May 25, 1999

Been a while since I've updated the diary, huh? Well, I hope it's forgiveable. :) I've been really busy lately. Last weekend I went to the Illinois Soapers Gathering, hosted by Brenda and Tammy in Warrenville, IL. It was a blast!!! There were, oh, probably 35 or 40 soapers there. Got to meet lots of folks that I knew from lists -- jESSE, debi, Sher are a few -- and met lots of other folks. We had a sniffy table where folks put FOs and EOs out and you could sniff to your nose's content, which was really great (it's so difficult ordering FOs without being able to sniff before purchasing!). We also had a white elephant table, at which I divested myself of some chamomile and some cedarwood EO, but not a bunch of other stuff that I had hoped someone would have a home for, so I think I might put up a barter page and link on one of the lists' barter pages... Hopefully some of this stuff can find a good home with someone who will enjoy them more than me. :)

In other news, I made soap today! Maybe not a big deal, but to tell the truth it's the first time since probably April I've made CP soap. This was a batch of plain castile soap -- 35 oz olive, 5 oz coconut. Should yield 11 bars, since it didn't quite fill the mold full, and a little leaked out. The reason I had a leak is because I'm *fiiinally* going to send my mold base to Barry so he can make me one of those nifty pneumatic soap remover thingies, that you operate with a bike tire pump. I ordered that from him in March, then changed jobs and suddenly realized I wasn't getting another paycheck for a month because I started at just the right time. ;) Well, that was a nasty surprise. But the rent's paid and the food got bought and the bills got paid, so it turned out much better than it could have. Anyways, gotta get that to Barry. I'm ordering a second mold from him because I love it so much. It just makes gorgeous bars, perfectly sized every time. So that's a glowing endorsement, if you're looking to invest (and it is an investment, at the price of the plexiglas and timeconsuming labor) in a good professional mold. Oh, where was I -- I made soap. It was primarily olive, I used 100% olive instead of pomace this time because I found a good deal on a tin of that at a local store. I used the stick blender and blended the heck out of that stuff until thick pudding trace. I did that because I wanted it to not leak -- since I'm sending Barry the base of my current mold for a model, I have an oh-so-professional base on the mold now, constructed out of saran wrap and packing tape. LOL. Well, it's staying put for now, we'll see how it works out tho. I did have a couple minor leaks, so I put a dumbbell on top to weigh it down and hopefully give it less room to leak. We'll see, I guess, if this little saran wrap experiment works out OK.. Oh, I need to get that base packed up before my procrastination puts it off another month!

I saw The Phantom Menace last Wednesday, on opening day. I was thrilled by it. I don't understand why some critics are giving it such a bad rap. I mean, please, *no* movie could live up to that much hype. I think that if you went in expecting an entertaining couple of hours, neat special effects, new and old characters with some interesting situations, you wouldn't be disappointed. If you went in expecting the movie of your lifetime, with a perfect plot and perfect acting and perfect everything, with a story that would change your life and suddenly make everything in the universe clear to you, well, you were probably disappointed. Some of the critics seemed to be angry about all the stuff they were applauding before. Oh well; I had a blast. The light sabre scene with Qui-gon, Obi-wan, and Darth Maul was just amazingly choreographed -- those guys must have wings on their feet to move like that. And Natalie Portman must have about ten times the patience I do in order to put on costumes like those -- wow. You probably know the tail that Darryl Hannah wore in Splash took 6 hours to put on -- some of those outfits Queen Amidala were in must have taken at least that. I, personally, thought the acting was great -- I was thoroughly involved in the characters' actions. And I think I'm probably one of the few people in the world who doesn't want to kill Jar-Jar Binks -- I mean, sure, he was kind of an idiot, but he was cute too. I also liked the Ewoks, so make of that what you will. We're going to go see it again, on Thursday. (No "ER" to watch! When does the fall tv season start??)