Blogmas - December 24: Family Day!

Today I saw my Mom, Dad, and my brother for the last time until I get back from over yonder. I fly out while they are visiting family.
I spent several hours after they left packing. I'd say I'm between 85-90% packed. Probably less. I just want to have time to really think about what I'm bringing with me. I also don't want to have to scramble for anything at the last minute so the more stuff that's packed the better.
After I'd done as much as I possibly could to pack and clean with my sanity intact I made my way downstairs to work on some mass soaping.
I ultimately made two more batches. One, a CPOP soap that behaved well until I cut it later. It's a bit crumbly and it smells really weird. Almost rancid. It can't be scorched goats milk, as this was not a goats milk soap. I've used all of these fragrance oils with no issue. I don't know what went bad this time.
My second batch was a hot process soap. I used up the rest of my milk & honey fragrance oil, then filled out the rest with green tea and strawberry. The soap is colored a deep brick red. I used oats this time but ground them up to a very fine texture. I was a bit put off by how scrubby my last milk and honey batch went, so that's why I wanted to make this batch a bit less abrasive.
I won't be able to make as many batches of soap as I was hoping to. I realized while messing with my last batch that I only had lye for one, maybe two more batches. Oh well. I guess the soap I've made so far will have to tie the family over until I return :)
After the soap, my sister and I spent some time watching some behind the scenes stuff for The Hobbit, then set up our VHS player and watched some old, old family videos. I haven't watched any of this stuff for over 6 years. A lot of the videos were things that I no longer remembered. Like one of my birthday parties being mermaid themed so we had to wear trash bags on our lower halves to represent the mermaid's tail and fins until we found our crown. Then we became human again. Yup... Don't judge younger me.
We couldn't get through the last of the videos as it's getting close to eleven... and I'm tired. Tomorrow is Christmas but I'm not sure I feel the spirit right now. This will be my first Christmas ever without the rest of my family. I'm here with my sister, yes, but over half of our family is missing! All because of my ticket. Oops.
On one hand I'm feeling Christmasy because of all these holiday movies and home videos we're watching, and the Christmas lights and music. However, I also know that tomorrow will not be special in any way over here. We will wake up and go about our day like any other, because Christmas for our immediate family was early. It's also bittersweet knowing that these are my last days here, but I get to see my husband soon.

Anyways, off to bed for me. I don't know when I'll next take the chance to comment and respond, but I'll make up for it once I finally get around to it.

Do you have old family videos that you watch every so often?