Why God made Coffee

I have figured out why God created the coffee plant. It is for those of us who wake up at ten am on Wednesday and don't get to sleep till nine-thirty pm on Thursday. I don't know why I couldn't get to sleep Wednesday night/Thursday morning but all I could achieve was a very light dose. I woke up around quarter to ten this morning and now I have that shaky-airy-floaty-I slept way too much feeling.

The lye came today, now I'm just waiting for my order from Mountain Rose Herbs and I can make my soap!! Yay *happy dance*! I helped Daddy finish our new fence yesterday, now he's pulling out the old metal fence that the ground and plants have claimed. I actually woke myself up by going for a run yesterday, I got about half a mile of actual running and a little more of walking, but my body seemed to wake up, my brain shut down more. After we did the fence, I had a read in the pool, the only form if multi tasking I was capable of: sunbathing, reading and resting. I might actually do that some more today, just to see if it helps as much for too much sleep as it did for not enough sleep. I'll let you know. Until next time, happy reading.

Soap

Daddy and I just made a, rather crude but it's mine, soap mold. We used cut offs of 1x6 planks from making one of our sheds, the inside dimensions are approximately 3.5" wide x 7" long x 2.5" deep. I'm not sure how much it'll hold, but I'm going to try it with 1.5lbs using the Green Tea Mint recipe I posted, just scaling it up. I'm waiting for the lye and other ingredients I ordered from Mountain Rose Herbs which is good because I want to take a piece of sandpaper to the mold to clean it up a bit, the wood has been sitting outside for at least a year.

A book I ordered came today, 'Elixir's Tonics and Teas' by Jeff Stein and Edgar Veytia. I flipped through it and I am now in love. It has some simple but useful recipes for just about everything and a lot of history and reference. There are two drinks I want to try, Study Hall Fizz and Sweet Memory Tea, they both sound yummy and useful.

Study Hall Fizz
2 floz pineapple juice
2 floz mango nectar
2 floz papaya nectar
1 dropper lycium
2 droppers red ginseng
4 oz seltzer or sparkling mineral water
small chunks of fresh pineapple

In a tall glass stir the juices and herbs together, add the seltzer and stir again. garnish with pineapple chunks.

Sweet Memory Tea
1 tsnp green tea leaves
1/4 tspn dried stevia
1 dropper ginkgo extract

Make a tea with the dried ingredient and hot ,but not quite boiling water. Let steep for three minutes then add the ginkgo extract.

I posted pictures on my Pictures Page if you want to see the mold we made.

Sandalwood Shaving Soap

Title- Sandalwood Shaving Soap								Creator- Margaret
Base= Water		Fl oz- 5
Oil	Oz wt		Specific Gravity	Fl oz		% in recipe		Lye Table Excess Fat oz wt Lye
Aloe Extract	1					6.41		0		2.42
Coconut Oil	6			-------		38.46		1		2.39
Olive Oil	4.6		.92	4.232		29.49		2		2.37
Palm Oil	3		.92	2.76		19.23		3		2.34
Shea Butter	1			-------		6.41		4		2.32
								5		2.30
								6		2.27
								7		2.25
								8		2.22
								9		2.20
Total	15.6					100		10		2.17
Additive	Oz wt		Fragrance/ Essential Oil		Oz wt		Specific gravity		Fl oz	Tspns
Fuller's Earth Clay	1		Sandalwood		0.35		.992		.35	2.13
			Tea Tree		0.2		.889		.16	1.32

 

If I ever get around to trying this I thought it might be a good summery gift for Daddy when we go to Croatia, this batch would make enough for Uncle Jeremy too. I don't think that either of them use shaving soap, but it's the thought that counts right?

Soap

I've decided to try my hand at cold process soap making. Daddy and I are going to make a 1lb mold I drew up out of scrap 1 x 6 pieces of wood. I just bought the oils that I need for the actual soap, I have a recipe in my head that I worked out on the lye calculator on MMS and I think it'll work. The last thing I need to get is the lye, but I don't want to do that yet as I don't want that sitting around. My recipe is a blend of green tea and peppermint, I hope it turns out well. If it does I'll have four bars of home made soap and I'll bring a couple out to Croatia, I'll post the reciep if it works, if it doesn't I'll try rebatching it with some tweeking.

I've been editing Granny's manuscript and I'm more that half way through. As I re-format it gets shorter and shorter, it started out as over twohundred pages and it's now around onhundred and fifteen. I hope it isn't too short, but I should have the rough draft done by the end of the month, then I need to actually read through it and have someone else read it, I might e-mail it to one or two of my teachers from hs to see what they think. I hope I can get it published, I'm sure someone would be interested in publishing, I just don't know if I can afford to have it published, I'm sure my parents would help. Until next time, happy reading.

