What Happens to Honeybees in Winter?

Beekeepers often get asked if honeybees hibernate when the weather turns cold. And if not, you might wonder what do they do this time of year? 

We'll talk about winter in a minute, but first, we need to back up to fall. In the late days of summer, when the days start to shorten the bees do a rather harsh thing. The worker bees, which are all female, throw out the drones, which are all males. A drone's one purpose in life is to mate with a virgin queen should the need arise (an act which will end in his immediate death). As the bees begin to sense autumn coming on they will turn out the drones. Since honeybees are only able to survive as part of a colony the homeless bees soon die.

Going into fall and winter there are only workers and the queen left inside the hive. The goal at this point is to survive until spring. To do this the bees bunch together in a tight ball called the winter cluster. At the center of this cluster is the queen, the mother of every bee in the hive, kept warm and safe amid her own offspring.  The bees rotate from the inside cluster to the outside so that no bees ever get too cold. The colder the weather is the tighter the bees cluster. The bees shiver to generate heat. 

The cluster moves around the hive a bit to be next to honey they'll consume for survival. Beekeepers never take honey from this part of the hive called the hive body, brood boxes, or nesting boxes. If the beekeeper feels that the bees have not stored up a sufficient amount of honey for a long winter they feed the bees to help them remain strong until spring.

Occasionally bees do leave the hive in winter. On days where the temperatures are high enough (about 50-55 degrees Fahrenheit), the bees will fly out of the hive for cleansing flights to eliminate waste. Bees are meticulous about the inside of the hive and never eliminate waste there. When it does happen it is the sign of a serious problem. Even during January, there are still places to gather pollen if the weather is warm enough for the girls to go out. If you have camellias then you may have seen bees very busy on sunny winter days.  

While honeybees do not hibernate other types of bees such as carpenter bees and bumblebees who are solitary do hibernate. For those species, it is only the mated queen who survives until spring.

You can help many kinds of bees survive winter by leaving things in your garden like plants that have hollow stems. Tiny species of bees overwinter there. 

Now you can stop lying awake at night wondering about this. I mean, you were doing that, right?

Let's Normalize Chores With Our Friends

I recently saw a post by a young woman on Instagram that said something like, "Let's normalize running errands with friends instead of $85 dinners when we want to hang out."

I felt that in my soul. 

Last year I helped a friend who just got back into her house after four months of hotel living due to burst pipes. We folded and displayed her quilts, organized her spices, and decided on paint colors for a kitchen table and chairs. 

Instead of it being tiring and tedious which that kind of work often is it was fun and the work was divided. We were twice as happy and only half as tired. 

Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their toil. Ecclesiastes 4:9 

Modern living has made each person responsible for all the work outside and inside the home. Our mothers and grandmothers had women to go to the grocery store with and it was common to get together to accomplish a large project like canning or quilting. 

Nothing says I love you like "want to go to Costco with me?"

A few months ago while rambling around YouTube I ran across "clean with me videos." Millenial homemakers are cleaning their houses and posting it. You might think "who would want to watch that? Well apparently tens of thousands of people! If I'm feeling distracted and unmotivated or just plain lazy I'll put one of these videos. 

I cannot explain why within a minute or two I am up busily doing all the chores I've been putting off.  Is it possible that the appeal of these videos is that they are a virtual version of women working together? They have huge numbers of viewers so they are connecting and filling something that's missing in our modern world. 

There has to be a way to spend time together that is both cheaper and more productive that lunch and shopping. Standing in line at the post office chatting with a friend is bound to be more fun that wasting time with strangers all silently glued to their phones. The grocery is another opportunity. Any and all crafting and decorating projects. Putting in the garden, weeding, harvesting. Basically anything we have to do would be more fun with a friend to laugh with while we get it done. 

Maybe it's time we normalize working together instead of squeezing our female relationships into free time which may never materialize. 

Building Your Bedtime Routine

As humans living in a modern world filled with unnatural light at all hours and over stimulating devices our circadian rythyms are out of whack. For the sake of our health let's give our body's natural function some help. 

Bedtime is an event when you are a child or a parent of small children. After dinner there is a bath, cozy clean pajamas, reading a book with Mom or Dad. It's a routine and everyone knows what to expect every night. 

But something happens as we get older. At some point, we throw out the comforting ritual. We watch late-night television or prowl Facebook until we nearly pass out from exhaustion and then fall into bed. As a nation, we complain about our inability to sleep or wear our lack of sleep as a badge of honor.

