Jane Austen, Zombies and Soap!

I have a confession to make... Pride and Prejudice was not always my favorite novel; in fact, my favorite wasn’t even a Jane Austen story. I was a die hard Jane Eyre fan since the seventh grade. I skimmed through the JA novels periodically but had the impression that her work was much better on the big screen than the small page. Boy was I wrong!

I was a wife, a mother, an employee. I got up each day, sent my daughter to school and my son to daycare. I drove thirty minutes to work, did my job, drove thirty minutes back, picked up my kids, made dinner, put the kids to bed, watched tv, went to bed. Repeat. Essentially I was bored out of my mind. While some people are comforted by routine, it only served to make me feel isolated, bored and purposeless. Enter Seth Grahame-Smith…

The first time I heard about Seth  Grahame-Smith’s “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”, I was getting ready for my morning, eating a quick breakfast in front of the news. When the newscaster brought out a copy of PP&Z using words like “phenomena”, “craze” and “disturbingly fun” to describe it, I knew that I had to get my hands on a copy. To my surprise PP&Z had such a long waiting list at the library there was no chance that I would be able to check it out anytime in the next six months. Soooo, off to Amazon I went.

Amazon has a great feature on their website that offers recommendations based on what other people have purchased. After devouring PP&Z, I checked out my recommendations and to my blissful surprise found that the PP&Z story was not finished yet! A prequel and a sequel had been written by Steve Hockensmith, PP&Z “Return of the Dreadfuls” and PP&Z  “Dreadfully Ever After”. While Seth  Grahame-Smith’s novel was extremely diverting for a bored wife and mother, Steve Hockensmith’s two versions showed me how much I truly loved Jane Austen’s characters. Thus, my obsession began.

Next on my Amazon Recommendations list was “The Phantom of Pemberley” by Regina Jeffers (Readers, if you are looking for a ghost story, do not get this book. If you are looking for an exceptional read with twists and turns and surprise endings, this is the one for you!) and after that I found “Pemberley By the Sea” by Abigail Reynolds (otherwise known as “The Man Who Loved Pride and Prejudice”). With” Pemberley By the Sea” I found a completely different, modern tale of Pride and Prejudice. It was lusty and delicious, filled with heartache and passion and at the end a happily ever after.

Since that time, I have read over 300 different variations of Pride and Prejudice. I have learned that not only are these variations a great diversion but the Jane Austen community is as strong and diverse as the characters in Jane Austen’s novels. While Jane Austen wrote personalities and character traits so perfectly, she did also leave a little to the imagination. The 1995 BBC version of Pride and Prejudice created Colin Firth devotees the world over but did Mr. Darcy really look like Colin? What about that other Darcy? You know, the one who played opposite Kira Knightly (I’m sure you can guess where my loyalties lie). Whoever your ideal Mr. Darcy is, one thing is certain; while reading our novels we want to be enveloped in the experience and I have developed a way for you to experience your beloved characters in a new way.

We all know that Lizzy’s signature scent is lavender and Jane’s is rose, but what did Colonel Fitzwilliam smell like? I have an idea. What we know is that he was a military man. He lived with his men, sometimes in a tent on the battlefield. He would have been surrounded with tobacco smoke and English tea but because of his family’s status in the world he would have also had access to some more exotic teas. He is the essence of masculinity. What about Georgie? She wants so much to emulate Elizabeth but she is also a young playful girl so a combination of lavender and citrus seems fitting for her.

What I have done, is compiled all of the descriptions of Pride and Prejudice’s personalities and created a soap for each character, including Austen Variation’s Theo Darcy. You now have the ability to read your novels and smell Mr. Darcy in the room with you (in case you were wondering, he smells of sandalwood and lemongrass).

My line of Pride and Prejudice inspired soaps is slowly starting to gain in popularity. They have found themselves in England, Switzerland, Canada, Brazil and the US. I have been a guest vendor at several conferences and craft fairs as well as maintain a booth at White’s Farm in Brookville, IN. You can purchase these soaps off of my Etsy page and will also have the opportunity to purchase them at the JASNA AGM in October (Check out the Edmonton Region’s booth). Next year, I hope to take them to Regency Week in England and The 8th annual Jane Austen Festival in Louisville, KY.

