7 Quick Takes Friday
1.
Cassia started smiling last week. It’s been detrimental to being punctual. Just picture rushing to leave only to randomly make a cooing noise to her and she smiles back. Big, wide grins. And she coos back and starts chattering. It takes every bit of my being to not immediately continue this trend (coo, smile, chatter; coo, smile, chatter) and actually move myself out the door. Andy may have had his patience tried this past week (he usually gets Spencer ready and out the door, I usually have Cassia).
2.
We bottled wine this week. I mentioned this to a close friend and her comment surprised me: ‘Again? Oh, well, I guess it’s about that time.’ Erm, what? So, as Andy flipped through our calendar for the past few months, it turns out that we’ve been bottling wine about every 6-7 weeks or so (not all year, let me clarify. Just the past 3 times). While we enjoy the results of this, we will not be bottling wine for awhile now. I think we have enough stocks for the next 5 months, including if my mom comes to visit (and that’s saying something) :). To give ourselves some credit, we didn’t intend to make this last batch. You see, we had originally planned to make Toasted Caramel Port for Christmas joy, but they didn’t have any in at the time of an amazing sale, so we started a White Chocolate Port instead. When we went to bottle that port, they had a box of the Toasted Caramel in, which was absolutely my preferred option. So we started that batch. And let me tell you, it is delicious. I’m glad we decided to do that one, even though we had another port just bottled. It’s going to be a good Christmas!
3.
I tested out my homemade baby wipes. They worked fine, despite my misgivings. I decided that while I can use clear coloured oils so that it’s not -visible- that the oil isn’t completely uniform in the wipes, I’m not willing to give up using my calendula oil in it, and it’s a yellow colour. Calendula has too many healing properties in it for me to so easily just leave it out. I did have a problem the last 4 days of the wipes (before they ran out): I noticed that there was some mould that started to grow on the very edge of it. This is not something I want, so last night when I made a new batch up, I included tea tree essential oil. I’m hoping that will clear things up (but only time will tell). I also included Roman Chamomile essential oil in it this time as well, which acts as an anti-inflammatory. And vitamin E. Ok, I may have completely changed nearly everything I did last time (including finding a more balanced amount of water to add). So far it’s working out. It’s a little crazy – the tea tree essential oil overpowers any other scent in it, even though the lavender is over triple in quantity than the tee tree.
4.
I made more bum cream too, and added tea tree essential oil to it as well. It has made a noticeable difference in clearing up bum rash compared with using solely lavender and calendula. It was surprising and encouraging. I’m definitely enjoying experimenting and finding good combinations of oils to use!
5.
I have the majority of my Christmas cards done, and I’m a little shocked. I really don’t know how it happened, but it started with buying a set of cards super cheap from Zellers’ going-out-of-business sales. I even verified some addresses. -And- I have stamps! I love the Christmas stamps.
6.
Cassia’s Godparents are here visiting all the way from Ottawa. When we initially asked them to be her Godparents, we really weren’t expecting that they’d be able to fly out for the celebration. Imagine our surprise and gratefulness when they said they’d be here! We are eagerly anticipating her baptism this weekend, along with a food celebration to commemorate (of course). We are very much looking forward to our little girl joining us in our faith community.
7.
We received another dump of snow just a couple of days ago. Our sidewalk hasn’t yet *ahem* been shoveled. I’m sure the school kids are dismayed and we’re now getting a name in the neighbourhood. Oh well. We can maintain that name, at least.