Let's make being tucked in at night a grown-up thing! Let's learn to treat ourselves to a goodnight ritual.

Your inner child is going to revolt! "But I wanna stay up and  finish that series on Hulu!" 

To which you will reply "I know. But whenever you don't get to bed on time you feel out of sorts the next day and it's hard to focus at work. So, off to bed."

If it takes treating yourself like a toddler to create better habits that's okay. 

I've done the research for you and here are the best tips and tricks for a good night's sleep. These are goals and we won't meet them every night but the list gives us a place to start and something to aim for. 

Tucking yourself in: 

Step 1. Set a bedtime and stick with it. No matter how much your inner toddler whines to stay up late to see how the story ends you are going to stand strong. It's okay to give yourself a window: my bedtime is usually between nine thirty and ten-thirty if I’m at home. Choose the right time for you. I'm a lark so my time is pretty early. If you are an owl just make sure to give yourself 8 hours before the alarm goes off the next morning.

Step 2.  Bath time. Just like a child, start winding down bathing or showering. If you are a morning shower person, cleanse your face and moisturize. 

Step 3. Put on your favorite cozy pajamas.

Step 4. Dim the lights around the house.

Step 5. If you are having alcohol in the evening keep it earlier, closer to dinnertime. It can interfere with sleep in the early morning hours. For bedtime drinks stick to water or any of the teas that promote sleep. Magnesium can also be beneficial.

Step 6. Turn off all the screens. This is where your inner tween will start wailing but remember, you are the adult now. You can do it. No screens the last 20 minutes before you actually get in bed. It should really be an hour but let's be realistic. 

Step 7. A bedtime story! Yay! It's the best part and you can choose whatever you want. This isn't the time for a thriller or true crime. Classics, scripture, or personal development work nicely. Just like we primed our brain for our day, now we are priming it for sleep. You'll want to end the day on a good note.

Step 8. Prayers. Meditations. Gratitude. Reflections on the day. 

A note about sleep aids: I take Melatonin about an hour before I climb into bed but I’m working on stopping that. Be careful with things like certain allergy meds that have been linked to dementia as well as anything that requires a prescription. Like a lot of things in life, the simplest solution is the best one. We don't want to mess around too much with our body's natural ability to do its job. 

Variations:

Okay, I know there's more to it because your mom isn't fixing the coffee pot for you and your dad isn't going around locking all the doors. You might need to let the animals out one last time, charge your phone, or pick out clothes for tomorrow.

But what about the weekend?

Bad news. Your body doesn't know it's Friday night. So while you might veer off schedule occasionally for big events or special nights out, sticking as closely as you can to a regular plan is going to improve your sleep over time. 

Perfectly adhering to a system isn't our goal. Tending to our physical needs in ways that put us more in balance is. That means giving your body plenty of rest. 

Nighty-night y'all. 

How I Failed at Minimalism

I tried. I really did.

I have spent the last 35 years clearing out. I thought I was chasing Minimalism but in hindsight was trying to keep my head above the clutter watermark. I had a yard sale every year for 20 years. Let that one sink in. 

The stuff that got sold, tossed, or donated fell into four categories.

First: The things my husband owned when we married. Has any new wife ever been excited by her husband's bachelor decor? Brown velour sofas and Fight Club posters. Um...no. 

Second: Detritus from every stage of my kids' childhoods. Pacifiers to prom dresses, kids come with a never-ending phase by phase tsunami of clutter and much of it has emotional tentacles that grab and make it hard to let go. On top of plastic junk made in China and toys they outgrew, some idiot invented something called a participation trophy. They better hope I never find them.

Third: Relics of a life lived. Not my life.  Empty peanut butter jars, broken jewelry, and treasures of one kind and another. Estate sales and thrift store drop-offs for the life accumulations of 3 relatives. Stuff is so much easier to discard when it's not yours. 

Read about coping with other people's things here. 

Fourth: My own possessions. Things I had needed or loved at one time that had ceased to be important or useful. But I also battled hard against my own things often to make room for all the things that were important to the rest of my family. I was as hard on myself as anyone when it came to painful choices about what to part with and what to keep. This was especially true when the kids were at home and the house felt it would burst with one more thing. Have I ever gotten credit from my family for this? Nope. I'll be they don't even remember the book stand I let go of. 

Ingrates. 

If you've been around a while you might remember my brush with Minimalism. But once I was rid of other people's stuff I realized that I enjoy a certain amount of abundance of the things I love. I mean, my stuff is fantastic!