I have been given the opportunity to sell my soaps at the Johnny Appleseed Festival in Ft. Wayne, IN this September. Last year this festival drew 300,000 people, all ready to buy handmade crafts and view all of the historical reenactors and this year they expect an even larger crowd. This is an exciting prospect which will provide me with the ability to advertise on a much larger scale and may even provide me with enough income to sustain a permanent store front in my own community. Although it eliminates much of my travel expenses while enabling me to better provide for my family (as Jane herself said in Mansfield Park “A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of”) it does require more up front money than I currently have on hand. I have determined that I will need $4,200 in up front funds in order to reach my goal of 2,000 bars of soap for Johnny Appleseed and a small storefront location at a local Farmer’s Market.

At the suggestion of several friends and family members, I have decided to try a crowdfunding experience with Kickstarter. Kickstarter is a company that allows people to donate to various projects with the understanding that if the funding goal is not reached within a small amount of time, no money will change hands. This puts me in a tenuous position; I’m running on faith that the wonderful people in my community will come together to help me on my way.  We only have 24 days to raise the funds, so the urgency is very real. Please Please give to my kickstarter.

For more information about me, how I got started making soap, my kickstarter goals and to donate, please visit my Kickstarter page.

You can visit the webpage for my business Shirley’s Handicrafts (named after my grandmother) here.

Self Sustainability

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Evie Cotton. I am the mother of two young handfuls and the wife of one older handful. As the mother of two very active kids I have struggled over the years with managing the work/mother/wife reality. For my husband I feel like I need to work long hours in order to help out with the family bills but as a mother I realize how much my children miss me when I am gone. It is more than the kids just missing me though. When I am working 8-12 hour days, I am not at home to make sure that my kids are doing their homework, they do not have the emotional support that they need to cope with their changing bodies and hormones, their grades drop and they become very agitated. I come home from work very haggard, without the ability to cope with angry, whining children. They become clingy and I become resistant to that cling. I’m too tired to clean the house or make dinner and can’t wait until my kids bedtime. This vicious cycle is not good for me or my children, so with that in mind I decided that some things needed to change in my life.

Early last year I discovered Urban Homesteading. Urban Homesteading was a new concept to me but with the encouragement of others and with the knowledge that past generations lived the simple lifestyle with no problem, I decided to make the leap into self sustainability. I had no experience growing my own vegetables and in fact killed almost all of my first years vegetables with the exception of carrots, cabbage, zucchini and Luffa. By the end of summer, my husband told me that he had no intention of ever eating another zucchini or head of cabbage again. It looked like my experiment in self sustainability had failed. Or so I thought…

Our first frost came quite unexpectedly last fall and forced me to harvest my luffa a few weeks sooner than I had planned. For those of you who don’t know about luffa, I’ll explain. Luffa grows on a vine very similarly to a cucumber or gourd. It has large beautiful flowers which then produce what look like giant Zucchini. These giants can grow up to three feet in length if given a long enough growing season. My biggest were a little over two feet in length at harvest. When fully grown and mature a luffa will lose all of its water weight. The outside peel is removed and inside you will find a dense fibrous sponge with hundreds of black seeds. Luffa is not only a great sponge but it is also highly nutritious if it is harvested young, before it becomes fibrous. I like to use young luffa in stews or salads for a little something extra.

One of the keys to self sustainability is not only producing food to eat but also coming up with an income to use. I toyed with the idea of just selling my luffa but because I had so few from my shortened season I decided to use it as gifts for my family. Christmas was coming and because I had quit my job by this time, I had no income for gift giving. After several failed experiments with creating a quality product that family members would actually like to receive as gifts, I found soap making. Soap making allowed me to use my home grown luffa in new ways, imbedding them in bars of soap. I was so proud of my soap that I posted photos of them on facebook. Before I knew it, friends and friends of friends were clamouring to get their hands on my soap. Thus my soap making business was born.

Through trial and error I have learned a great deal about soap making and have had the opportunity to sell my soaps at various women’s conferences and flea markets all over Indiana.

Now I have a special opportunity to turn this into a real business. I’ve been invited to sell my soaps at the Johnny Appleseed Festival in Ft. Wayne, IN this September. This is an exciting prospect which will provide me with the ability to reach a larger audience and may even provide me with enough income to sustain a permanent store front in my own community. Although it eliminates much of my travel expenses while enabling me to better provide for my family, it requires more up front money than I currently have on hand.

