And so the quest began. First stop, Walmart. I shop at Walmart at least six times a day, so why not cruise by the kitchen gadget aisle and see what they have. Plenty of short-handled silicone spatulas – even really cheap ones! I almost picked one of those up…then decided I should stick to my plan.

Last Sunday night I was out with Hubby for his birthday, and the restaurant where we ate was right across the street from Target and Bed, Bath & Beyond. (Yes, this is how desperate I am for a silicone spatula.) So I say to him, “Since you aren’t interested in paying $10 a ticket to go see a movie, do you suppose we could go look for a spatula at Bed, Bath & Beyond?” You know, on your birthday? While we are out on a date? He’s such a great guy – we were actually headed into the store when the manager came out and said, “We’re actually closed.” Ok, fine. Next stop: Target. Yes, we really did go to Target and look for a silicone spatula on my hubby’s birthday while we were out on a date. However, same story as Walmart. They really had nothing close to a silicone spatula with a long handle.

So yesterday, I was getting ready to make my Creamy Castile soap without a silicone spatula, when I opened up my utensil drawer to get something out. I don’t even remember what it was now, because I was so astonished by what I saw in the drawer! Feast your eyes on this:

My utensil drawer - ok, so it's one of two.

Oh wait. You didn’t see it? Here, let me help you:

Yes, that is exactly what you think it is!

The perfect long-handled silicone spatula has been in my utensil drawer all along! In fact, I have TWO of these, because they came in a 2-pack – from Sam’s!! Of course, Sam’s! Everything is enormous at Sam’s! Why didn’t I think of this before??? Oh yeah, because I bought them a couple years ago, and they’re really too big to be of much use for cooking, so they’ve been stuffed in the bottom of the utensil drawer. See why I need one with a long handle?

Long-handled spatula in the pot I use to mix my goat's milk lye solution.

Don’t you just love it when the thing you need is right under your nose? The Creamy Castile soap I made with the spatula turned out great, by the way.

Creamy Castile Soap on the curing rack

Grandma - at my cousin's wedding in April

About the weekend: it was crazy! My husband turned 40 on Saturday, and our 12th anniversary was on Sunday. I had asked my hubby how he wanted to celebrate his milestone event, and he chose a trip to Columbia, Missouri, where his parents live. He redeemed some of his hotel points that he accumulated while he was still traveling for Caterpillar, and got (what we thought) would be a nice room at the Hilton Garden Inn. You already see where this is going, don’t you? The plan was to leave the girls with Grammie and Papa so we could have some time to ourselves, and still have a nice family party at noon on Saturday.

It’s about a two and a half hour drive to Columbia, so we pulled the girls out of school a little bit early Friday afternoon, and were on our way. Not more than a few minutes into the drive, the rain started coming down. We went through at least three heavy downpours, and about 20 miles outside of Columbia the traffic slowed WAY down – even though it didn’t seem to be raining that hard anymore. Fortunately, my in-laws live right off the first exit, so we got off I-70 and dropped the girls’ things at their house, then went back out to find some dinner since my in-law’s were otherwise occupied for the evening.

On the way to dinner, we discovered why the traffic had been so slow outside of Columbia – an enormous pile-up in the middle of the city! There was a whole line of cars, followed by a semi-trailer jackknifed across the entire westbound lane of I-70, and a motor home smashed into the semi (22 vehicles total). We had been heading east, but it was obviously a sight to behold from our side! We read in the newspaper the next day that no one had been killed – which was miraculous – and only nine people were injured.

After dinner and a stroll around Bass Pro Shop, we dropped the girls off at my in-laws and THOUGHT we were going to have a nice quiet night at the hotel. First problem: the phone rang one time around 12:20 – right after we had gone to sleep. We thought it was strange, but we went back to sleep. At 1:20 – the phone rang again just once. My husband got out of bed and unplugged the phone. At 2:20, it happened again. Because there were two phones in the room, and he only unplugged one of them! Needless to say, the second phone was unplugged at this time, and the Hilton is just lucky there isn’t a phone-shaped hole in the wall of our room!

Second problem: the bed. I’ve slept in nice hotel beds before. They are nice and pillow-y soft, and this one was no exception. However, it also had an adjustable air bladder on each side of the bed, and both sides were set on “medium”. We both felt like we were sleeping on a partially deflated air mattress – even after setting the dial to “firm”.