Remember this if you see me on Hoarders. 

As I looked around after I'd cleared the obvious clutter, I realized that I like groups of things. I like home to be cozy and just the right amount of full. When there is too much I get antsy, but the same thing happens in reverse when the decor is sparse. 

I also realized I tolerate more things in some rooms than others. I don't want a clutter free studio. I want an abundance of materials as well as inspiration. The bedroom, on the other hand, is calmingly free of extras. I hate things sitting out in the bathroom, but love a living room filled with pictures and treasures from travels. Rocks and bird's nests mixed with silver cups and champagne buckets.

It looks like a kindergartener and Holly Golightly decorated my dining room. 

Remember when I was purging hard and looking at everything wondering if my kids would say "Why did she keep this?" Read My Morbid Exercise For Purging Clutter. I still do that sometimes but just as often think "Eight silver mint julep cups will look great at the estate sale."

I know. It's still morbid. 

There's no right way. There is only the way that makes you happy. There is only the thing you and your family need for this time in your life. It will change. Forget what you should be doing and ignore all trends. Collect when you feel like collecting. Purge when you feel like purging. Curate and edit constantly.

The end. 

Why Small Doesn't Mean Unimportant

 If you are reading through the Bible in chronological order this year you have recently come through Zechariah. Good for you! This book holds one of my favorite verses. It's chapter 4:10

It's often translated: 

"Do not despise the day of small beginnings for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin..."

As a beekeeper this verse hits home. In a worker bee’s lifetime she will only create 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey. If you follow me on social media then you've likely seen me processing gallons of honey from my hives. 

Everything about beekeeping is small. The bees themselves, the amount of honey each can produce, the amount of nectar or pollen each bee can carry back to the hive on any one trip. So gallons of honey pouring out of the extractor or large amounts of wax being melted into candles is nothing short of a miracle. 

But it's bigger than that. Our entire American food industry is resting on the wings of these tiny insects. In an effort to pollinate large amounts of monocrops beehives are relocated to commercial farms when crops are in bloom. (This isn't ideal for reasons I won't cover here but it is the food system that's been created in the US)

The tiny worker bee knows that she is working for her colony but she has no idea that the weight of the entire American produce industry has been heaped upon her. If she did she might despair. But she doesn't have any idea about that and goes about her business calmly and efficiently. I dare say cheerfully.

How about us? Are we doing the same? Are we doing the small work that needs to be done? Many of us are. Work that goes unnoticed. Unappreciated. Unpraised. 

Work that seems tedious and feels monotonous. Every mother can relate. 

So many of us want to do something great for God. To have lives that are rich and meaningful. To reach into the future with a legacy we leave. To be remembered. 

Here's the thing, dear one, your faithfulness in the small things may be what is remembered. The one who prayed day in and day out. The one who provided for your family at a job where no one will remember your name decades from now. The one who dried tears, gave a kind word. The one who listened. 

Do not be deceived into believing that greatness is having a famous name or vast wealth.  (See the book of Ecclesiastes for a master class on this concept) Do not be enamored with the praise of this world. It is quickly passing away. The quest to make a name for yourself, the same quest of the people stacking stones at the Tower of Babel, is a dangerous one. 

Whatever work the day holds for us let's do it cheerfully knowing that all work done for God rather than man is immeasurably important in the Kingdom of God. Our faithfulness is never wasted. Our prayers rise as incense to God and kind words are always as sweet as honey. 

Colossians 3:23 tells us that whatever we do we should work at it with all our hearts, as for the Lord and not for man. Since we know we will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ we are serving. 

Do not discount the scope and influence of your work. We see over and over in scripture how God loves using the small and underestimated and it's easy to think of David with his sling. But many times we see ordinary people used to further the kingdom in moments that likely seemed insignificant to them in the moment. 

God used an unnamed boy who brought his lunch to a sermon and the widow with her small offering. Notice, we do not know their names. God does. They were not trying to make a name for themselves or make their way into scripture. Yet, thousands of years later we read about them. Something they never could have imagined in their wildest dreams. 

 So as you go about your tasks today, dear one, do not discount the value of the things you are doing in this season of life. You may find in the end that the God of the Universe multiplied your tedious efforts to change the world and better His kingdom. 

A News Free Sunday

Many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall increase. Daniel 12:4 

Your assignment for this weekend is to turn it all off. Just for Sunday skip the news. Not just on TV but on radio and social media. I got you with the social media didn't I? If you have news notifications on your phone turn them off. I was already trying to do this when I saw musician and influencer, Zuby recommending it. He calls it Twitter Sabbath. Though now that it's X it might need a new name. 

