Date Night, Adjusted, and Soap

Besides missing being able to hop in the car and drive to see my kids, date night has been the other casualty of this lockdown that I am mourning. I’m not missing the togetherness—we spend plenty of time with each other—as much as I am missing having a break from cooking. Date night was always my opportunity to have someone else prepare the food. My rough calculation is that the husband requires something like 5000 calories every day. I rejoice when we have actual leftovers from a meal because that means I don’t have to make something. And cooking is my least favorite domestic duty. If we were in that income bracket where we could have staff, the first person I would hire would be a chef.

I cook, and I try not to complain about it because I am not outside working in the rain, but I appreciate the break every once in a while. The husband reminded me yesterday out that one of our favorite date night locations, Backslope Brewery, is doing take-out. Their website has online ordering which includes growler refills. He is particularly fond of their Foreman Stout. I placed our order, got in the car and drove to the restaurant—which was a treat in itself as it was an absolutely gorgeous day—and picked up the food and the growler full of beer. Easy-peasy. Part of me hopes that they continue to do take-out even after the lockdown lifts, because this is a popular restaurant near Glacier Park. During tourist season, it’s next to impossible to get a table for dinner.

We didn’t get to go tool shopping, but the husband hung the shade up on the porch after dinner. I want to let it hang for a day or two to allow some wrinkles to fall out before I hem it. So far, it is working well.

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The husband got more PVC pipe and rebar so I could put up two more hoops this week. I need to get the cowpeas out into the garden, but the nights are still cool and the plants need some protection. The corn is doing well under its hoops. I am trying to stay ahead of the weeds; I dug out a bunch of quackgrass and dandelions yesterday and put cardboard down on top of the soil.

And I made a batch of hand soap as we are almost out. I recall someone asking me to take pictures of the process the last time I made it. Here is your quick-and-dirty recap. I am using the basic recipe found on the Wellness Mama website with a few modifications that DD#1 came up with, because she used to make this for us when she was home. I quadrupled the recipe and used an entire bar of soap to start:

This is our favorite soap. I have to buy a case of the lavender version for the husband because he loves it so much. (I tease him about smelling like a flower, but I like the smell, too.) I am not picky about what I use to make the liquid hand soap. As I was cleaning bathrooms yesterday, I also collected all the small leftover bits and added them to the pot. The soap first has to be grated. A coarse grating is fine:

I added a gallon of water and put the pot on the stove to simmer gently. The instructions say to use distilled or filtered water. We have extremely hard water here—the calcium and magnesium levels are off the charts—but I use water straight from the tap for making soap and it doesn’t seem to matter.

Once all the soap has dissolved, remove the pot from the heat, cover, and let sit for 24 hours or overnight. As it cools, the soap will start to gel:

At this point, DD#1 would get out the immersion blender and mix the soap thoroughly before pouring it into the gallon jug. The finished product looks just like what comes from the store. This is probably a six-months’ supply for the kitchen and bathroom.

It’s raining this morning—yay!—so I’m not sure what I’ll be able to get done outside today. I might just need to stay in and sew.