DON’T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF…

I made travel-size all-natural deodorant using this recipe.  I changed the recipe slightly to make the deodorant more solid.

HOMEMADE SOLID DEODORANT

1 cup coconut oil
4 tablespoons beeswax pellets
1 cup baking soda
1 cup cornstarch
20 drops each of lavender, lemon and frankincense essential oils

Add the coconut oil and beeswax into a saucepan…

… and melt them down very slowly…

Stir in the baking soda and cornstarch with lavender, lemon and frankincense essential oils…

Pour the mixture into travel-size roll-on containers…

Sunshine says it’s the best deodorant she’s ever used.  In fact, when we were walking around Balboa Island she kept catching a whiff of something wonderful.  She realized it was the deodorant!

Another great crafting day!

BEDPOST CANDLE HOLDERS

My artist buddy, Thom Wilder (OilCanTommy on Instagram), gave me some old wooden bedposts and “hinted” that he envisioned some candle holders for my handmade pillar candles.  Time to get to work…

I cleaned them up, attached small wooden squares with inverted nails (to hold the candles in place)…

And added some black paint…

I made palm wax pillar candles and placed them on top…

We now have a great set of candle holders.  And the best part is, we  repurposed the bedposts!

WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU BOTTLE CAPS…

I learned how to make these bottle cap charms from my good friend, Thom Wilder.  He creates some of the most incredible hand-made jewelry I’ve ever seen.  Follow OilCanTommy on Instagram to see his work.

I use regular bottle caps…

And pound them with a hammer until they are flat…

Then I torch them to remove all the paint…

They will look like this…

Then I paint them with enamel paint…

Once they are baked in the oven, they are ready to be attached to my candles…

GOOD FRIDAY…

Sunshine and I get up early every Friday morning and head down to Treasure Island Beach in Laguna to go for a walk before work.

Yesterday was beautiful.  We got there at about 6:15am and had the beach to ourselves.  So peaceful…

It was a glorious day…

What a great way to start the weekend…

We got to see the sun rise over the mountains…

If you want to meet us there next Friday, let us know.  We’d love to have you join us!!

LET ME COUNT THE STEPS…

Sunshine loves working at Vans.  They just started a six-week walking program designed to encourage employees and their spouses to be more active.  It’s called Step It Up!®.

Sunshine and I registered for the program that started last week and they sent us our very own pedometers.  They suggested that we walk 10,000 steps each day.

10,000 steps?  Shouldn’t be a problem!  I probably do that every day before noon without trying.   Nope!  I actually only walk about 2,500 steps on a regular day working at my office.

If you can believe it, it takes me over 90 minutes of pretty fast walking to get 10,000 steps.  So now I find ways to sneak in extra steps every day.

This week I’ve logged…

Monday = 10,379

Tuesday = 10,447

Wednesday = 10,886

Thursday = 12,584

Friday = 10,544

Saturday = 11,489

Sunday = Uh oh, I only have 9,858 steps.  I better get moving!!

NO FLY ZONE…

Last week, Sunshine and I had an awesome time flying our monkey kite down at the beach, so we decided to do it again.

We stopped at Costco, picked up a dragon kite and a penguin kite, and went straight to Treasure Island Park.  We assembled our kites and couldn’t wait to get flying.

We learned a simple formula that we will never forget… NO WIND = NO KITE FLYING…

Oh well… now we have three kites for the next time!!

All I Wanted Was a Pug…

Sunshine and I have had a few dogs over the years…

Rosie (the little doggie in the window that I HAD TO HAVE)…

Lucy Lu (don’t tell the others – she’s my personal favorite)…

Ginger Lee (the perfect dog… so sweet and so loving)…

Miss Molly (Molly grew from a rambunctious little girl into a sweet old lady)…

Paigie (oh, my little monkey, where do I begin?)…

Turley “Teacup” (our first dog with an “outy” nose, sweet, sweet, sweet)…

Rosie, Lucy, Ginger, and Molly are no longer with us; but we do have Paige and Turley.  All I wanted was one more pug to round out a nice trio.

The pug rescue said they had two “porkies” (pug/Yorkie mix) ready for adoption: Petunia and Sweet Pea.  That sounded good to us!  We adopted them.  This is what we got…

Petunia

Sweet Pea

.

They are little stinkers.  They’ve destroyed my leather belt, iPod, several shoes and flip flops and two pairs of reading glasses.  And as I’m writing this story, they chewed the pedometer right off my belt (darn… it still works!).

Once the initial shock wore off, they have really become a big part of our family.  We love them  like crazy… they are full of energy and they never run out of love to give us.

And they are cute, don’tcha think??  😉

Some day I will get my pug.

Flying High…

Sunshine and I love to go to Treasure Island Beach in front of Montage Laguna Beach early Friday mornings before work.  We see seals and dolphins, people paddle boarding, walking their dogs, practicing yoga and jogging on the sand.  It’s very relaxing.

A couple of weeks ago, we saw someone flying a kite.  That looked like fun, so I ordered a monkey kite on Amazon and it just arrived.

We decided to go to the beach and watch it fly.

Since it’s been about 30 or 40 years since we’ve flown a kite, we were a little rusty on how to get them to fly. Our first attempt was a minor failure…

Once we realized we needed some wind, our monkey kite really took off…

He wanted to fly higher and higher, so we took that little monkey down to the sand and let him fly as high as possible…

Man, that monkey wanted to soar!  He went higher and higher and all the people walking by stared in amazement.  We came to the end of the string and the monkey still wanted more.  It sure was fun!!!

After about an hour, we brought the monkey kite down (almost a crash-landing!)…

It sure was a good kite-flying day!!  We’ll bring more string next time.

Burning the Candle…

A few years ago Sunshine and I went to Kauai.  While there, we visited Island Soap and Candle Works in Koloa and watched them make handmade candles.  It looked like a lot of fun so I thought I’d give it a shot.

Once we got home, I got a bunch of candle-making supplies, set up shop and got to work.  Since then, I’ve been experimenting with different waxes, recipes and additives. Here’s my workspace…

This weekend I was able to get back in the shop and make more candles.  I started by melting 3 lbs. palm wax…

When the wax melted and reached 200°F, I added 4 oz. lavender oil, stirred it for a minute and let it cool to 175°F.

I had a few minutes to wait so I added cool metal pieces to the blank jars and attached the wicks.  Then I poured the melted wax and lavender oil mixture into the jars…

Now the hard part… I had to wait for them to cool completely.  Here are the finished lavender-scented palm wax candles…