The Swimsuit Experience

It’s that time of year again. How is it that the most wonderful time of the year is followed immediately by the most depressing time of the year? Every woman in America knows what I’m talking about…the swimsuit shopping season has begun!

After months of hibernation and chowing down on delicious holiday meals, we make a trip to the local Costco or mall, only to be bombarded by Speedos and bikinis that are made for bodies of 12 year olds…certainly not full figured beauties such as ourselves! And what are we to do? It’s not even Valentine’s Day yet, and we’re sure to get bombarded with chocolates from our lovers…(we are going to be bombarded, aren’t we?)…and can we can hardly refuse the dear men. Okay, we could, but come on, it’s chocolate!! So we indulge politely as we tell him we’re watching our girlish figure so we can slip into that super sexy little number we’ve gone out and purchased for summer. And of course he buys into it (and we stuff our faces with the rest of the box once he’s out of the room, blaming the children…or mice…when he discovers the empty box a bit later.)

Now, of course, our men are expecting us to deliver come summer, so we tell ourselves we’ll start our diet as soon as we get that new suit. We’re certain to be motivated to exercise once we’ve spent all that money, right? Right… So off to the mall we go, pocketbook full of good intentions in hand.

I don’t know about you, but aside from bra shopping, swimsuits have to be the hardest thing in the world for a woman to buy. They’re so bloody expensive, and you can never find one that fits the entire body. Just read the ads in the catalogs…this one helps minimize an ample bust, that one draws the eye from a large hip, and then there’s this little number that flattens the tummy…but is there a suit that minimizes the bust, flattens the tummy and draws the eye of the beholder straight to your eyes so that he never sees your hips? Let alone your dimpled thighs? If there is, I’ve yet to find it. Yet that’s what I want. One that makes a man look deep into my eyes so I can hypnotize him before he sees the rest of me in that skimpy piece of spandex that isn’t doing the best job of covering my assets.

Sigh…but there I am, in the middle of the department store underworld, suffering and torment all around me as I witness other women going through the same agony that I’m about to inflict on myself. I look around, not sure what I’m really wanting. Some skinny little sales girl, about a size 0 dripping wet, comes and offers her help. Politely I say, “No, thank-you, I’m fine.” What I really wanted to say is, “You’ve got to be kidding me, right? What experience do you have fitting a body? I mean a real body? You’re a stick! Sticks don’t get dressed in the morning; they hang about all day on trees! What are you doing out of your tree? Go back to the woods where you belong…”

I riffled through the racks of suits, wondering which would flatter my curves and bring out the best in my dimples. I selected three or four, then went off to the dressing room. Why do men feel the need to wait around outside of women’s dressing rooms? Oh…don’t answer that.

Anyway, I squeezed myself into the first elastic garment and fearfully turned towards the mirror. All I can say is Oh My Goodness…what were these people thinking when they put that mirror in here? Was this some sort of joke? It had to be a fun house mirror…surely I didn’t look like that…where did that bulge come from? I didn’t have that last year, did I? I didn’t even bother with the other suits, just ran crying from the dressing room (perhaps I should have paid heed to the herd of women I saw in tears when I'd entered?) Once out in the mall, I regained my composure and began anew in a different store.

Something I learned that day was that each store seems to have a different type of mirror. The cheap stores have the worst ones, and they should take note of how better mirrors make crummy suits look better on bodies. By the end of the day I was willing to shell out nearly $100 for a suit that made my tummy, hips and bust look trim. In fact, my body looked so dang good in that mirror I nearly bought a two piece! Nearly…

I brought my purchase home. I was exhausted after the long, agonizingly painful day of shopping for a suit. I looked at my purchase dubiously. It’d seemed like the right choice in the store, but I was beginning to wonder now that I had it in my house. I went into the bathroom to try it on, hoping it would still hide the dimples.

Oh, dear…

City Boy…look deep into my eyes….

How we got our name

Carpenter Creek is a lovely little spring fed trickle of water that makes it's way from the hill across the street down to the lake about a mile away. It's seasonal, drying up once the summer hits, but in the winter it runs pretty steady. It's what I named the property for when we first moved in.

But I like change.

Shortly after moving in, I decided to give gardening a try. I'm not big into work, I may have mentioned that, but how hard can it be to grow a garden? And so I went about tilling and planting and, in my zeal, I decided I could grow enough to do a CSA (community supported agriculture) type garden. So I printed up business cards and sold shares in my garden. And did I keep the Carpenter Creek name? Nope, I changed it to Garden Chick. Cute, don't you think?

