant and some pretty asparagus. Then he said:
"Y'know, they have daily sales here, so the marked-down stuff is a great deal. If I came each day about noon, we could eat here cheaper and avoid that weekly drive to Piggly Wiggly."
(Yes, the grocery we've been using is named Piggly Wiggly. I know.)
So, tonight's supper:

Isn't that pretty? And so delicious. That's eggplant parmesan, sliced so thin and fried quickly. Julia and I were in eggplant heaven. We do "sneaky snacks" at our house, little nibbles of yumminess to whet our appetites for the meal. I ate two of those pieces before dinner. Naughty me!
Adam made a little salad with his homemade croutons.

The asparagus was lightly oiled, sprinkled with parmesan and baked. Not soggy or over-cooked!

And he and Julia enjoyed making homemade pasta this afternoon. He buttered it and sprinkled oregano on it.

Just a delicious meal! And so cheap -- did you notice the absence of meat? One of our goals is to save money by eating meat only about twice each week, but getting good quality meat when we do buy it.  Adam's so good about cooking veggies in creative ways, getting the most flavor for our money, and cooking things we love to eat. Oh, the red sauce on the pasta was just a canned sauce -- Hunt's diced tomatoes with garlic/oregano/basil flavor. We blend it smooth and use it for lots of sauces, especially for pizza.
So, we'll be shopping daily, like the Japanese and Europeans sometimes do. Isn't that fun? I'm looking forward to it. This little neighborhood market is small, so I won't wear my legs out going back for one item in the far corner of WalMart - ugh. And we're supporting local business. And eating fresher and cheaper.

Rainbow on the Neuse

Remember when I described the stunning rainbow we saw over the river last week? Philip took pictures. I only wish he could have captured the entire bow in one photo, but it was too large, too high. Here's one side:

And the center:

And the other side:

The whole rainbow was much brighter than these photos indicate. The top of it was not this faint, and the top was much clearer. You'll have to imagine how it was! As you can see, the far side of the river was in light, but our side was still in darkness.

Rebatching Soap

Twice now I've rebatched soap. It's not an easy process. I had quite a bit of cold-processed soap I'd made, with lemon scent, from which the scent had entirely gone. I had many bars left, and it wasn't selling at all. So rather than have it sit around I thought I'd try rebatching. Rebatching is basically melting the soap down again, fixing whatever you did wrong in it the first time, and forming it into bars again. Here's an example of my failed lemon soap:

First I grated the soap. It was a couple of months old, so it was fully cured. I grated enough to fill up a quart-sized ziploc bag. I added just a little milk to this amount of soap (probably only 2 or 3 tablespoons), zipped the bag closed, and mushed it around until the milk had moistened the soap again. In other words, the soap has dried as it's cured, and you need to lightly moisten it again, so it can cure again a little, after you rebatch it. You don't want to waterlog the soap though.

When you zip your soap closed, try to get out as much air as possible. Then place that bag in another ziploc -- a gallon size one. Zip it closed, also eliminating air from the bag. Then immerse the doubled bags in a large pot of water that you've brought to a boil, and then turned down to a good simmer.

You'll need to simmer this for a long time. I think I did it for almost 2 hours today. It takes a long time for the soap to soften again. The picture below shows how the grated soap returns to somewhat of a gel stage. You need to keep the soap bags in the water at a nice bubbling simmer, until the whole mass has turned to this gel-looking stage. Gently prod it with a spoon to turn it over and expose all the soap to the hot water. Be sure not to allow any water to get into the soap bags.

About two hours later, see the difference? It's not a liquid really, but it's mushy. It's the consistency of a very, very thick oatmeal. And it's extremely hot.

I removed the soap bag from the outer bag, opened it, and put in some vanilla fragrance oil, over a teaspoon. I also added some ground oatmeal, not too much, maybe 3 tablespoons. I mushed and stirred them in with a spoon. Both of these will cool the soap quickly, and cooled soap will not go into your mold. So I zipped the bag back up, and re-inserted it into the hot water, to get it softer again.
Then I removed it from the hot water again, snipped off one corner of the bag (a good-sized hole b/c this stuff is THICK), and "piped" it through the hole, into my juice can mold. One quart-sized bag of grated soap filled up this juice can. Even when piping it out, it is not a liquid. It's very thick and difficult to manage because the ziploc bag is extremely hot. It's difficult to mash it into the mold and very difficult to get all the soap out of the bag.

I cut the bag open to remove as much soap as possible. Here's the bag when I was done with it.

Here's an example of a regular round soap (left) and a rebatched round soap (right) with oatmeal. It has a darker, more rustic look, but I found that people seemed to like it when shopping.

Rebatching is a lot of trouble and not as fun as regular cold-processed soap making. Is it worth it? For me, only if I have soap that will go unused otherwise. But for this batch of useless unscented soap, it was a good choice. That juice can will yield six bars of soap that will sell for about $2.00 each, so that's $12. Not bad.

Philip's New Car!

It's a 1998 Ford Escort.

Runs fine. No A/C (yet).

Gray interior.

Stick shift.

Philip is 21 years old. We told our kids many years ago that we could not afford to pay for their insurance or their cars/repairs. Philip has worked hard (especially this summer) to save money for all that. It shows maturity on his part, and we are very proud of him! And because he's had to work for it, he will treat the car well.