Suggestions? 

Touch Grass Sunday?

As a lifelong news junkie I feel your pain if this is tough for you. Especially right now when it seems like there's a month of news every day. It's like news inflation.  A year's worth of 1980 news is now only worth a day. A lot of us feel the need to keep up. I certainly have major news FOMO.

 Trust me, if WW3 breaks out someone will text us. 

I take the extra step of really trying not to pick up my phone at all because once you have it in your hand it's too natural to open the app your fingers know to go to on their own. 

I'm not always successful in my effort to do this but it's a goal I'm working on and just like fasting is good for our bodies from time to time, letting our minds rest from the constant influx of info is too. 

I do one last news check before getting into bed on Saturday night and try not to check my phone or willingly take in news until around 6:00 PM Sunday evening. 

We are the first humans alive to be able to take in everything happening all over the world while it's happening. Things we have absolutely no control over. So let's take Sunday as a God prescribed day of rest and let the anxiety of information overload go. 

At the top of this post you'll see a verse from Daniel I saw myself in when I came across it recently. Isn't this us on our phones? It's certainly me sometimes. Flitting from Facebook to Instagram to X, often while sitting in front of a TV screen with even more information flowing out? And knowledge is definitely increasing! Read the entire chapter or better, the whole book of Daniel for context. 

It's just something to think about and sometimes I like a little challenge to keep myself in check. Let me know if you're going to try this. 

And hey, if you see me on Instagram Sundays before six PM feel free to ask me what I'm doing on my phone. 

Why You Are a Historical Miracle

Have you ever watched these shows where they trace the geneology of celebrities back to some amazing ancestor? Maybe you've thought "Wow, of course Cindy Crawford is descended from Charlemagne!" (If you are descended from Europeans chances are he's in your line too)

After my husband took me back to my hometown in Indiana last year I did some research of my own. I followed a line back to Governor William Bradford and another back to the Lord Mayor of London. I was feeling pretty special. Here's the thing in case you haven't done it yourself, go back far enough and you're related to someone cool. For instance, the 102 passengers who came over aboard the Mayflower have about 35 million descendents. It's a big club. 

If you trace your ancestry back 12 generations, about 400 years,you'll have over 4,000 people who have contributed to making you who you are. 

Think about it for a moment. For you to be here just as you are, exactly as God intended for you to be, your bloodline had to remain unbroken since the beginning of time. 

For God to "knit you together in your mother's womb" He also would have made sure your ancestors averted deadly disease, survived or avoided accidents and illness, and procreated with the precise people who delivered the DNA you have to you make you his perfect design with the abilities to do whatever it is that he has in store for you. 

He did not just throw you together at the last minute to arrive on the scene when you did. He planned millions of decisions, moves, and interactions. People destined to be in your lineage were destined to survive floods, wars, and famines. The carriers of your genes were protected by God long enough to reproduce. 

We marvel at the vastness of galaxies and our microscopic mitochondria and so much of creation that reflects the mind boggling power and omniscience of God. When we read the Old Testament we are in awe of His plan for His nation and we see Him perfectly orchestrating events concerning them. In the New Testament we see individuals encountering Christ at precise moments as we watch the story of the Gospels fall into place. 

He has also been working miracles throughout history on your behalf. He has woven your story in and out of tribes, nations, plagues, and travels to bring you to the exact place and moment in time you find yourself right now. You are not an accident or random person who just showed up. 

Your story has been unfolding all that time, hidden in the dark depths of history through faceless ancestors long forgotten but by God. 

Your being on the planet at this exact moment in history is cosmically relevant in ways you cannot begin to understand. If you are feeling small and insignificant then know dear one, that is a lie of the enemy. 

Any of us have a very small idea of what our role is in the playing out of history for the glory of God. Do not be disheartened by the trivial things of this life. You are part of the epic story being written and are affecting things you cannot imagine with every action and prayer. 

The woman in the photo is my great grandmother Nannie Barham who got up before dawn one cold Mississippi morning and struck match after match to light the stove. She asked her husband what was wrong with them as none of them would catch. He had seen all of their bursts of flame as she lit them. She had gone blind overnight. She was known for her sweet spirit and kindness. She lived to be 76 years old and was blind most of them likely with nothing other than a country doctor and no services. 