When Darling and I got our first sheep, one of the yearling ewe lambs was bucking up a storm as we tried leading her along. We were laughing, and I said something like, "Look at the bucking lamb." And then a bright light went off in my head..."Bucking Lamb...Bucking Lamb Palace! That's what we ought to call our sheep farm!" Darling didn't agree. But what does she know? She's just a kid. And we became Bucking Lamb Palace.

There's something about that name, of course, that makes people smile. And they remember it, too. I call the Ag people for paperwork and when they hear my name, Tracey, they've no clue who it is. But tell them I'm from Bucking Lamb Palace and they remember me! The name was so catchy that when I began using sheep's milk for my soaps, I just had to use the Bucking Lamb name. People love it!

Then we got Quiet Storm, the mustang. And while she's an excellent livestock guardian, watching over her flock with great ambition, she just doesn't fit the whole Bucking Lamb theme. What to do? She wasn't even a bucking mustang...

That's when I came up with the Wild About line of lotions, with pics of all those formerly wild horses on the labels. "I know!" I exclaimed to Darling one day, "We could call it Wild About Farm." Darling didn't look too excited. "I liked Carpenter Creek Farm when we moved in, and I like it now. I don't think we should use any other name." Well, there is some merit to having a name like Carpenter Creek. The sheep and the horses and even the garden produce can all use the same name.

But what if I move?

I Love Lotion Making Day...

I love lotion making day. It's not so much the lotion process as what happens afterwards...but we'll get to that in a bit.

Monday was lotion day here. I had to get my Wild About Pepper fragrance finished as Pepper's owner had ordered six bottles to give to friends and family. It's a new recipe for me and it's gotten a pretty good response. It's not as thick as the original lotion and I've added shea butter which gives it just a little something extra. Each of the Wild About Lotions feature a different Mustang horse on them. All of the horses were captured in the wild and then successfully adopted.

Pepper is a pretty special horse. Captured in 1999, he's from the Riddle Mountain Kiger Herd. I've met him twice and there was no doubt that this boy was pretty special. When I came up with the Wild About concept, I knew I had to have him pictured on one of the bottles! (Clicking on Pepper's name will link you to his story.)

So to make lotion, you've got to determine which oils you're wanting to use, get yourself a reliable scale (digital is best) that weighs in small increments such as grams, and create a recipe. Lotions are typically made with water, oils, an emulsifier to hold the two together, and a preservative to prevent bacterial growth. I heat my oils (with emulsifier) and water seperately, then pour the oil into the water and use something called a stick blender to whip it all together. You need to continue blending until the lotion is cool enough to hold the emulsion, then carefully pour into bottles, cap it and label. Simple, eh?

Remember when mom used to bake a cake, and you got to lick the batter off afterwards? Or better yet, the frosting? Well, that's what happens next when making lotion. But instead of licking it, you get to slather it all over your body, creating a nice, silky smooth you! Of course, everyone has their own style; I'll leave that part up to your imagination!

When it's all done...the slathering, that is...you're still left with dirty dishes, just like with the cake. But it's okay, because you smell and feel great!

Upriver

Today, Darling and I travelled upriver to see the bald eagles. Eagles come from as far as Alaska to feed on steelhead salmon in the Skagit River at spawning time. The last time Darling and I were there, we spotted 86 eagles. We didn't count this year, just enjoyed.

I've always liked upriver. Peaceful, quiet, not much in the way of traffic (just ignore the logging trucks.) The best part of it, in my mind, is that real estate prices are 'stupid cheap' according to my real estate agent. That's the kind of stupid I can live with.

City Boy does not agree. He says if we moved upriver I'd have to tell people I was his sister. For stupid cheap, I would, and cross my eyes while doing it! But City Boy isn't budging. Which honestly doesn't surprise me much. He has a hard time adjusting to the new color on the walls. He complains for months when the furniture is rearranged. Can you imagine his distress if I should actually change the layout of the house? He'd never find his bedroom and constantly be walking into walls where there ought to be doors.

But back to the eagles. We were late this year; they're at their peak around Christmas and New Year. Too much snow and ice to get up there this year, however, so we had to take what we could today. The sky was overcast and it had rained overnight, both good things when eagle watching as the fishing is always best in this weather. And while it may not have been thick with eagles, there were certainly plenty of them in the trees and swooping across the water in search of food.