At the suggestion of several friends and family members, I decided to try a crowdfunding experience with Kickstarter. Kickstarter is a company that allows people to donate to various projects with the understanding that if the funding goal is not reached within a small amount of time, no money will change hands. This puts me in a tenuous position; I’m running on faith that the wonderful people in my community will come together to help me on my way.  We only have 23 days to raise the funds, so the urgency is very real. Please Please give to my kickstarter. Donors will receive my soaps as well as my thanks!

To visit my Kickstarter page please click  here.

To visit my Etsy page please click here.

To view my webpage please click here.

As an extra thank you to my friends at The Homemaker’s Journal, I have created a gift. For every donation at the $5 level I will enter you in a drawing to win one bar of luffa soap AND one bar of either my Johnny Appleseed limited edition soap or one of my Pride and Prejudice inspired soaps (there will be three winners). For donations at the $25 or higher level, I will send you a gift basket with five soaps in addition to the listed gift.

Confessions of an MK

Confessions of a happy MK!  (missionary kid)

I was a mk and happy.  Yes, happy. I am the person I am today because I grew up on the mission field.  Think about it. A missionary must be self reliant. He must posses ingenuity, and be resourceful. He must be adaptable. A Jack of all trades. Missionaries are bold yet humble. They flourish in the face of adversity. They know how to survive when to others all hope would be lost. I would be lying though if I were to tell you that all missionaries had these traits all the time. They are after all merely human. What I will admit to is having these traits some of the time.

My Missionary Experience

I grew up with amazing missionary role models. When our van broke down, my father taught me how to fix it so that we would not have to spend money on a mechanic. We built furniture out of packing crates and perfected the art of dumpster diving and then consequently reupholstering. Even though there was not much money for extravagances, we never went without food. We learned to roast marshmallows over candle light when the power went out, and the importance of praying over our food. When we returned for furlough, we spent what felt like months living out of our car, learning to be happy wherever you wake up, to go with the flow.

We learned the necessity  of the fundraising plea. There were times when we weren’t sure if we would make our goals, but, in the end God always provided for our needs. Now that I am an adult and do not live on the mission field, those lessons are sometimes hard but essential to remember. I sometimes doubt my own abilities and the generosity of others. When adversity looks me in the face I want to cower and hide rather than looking it in the eye. It’s difficult to face it head on. I am weak and afraid, yet unwilling to ask for help. Fortunately, last week I had the pleasure of spending a brief amount of time at Lake James Christian Assembly and I was reminded of how as Christians and as Missionaries I am called to look out for the needs of others and in so doing my own needs will be met.

Using My hobby to reach out ( I make soap)

I make several lines of soap. I have even developed a missionary soap. It much like missionaries has a broad range of useful attributes. Activated Charcoal is used as an amazing cleanser. Olive Oil and Sea Salt nourish the skin. Tea Tree Oil is a natural antibacterial agent which is used to treat fungal infections as well as ward off parasites. Lavender has healing properties. This soap is the ultimate Missionary Soap.

I have a special opportunity to turn this hobby into a real business. I’ve been invited to sell my soaps at the Johnny Appleseed Festival in Ft. Wayne, IN this September. This is an exciting prospect which will provide me with the ability to reach a much larger clientele and may even provide me with enough income to sustain a permanent store front in my own community. A brick and mortar store will eliminate much of my travel expenses and allow me to better provide for my family. However,  it will require more up front money than I currently have on hand.

I need your help

At the suggestion of several friends and family members, I decided to try crowdfunding with Kickstarter. Kickstarter is a company that allows people to pledge/donate to projects with the understanding that if the funding goal is not reached within the set amount of time, no money will change hands. This is scary for my and it is really stretching my faith. I’m praying that wonderful people like you will  help me reach my goal of $4,200.00 by August 21, 2014. We only have a few weeks to raise the funds, so the urgency is very real. Please Please give to my kickstarter campaign. Donors will receive my soaps as well as my thanks!

As a special thank you  to anyone who donates at the $50 level, I will send you 10 bars of my Missionary Soap or if you prefer, I will send them to a missionary of your choosing in your honor. If $50 is out of your price range, that’s ok. Every dollar counts.

For more information about me, how I got started making soap, my kickstarter goals and to donate, please visit my Kickstarter page. You can visit the webpage for my business Shirley’s Handicrafts (named after my grandmother) here.