That’s just one story of strength and determination in an endless line of countless people God put in my lineage. There are plenty of scoundrels too including a hog rustler and a murderer. But everything that Satan meant for evil God used for good. 

Every day of your life is a miracle on so many levels and the Lord has a plan for your life. Nothing about you is an accident. Never feel unimportant or unloved. History has been waiting for you. 

 

Building Your Morning Routine

I have good news and bad news. Your morning is going to determine how your day goes. 

In every interview, book, or article you’ve ever read by or about any successful entrepreneur, thought leader, or athlete when asked how they start their day, not one time have you ever heard anyone say they hit the snooze button or drank a Coke with a doughnut. Successful people from the world's most successful CEOs to the most on top of it moms know that a morning routine is key.

Win the morning and win the day.

We want to be at the top of our game whether we are homeschooling moms or corporate executives so let's dive into what the world's most successful people all seem to agree make for a great morning strategy. The number one most important thing is to have a routine.  

“Routine is a condition of survival.” ~ Flannery O'Connor

Most people do have a sort of morning routine but let's break down key components for a daily regimen to get us into a mental and physical state of mind for a positive and productive day.

Building Your Morning Routine:

1. Get up early.

I know. I know. I can hear the night owls groaning, but it's what every single person at the top of their game does. According to billionaire and owner of Virgin, Richard Branson, in order to get a head start on the rest of the world he gets up at 5 A.M. every day no matter where he is in the world.  If you are a mom you know that having your feet on the floor first is a survival tactic. That first hour or two when your house or your part of the world is still asleep is a magical golden time that is incredibly productive.

I'm not saying you have to wake up at 5:00, I let myself sleep later than that sometimes in winter, because we're empty nesters, but you do need to have a regular time that you get up and try not to deviate from it too much on weekends or vacations.

So we're up. Now what? 

2. Hydrate. Drink a full glass of filtered room temperature water with a squeeze of lemon.

Your body has been without water all night and most people are mildly dehydrated anyway so start here. I do this when I take a CoQ10 supplement. This falls between brushing my teeth ( the very first thing I do) and feeding dogs and letting them out. This is literally the easiest thing you can do to improve your health and wellbeing immediately.

3. Move your body. This is probably the hardest one for me because I'm most creative when I first wake up and if I'm going to write I'm playing beat the clock to get any writing done. For me, moving my body initially looks like some stretching and deep breathing. Later in the morning I lift weights and walk. I'd love to say I am religious about the weights and walking. It's a struggle. But the stretching is non-negotiable.

4. Read something positive. This can be your spiritual reading or any personal development book, whatever gets you in a good headspace for the day. Every successful person reads. It's a common denominator. This year for me it’s the entire Bible along with the Bible Recap. 

5. Organize your thoughts. Journal. Morning pages. Intention for the day.

I've made this list as simple as possible for people who may not have any kind of regular routine other than getting coffee and turning on the Today Show. 

DO NOT start your day with the news. Guard your newly awakened mind and body for a while before letting in the troubles of this world. Just doing these things will absolutely transform the rest of your day. 

You may not get to hit everything one hundred percent of the time but what we do most of the time is more important than what we do once in a while. The effects of these small changes are cumulative. The more you do them the more results you'll see.

Let me know how you use your morning routine to impact your day! 

What Standard Are We Navigating By?

 

A few days ago I took a walk after dark with the dog. The moon was full and the weather was unusually pleasant for this time of year though windy. The thing about walking the dog is that there's a lot of stopping and waiting, looking around. He thinks his job is to prevent cardio of any kind. Whatever, dog. 

I love to look at the night sky and while I was scanning it during one of our many stops, through the clouds I noticed a light that looked like a star. But it seemed to be moving so I thought maybe it was an airplane but it was far too distant to be a jet. A satellite maybe? Whatever it was it was moving rapidly. I stared at it for a long time trying to reckon its strange velocity in my mind. The ghostly gray clouds were drifting across the sky. I fixed my eyes on the light to see what direction it was moving. It was moving, right? 

It suddenly dawned on me. The light was stationary and the clouds were being blown by the wind and I'd been using them as my reference point. The light was a star that likely hadn't moved much in thousands of years. 

How often do we do this? We look around at events, or culture, or our own emotions and make judgments based on shifting vapors.  But the plumb line of truth remains unmoved and unwavering. We try to adjust the standard to the shifting thinking and beliefs of our day. In our culture truth has become a dirty word, something to mock and question instead of something to rally to. Many rail against the fixed point holding its place outside of time, civilizations, and empires. A fruitless battle that leads to nothing and nowhere. A fight that leads to exhausted delusion and eventually the inability to even see that the shifting is a vaporous lie confused for truth. 

