February's Giveaway!

When Kandyce and I were talking over this month's theme, we laughed that one of the only ways a mom can truly have peace and solitude is by taking a bath. The bathroom is the only room in the house with a lock after all. My son can push open the doors in our old house in a second, but there's still a sense of "this time is all mine" when I soak in the tub.

So, this month's giveaway includes two different kinds of bath salts made with 100% pure essential oils. You can find a variety of bath salt recipes here. The winner of our giveaway will receive the "Peaceful Bath" made with Ylang Ylang, Rose Otto, and Jasmine oils as well as the "Relaxing and Warming" soak made with Clove Bud, Cinnamon Leaf, Lavender, and Tangerine oils (I haven't been able to find Ginger locally). The bath soaks will be wrapped in the reusable fabric gift bag above. (The photo is a little bit of a cheat--I will make the soaks fresh right before I mail them). Kandyce and I will also be putting together a CD to include with our favorite songs for relaxation. We'll post our play list sometime during the month and we hope you'll make song suggestions too--we're always looking for new music to sing along to.

One quick note about the gift bag. I bought this fun printed fabric at my favorite vintage consignment shop. There was only one little scrap and it looks like someone used it for beginner sewing practice. I decided to leave the original sewer's seam across the top. I like the soft fraying it allowed and I also love wondering who touched this fabric first and what did they make out of the rest of it? The ribbon, believe it or not, is from a wedding gift my husband and I received 3 1/2 years ago. We saved yards and yards of ribbon and are still using it to tie up special gifts today.

We also saved all of the tissue paper from our wedding gifts. If you look at the wall in the background of the picture above, you can see a plaster-like texture. Our house, as I mentioned, is old and most of the original walls were covered in wallpaper. When we took the paper down, we found that the walls in our dining room and up the staircase were damaged and would have needed replastering. Instead, we painted on a flat base color, crinkled up sheets of our wedding paper and stuck it to the wall, and then painted over it again. When that layer dried, we applied a slightly darker glaze. Cheap and easy treatment that really does look like Venetian plaster, reused a lot of paper we really couldn't wrap new gifts with, and made our wedding day part of our first home together.

As this month unfolds, we hope you find a little space and some time alone: maybe to soak in a warm bath, maybe to sit quietly and meditate on peace. I'm using my alone time this month to focus on breathing deeply and making peace with my body with cancer. I had a minor surgery this week (to implant chemo beads directly into my liver). My nurse suggested that I say the mantra "I have a healthy liver" over and over because the body will try to match what the mind envisions. I believe this. Recently, the sentence, "I have the healthiest liver in the world!"came into my head out of nowhere and made me laugh. Now, I say it everyday. My nurse, by the way, gave me a wink when the surgeon came in. I don't think we would be able to convince him that our plan could work as well as his.

If you're willing to share what peace and solitude mean to you, you know we'd love to listen.