Blueberries!

While attending The Jane Austen Festival in Louisville, KY recently, I was invited to try some home made “1812 Orange Liqueur”. While it smelled delicious and everyone enjoying it seemed to love it, I was a bit afraid to try. See, I have celiac disease so I need to be very careful about what goes into my mouth. Even drinks can be dangerous to me. Even though I was not able to try the lovely drink, I was inspired by it. While my friend’s drink was made from oranges, I thought I would give blueberries a try.

It is the end of blueberry season here in Ohio and I was very lucky to find a farm which allowed me to pick the last of their blueberries for FREE!!!! I guess the farm underestimated my determination to pick every last berry. While my kids got bored about an hour in and forced me to leave earlier than expected, I still came out with close to 10 pounds of goodness!

Blueberry Cordial takes around two months to make and I am not a very patient person when it comes to blueberries, so I decide to make a couple of projects that could be enjoyed in the mean time.

Ginger Blueberry Jam

For this recipe you will need:

Large stock pot with boiling water for canning

Pot with extra boiling water just in case

Large stock pot for berry cooking

Mason Jars and funnel

One plate, placed in the freezer

6 cups of cleaned and crushed blueberries

4 cups of sugar

2 tablespoons lime juice

1 tablespoon ginger

*Note*

When blueberry picking with children, expect an hour of cleaning and sorting prior to making your jam. I found that my bucket of berries were mostly perfect while my kids required a lot of work.

AS you clean your berries, smash them with a potato smasher until you have reached six cups. This needs to be six cups crushed berries NOT six cups berries.

Place berries in a large stock pot on low heat.

Dump all four cups of sugar on top.

Squeeze two tablespoons lime juice on top of sugar

Slowly stir berry, sugar and lime mixture

Once the sugar is completely dissolved add your ginger.

*Note*

For this recipe I used ginger powder (because I was feeling a little too lazy to peel and grate the fresh ginger root that is just sitting in my refrigerator) however fresh ginger is even better. Powdered ginger is not as potent so if using fresh grated ginger, you may want to cut the amount used in your jam. I LOVE ginger, so I tend to use the same amount either way. Your choice!

Now that all of your ingredients are mixed into the pot, turn your heat all the way up to high.

*Note*

This is the part where you don’t want to leave the pot for any reason. If left alone, the berries will scorch and ruin. After all that work you don’t want to take any chances!

Continuously stir your mixture until it reaches a gelling point. For me this took about 20-30 minutes and reached just over 200 degrees before this happened. It may take more or less time depending on the amount of juice that your blueberries created.

*Note*

Don’t know how to check for gelling? Its simple, First grab that plate from your freezer. Now drop a bit of your jam onto the plate. The chill of the plate will quickly set the jam. If you can run your finger through the jam and it streaks, you are at the gelling point. If it goes back together, you will need to cook it for a little bit longer.

Once you have reached your gelling point, quickly pour your mixture into your mason jars, using your funnel, leaving about ¼ inch of headspace.

Clean the rims of your jars and lid them.

Place in your boiling water (I use a canning basket to make retrieval easier)

Boil for 20 minutes

After your timer goes off, turn off the heat on your boiling water and let it sit for five minutes.

Remove your jars and sit them upright on a kitchen towel being sure not to move them for 24 hours.

*Note*

You may hear the lids ping as they are sealed. Thats wonderful but if you don’t thats ok too. Make sure that you do not push on the lids to check for sealing. I know its tempting but don’t do it! After your waiting period is over, you may check the lids. If they are not completely down, you may refrigerate your jam for up to two weeks. If they are completely sealed you can store your jam at room temperature for 6+ months.

After you have waited 24 hours, you may enjoy the pure goodness!

Blueberry and Banana Smoothie

For this recipe you will need:

Food Processor or blender

Two small bananas

One cup fresh Blueberries

¼ cup grated coconut

½ cup canned coconut milk

two cups frozen yogurt

This lovely recipe is sort of a cross between a milkshake and a smoothie.

Ever get that bloated feeling after drinking a milkshake? Does it make you feel sluggish and lazy? This recipe is sure to solve that problem. Its light and delicious and gives you a burst of energy. Its super easy too!

1. Puree bananas

2. Add blueberries, puree

3. Add coconut, puree

4. Add frozen yogurt and coconut milk, puree

5. Enjoy!