We cannot navigate by clouds. They are too easily tossed about by swirling winds and the change of season. Our hearts and minds are created to search for that which is decidedly fixed. We are imprinted with the desire for what is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. But our world is corrupted and fallen and easily led astray and we are often invited to step onto the shifting sand of popular opinion. 

It's when the furious swirling is at its most intense that we should take a reading of where we are in relation to the unchangeable truths of life. While many people delight in confusion and take daily readings of the situation to determine who they are and what they think. Let us fix our beliefs, behavior, and values to the unchanged and stand firm whatever the clouds may do.

How to Make Soap at Home

If you are like me you are increasingly alarmed while reading ingredient list for not only food but all my beauty products as well. So what are we to do? There are plenty of places to buy soap without all the added garbage but if you want to make your own, it's very doable. 

If you want to make the simplest version of soap possible you can start with melt and pour. For that read Goats Milk and Honey Soap. 

However, if you want to make the most cost effective from scratch recipe like grandma used to make, well she was probably using tallow (we'll be doing that in an upcoming post) instead of these fancy fats, here's how to do that. 


Often people see lye in the ingredients and ask if this is a harsh soap. Well, this is the only soap we use and my husband whose skin used to be so irritated by commercial soap loves it. I use it on my face. What makes commercial soap so harsh and drying isn't the lye which is necessary to make soap its all the detergents and other things added to it. As you'll see the fats and oils added to this recipe are very soothing.

Now let's get started!

But first...

 SAFETY. SAFETY. SAFETY. 

Lye is an extremely dangerous thing to work with. Especially when it is mixed with water. Always wear eye protection, rubber gloves, long sleeves, pants, and shoes for your protection. Do not make soap in the presence of children or pets! 

Now that I've scared you silly, let's have some fun. You can use a lot of things for molds. Boxes, milk cartons, and silicone ice cube trays.

 Some of my most popular soap is the little honeycomb ones. It's made in a silicone cake pan available on Amazon. 

Ingredients: 

distilled water

 lye

 coconut oil

 olive oil

 shea butter

 stearic acid (optional)

 melted beeswax (I don't always add it and even then it's like a tablespoon. Totally optional)

Equipment: 

Eye protection

Rubber gloves

Digital scale

stainless steel thermometer

large glass container 

large stainless steel pot 

non-reactive spoon or spatula

stick blender

mold

oils or scents

color

The Process:

Lye + water + oil/fat = soap

Lye (sodium hydroxide) is a salt. When the lye is combined with the oils/fats a the process that takes place is called saponification. Though lye is caustic in its original form once the saponification process is complete, no lye will be left in the finished product. 

Measuring: 

Because a chemical reaction is taking place is it important that you carefully measure all the ingredients. It's best not to use kitchen measuring cups or spoons for this but a digital scale. 

The measurements I use for this recipe are: 

16 oz. coconut oil

2 oz. olive oil 

2 oz. shea butter

3.4 oz. lye

7.1 oz. distilled water

1 oz. stearic acid

Making the soap: 

Carefully and slowly add the lye to the water (never the water to the lye!!!) and stir. Let cool. 

Melt the oils and fats together in a glass container in the microwave. I add the shea butter last because it can get a little grainy if overheated. 

Measure the temperature of the lye mixture and the oil mixture until they have cooled to 10 degrees of each other and are both below 130 degrees. 

Pour the melted oils/fats into a large stainless steel pot. Carefully (are you wearing your goggles and gloves?) pour the lye mixture into the pot and stir. Next, insert the stick blender and begin blending your soap mixture. Gently, not vigorously. You don't want to introduce air bubbles. Continue blending until you achieve "trace." 

Trace is when you can see a trail where you have dragged the blender through or when you drip some soap on the surface and it doesn't immediately disappear. Add colors and scents at this point and give a quick blend then pour into your mold. If you want to put anything in it that will remain solid now is the time to do that. I like to encrust my soap with herbs or flowers. To do that just add your dried ingredients immediately after pouring it into the mold)

Cover with a towel and either let cool at room temperature overnight. (Covering allows the soap to cool slowly and prevents cracking.)

The next day pop it out of the mold and cut if necessary. Place in a cool dry place with good air circulation for 3-6 weeks. The process of making soap isn't finished until it has fully cured. 

After that enjoy your luxurious homemade soap!