Beneath the Old Oaks

Last week, my husband gave me a call and immediately asked a question:      "How would you like to spend a day where you go out on the range and shoot a bunch of weapons and then do some other fun stuff on Wednesday?"      Didn't even wait to hear about the other "fun stuff" before I yelled out, "YES!", right in the middle of Target.  (I wonder if people thought I was accepting a marriage proposal via phone call?  After all, I was excited and enthusiastic enough.)      And I DID have fun.  I had so much fun yesterday, that I immediately came home, stuffed four pieces of pizza in my face before crashing... not even having the energy to blog about it until today. Special Warfare Memorial Statue (a.k.a.- "Bronze Bruce)      The "fun stuff" turned out to be the 2019 CapEx on Fort Bragg.  ( Click here to see a teaser video for #CapEx2019.) First, the attendees all met in the parking lot of the IMA...

     Feeling better after yesterday's adventures but I still didn't feel quite up to doing anything too crazy... So I made a double batch of soap!      A customer had ordered a batch of "Sweet Magnolia and Orange Blossom" and I thought that I might as well just double it and have an extra batch for the shop.  It's a popular soap and I've made it numerous times, only this time, I wanted to do a little bit of improvisation with the design. Oil infusions before going into the crockpot.       I also have plans to make a new baby soap in the future, so I wanted to get a head start on the oil infusions for that batch.  I sterilized two mason jars, and started my chamomile infusion in one, and my calendula infusion in the other.  There are a few different ways to infuse oil, but I didn't want to wait the 8 weeks for the "slow" method, so I went ahead and got it infusing using the crockpot method .      After...

"Somebody's got a case of the Mondays."                                 - Secretary, Office Space Movie       As I sit here, typing my first blog post on this new blog, I realize that that "somebody" is me.  Monday usually has a hiccup or two, but this Monday took the cake.  I'm not usually one to air any issues... I like to keep my business to myself.  However, this was too "out there" not to post on the first day of my new blog.        Today started off pretty normal.  I woke up, had my daily cup of coffee, checked on all the livestock, and woke up the kids.  My oldest son, Cameron, had FFA practice to go to (he's heading to the State tournament next week) so all of the kids piled into the car, and we drove him over to Cape Fear.      On the way back home, I was thinking about my schedule for the day.  It's my husband's ...