The Tyranny of Books

I think I must get the books in my life under control. Early in the summer, I was happily re-reading this favorite. A light read? Maybe. Except when Mr. Colt drifts into discussing his disjointed family, his parents' unhappy marriage, his grandmother's insanity, and the sense of loss, failure and regret he feels at losing a home that has defined and sheltered them in a multitude of ways, for 100 years. Light reading indeed.

But I stopped reading about Mr. Colt's house. Another book arrived on the scene, from Sandra: Living Beautifully Together.  It's a favorite of hers, a regular read, a help in life. I won the give-away, and it arrived in the mail. I started it, and ruminated on only its first few pages. Stoddard tells me that I need to find time alone for myself, to center myself, find inner balance and peace, before I can minister to others. Meanwhile, Mr. Colt's book continued to growl at me from my bedside table.

And then, as you know, Mrs. Voskamp came into view. I finally got her book at the library, and its study has been a labor of time. The other books fell to the side. She also has interesting things to say about a woman's place in the world. Voskamp tells me to give thanks, and to keep an eye out for beauty, every minute of the day. But in a way, both she and Stoddard seem to indicate the same thing:  the focus is on self. (I do not mean this in a negative, selfish way.) Voskamp is clearly laser-focused on her own emotional recovery from decades of intense inner pain, and she is zealously pursuing the activities that will bring healing to her soul. Stoddard is not so desperate; her book is to help others find the peace and calm she's found already.

And then.  Anne Lindbergh arrived on my doorstep, just yesterday. This is a small, unassuming book. The copy I bought from Amazon is dainty, hard-backed with a smooth dust jacket. It's clean and simple, but I'm taking Pom-Pom's advice and I'm underlining and writing in it. Debbie says she's done this too, and she's read Gift from the Sea nine times! I am already half-way through it.
Lindbergh is an elegant writer, much moreso than Stoddard, and more mature than Voskamp. With a little shock I realized this morning (while soaking in the bath and trying to have calm time alone) that I am exactly the age that Lindbergh was when she published this book. I don't know how old Stoddard was when she wrote hers, but I think she also was in her late 40s.

Is that why Lindbergh's book resonates so with me? Her advice, like Stoddard's, is to remove oneself from society, from family too, at times, and re-center. She visits the seaside and writes as she examines the ways a woman can shift less painfully from one phase of life to the next. At least, she doesn't say it precisely that way, but I think that's what's happening with me. Without exactly trying, I've somehow left behind my "career" of teaching high school English. I loved it so. We've moved often, too often, and I left the best house I'd yet been able to form into a home. We lived there when our four children were at their most mature and active, and yet still children. Now three of the four have left for college. My husband has at last started the career he's always longed for.

And where am I? I'm at the sea, which I love. I have one sweet child still at home. I have loads -- absolutely loads -- of time on my hands. Little house work to do, little cooking.  All this reading, all this thinking.  Writing I should be doing, but somehow it's not time yet. All these voices -- Colt, Stoddard, Voskamp, Lindbergh -- in my head also, whispering their versions of what is best, what is wrong and what will fix it.
Each morning, I read a bit of this too, along with the Best Book.

In the mail very soon will come this book by Edith Schaeffer:

I think hers will be the last voice I add to this inner discussion. The women tend to tell me that the best place for me to re-focus myself is in the home. There, my inner design and the duties and activities around me, are best in sync.  There, I have time alone. From there, I reach out best to others. I hope Mrs. Schaeffer will lend the best voice to this subject matter, and help me chart a pleasant course for the years to come. And by the time autumn arrives, hopefully I'll have put these books to rest!

Gift from the Sea

If a friend gave you a nice shell like this, wouldn't it make you glad? (sorry so fuzzy)

What about a nice whopper like this one? It's larger than my hand. It's a conch shell, I think.

Here's the flip side. When I look in there, I wonder about the creature that homed himself there, what muscles he had, to pull around this massive, heavy shell.  How often did he peek out, into the swirling green waters, to see what was there in his world?

And another. This one has less color, more texture. The lines running down the side are particularly beautiful, and the pronounced nubs on the shoulder. I wish I knew the right terminology. I know the opening is called the aperture, and the tip is the apex.

Well, my sweet friend gave me a whole basket of beauty. Will you look at that? She and her hubby went to an island near here, and they said the shells were everywhere; they were tripping on them.  Almost all of these are very large. She already had baskets of her favorites in her house, so these were lagniappe -- extra! Lagniappe from the sea!

I find them so very beautiful, I can't stop looking at them. My friend washed them well, and when I got them home I rubbed each one with mineral oil  thoroughly, so they shine a little.

See what I mean? To me, they look old and wise. Do they long to return to the sea, like the Silky Woman in The Secret of Roan Inish?

I'm tempted to make one of these pics my banner picture above. But I'm not yet ready to let go of the shot I have up there now, which is so nice.

The basket, by the way, I found at a yard sale here in town for $2.00. That was nice too.
And Pom-Pom, if you haven't seen the movie, The Secret of Roan Inish, it would fit you to a tee :)
And ... my own personal copy of Ann M. Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea arrived in the mail while I was typing this post! What perfect timing the Lord has. I love that about Him. This afternoon I might watch the movie, read the book and hold a conch shell.