More editing and a few recipes

As I was editing Granny's manuscript I came across two traditional Dalmatian remedies for colds kidney stones and back ache

Dalmatian Winter Syrup
1 litre (1_ pints) of water.
Rogac (carob beans) about six pods.
8 dried figs.
10 prunes and a handful of wild mountain sage.
250gms (10oz) of sugar.
Bring water and sugar to boiling point, making sure the sugar has melted before it boils, as for jam making. Add all other ingredients and simmer for 2 or 3 hours until the fluid is a thick syrup. Strain and bottle for use in the case of a cough or sore throat. There are many carob, or John the Baptist trees on the island, including four in our garden.
A Syrup for Kidney Stones
A variation of the Dalmatian winter syrup includes a dozen almonds in their skins to the other ingredients. This is said to ease the presence of kidney stones or gravel in the kidneys.
Cure for Back Ache
To remedy backache the roots of the asparagus are dug up, beaten and boiled and the resulting liquid applied to the affected area of the back while still warm.

Just thought I would share those with you. Until next time, happy reading.

Manuscripts, Music and Tears

A couple of years ago, my cousin, Emma, and I found our grandmother's manuscript on a disk. She saved a copy on her laptop, and I took the disk home when I came back to the US. I have recently started trying to read through it but found that the formatting is so off on the old file that I have to manually go through the whole thing to make it readable before I can even attempt to read it. The manuscript was denied by her previous publisher around fifteen years ago but Emma and I would like to try to get it published.

As I was re-formatting I had music on, because I can't work without some background noise that isn't my father's chainsaw or hedge clippers, and The Call Came on. This almost sent me into tears. Granny was so pleased wen I started piano lessons and even more so when I started vocal lessons. Having both Granny's work and my lesson music just made everything very emotional so I am taking a break and calming down by updating here and looking for a fairly cheap but professional publishing option and I came up with Xlibris.

But I haven't told you about why we have a house in Croatia, or why Granny would have a publisher in the first place. Granny was a travel reporter for the BBC and Grandpa Peter was the editor of Aerial Magazine, the internal mag for the British Air Force. I have a wonderful sketch of Granny on a horse in Spain with all her radio equipment in her saddle bags, that was drawn but one of her travel guides.

One of her trips took her to Yugoslavia, she loved it there and so did Grandpa Peter when he was a young man traveling to Greece straight out of University. The irony is that after hearing so much about it the first time Granny went to Croatia was without Grandpa Peter. He died before I was born, around the time my mom found out she was pregnant with me, but Granny and I were very close. Granny has two published books on Yugoslavia and the Adriatic one for the Essentially series on Yugoslavia and the other on the Adriatic Islands and Corfu. Her manuscript that I am currently editing is a travel book/ cook book/ memoir, which wasn't very popular years ago, but is now and even if it isn't I would like Granny's last work to be published for people to read. I'll try to post more about Granny and my work on her book later, but I seem to have done the exact opposite of what I set out to and need to find a new topic to calm me down.

Well here is my usual way of calming down:
mug of double strength green tea with honey as a sweetener or, even better, golden syrup. For all those american who have never had golden syrup it is sweet gooy golden heaven, especially with som whole grand oatmeal on a cold winter morning or drizzled over plachinke. Back on topic, I love Canadian Clover Honey, and I just found a three year old, barely used jar of it from Sainsburry's in the back of the kitchen cubbord. I't lovely and smooth and almost as heavenly as golden syrup which we are sadly out of. Now that I am emotionally stable, for the moment, I'll get back to my editing and sad music.
Untill next time, happy reading.

Welcome To the Land Normalcy Forgot

Hi All,
Not my first blog, just the first I'll keep up with(hopefully). I'm Margaret, a college student, born and studying in New York. My father's family is all English so we spent a lot of time in Europe and we have a family summer home on the Island of Korcula in Croatia.
I love to ride horse, mostly English style. I jump up to 3foot 9inches and currently don't have a horse. I have an almost unhealthy obsession with reading fiction and write to save my life.
My current hobby, and I think it'll stick, is learning about and attempting to make herbal remedies and products. So far I haven't had the time to try any of the recipes I have found or made up in my head, but if anyone has ideas that they think I should try, I'm all open and will blog about the experience.
I also make embroidery thread bracelets and have set myself the challenge of making a bridle out of embroidery thread, so any designs anyone wants to see, post me a link and I'll see where I can work them in.
Unfortunately I injured my knee in a series of bad riding accidents and can't ride, or walk on some days, and my doctors are having trouble finding a way, sans a surgery that might not even fix all of the problem, to get me fully functional again.
So, welcome to my life, and hope you enjoy the show.