Saturday morning we got up and had a nice breakfast in the lobby. Usually this is free. Only my husband forgot that his status has changed since he used to be a frequent traveler. So we paid $9 each. Hubby had some coffee plus a plate full of piping hot food, but I had one small bowl of fruit, and one cup of coffee – for NINE dollars.

After breakfast, we talked to the front desk about our little fiascoes. They apologized about the phone and said they would look into it, sent a housekeeper with us to look at the bed, and assured us that if we changed the dial to “firm” while we weren’t actually IN the bed, it would inflate and actually stay firm. They also explained that if we want breakfast, we can get it for $5 instead of $9 if we mention it when we check in. Oops, we were too late.

The next part of our morning was actually rather fun! We had planned to take the girls to Shelter Gardens so my husband could take their pictures. It was actually the perfect time to go. The weather was decent – even mostly cloudy so there weren’t a lot of shadows. Here are some of my favorites:

My favorite shot of both girls!

My big girl - isn't she gorgeous?

My baby - giving me her best friend smile!

We had our party as planned at lunchtime. Here’s the 40-year-old birthday boy blowing out the candles on his cake:

Each candle represented 10 years!

My mother-in-law made the cake, of course. She also made two smaller cakes for the girls to decorate themselves. They had so much fun!!

Flower Field and Mount Frosting

Saturday night we were looking forward to a better night’s sleep. We unplugged the phones again – because the hotel staff had plugged them back in and it did the one ring thing again around 8:30. I slept pretty well, but my husband felt like he was sinking into the bed again. He finally checked his dial near morning and discovered that housekeeping apparently sets them back to “medium” every time they make the bed!!!

After breakfast (at Denny’s, this time – where we discovered that you can get a FREE Grand Slam breakfast on your birthday. Oops, too late once again!) and a leisurely walk around the mall, we went back to his parent’s house for some lunch. After lunch, hubby was feeling the effects of lack of sleep and knew he couldn’t drive home at this point, so he took a long nap. Meanwhile, my mother-in-law pulled out her cake decorating books and recipes so we could figure out my grandma’s cake. I practiced the basket weave on a piece of waxed paper, and copied down her recipe for an orange cream filling. Grandma’s cake is going to be yummy – and hopefully beautiful! I’ll be sure to post pictures after the event.

Now that we’re back home, I’ve been making more soap! Can’t wait to cut them and show them to you in a couple days…

This Saturday is my first time at the farmer’s market this season as well, so this is really NOT very good timing. Don’t worry – the new Root Beer and Vanilla Latte lip butters, as well as the newest batch of Nourishing (unflavored) lip butter were made with the new shea butter, so they SHOULD be good. Please, please, please let me know if you ever have issues with it!

I have made more lotion today which I plan to scent with Black Raspberry Creme and Pink Grapefruit & Sugar Cane tomorrow. At this point, I am just hoping and praying that my lovely printer will behave itself – SOON. Without labels, I can’t sell this lotion, or take photos for the website. I feel like I need that photo of the lady pulling her hair out. (By the way, I still have no idea what the shipping calculator problem is/was. No one else had any problems with it!)

Signed,

Frustrated in Kansas

We’ve had this printer for about two years and didn’t have any trouble until recently. I’m pretty sure it started about the time my husband had to replace the toner cartridges for the first time. You would think that the colors would be dark and vibrant after changing the toner, but in this case, they started getting lighter and lighter:

Before & After

Before & After

My husband googled the problem and discovered it’s a rather common issue for this printer. First the red’s fade, then the blue’s and finally the black – because the mirrors inside the printer get dirty. Fortunately, my husband is an engineer and he’s really good at taking things apart and putting them back together! Last Saturday, he had the whole printer taken apart, cleaned, and put back together. Now we have a different problem: the colors aren’t aligned. We’ve both tried running the color calibration to no avail. Apparently, it’s called “ghosting”:

Ghosting Issues

Today, I had to go to Kinko’s again because my Almond Milk soap labels looked like this (not because I can’t hold the camera still):

Soap Label

I think it may be time for a new printer. Any suggestions?