Inspiration and homemade body care goodies

I’ve mentioned this blog before.  It inspired me in a number of ways – in my outdoors adventures with my children, in taking our healthy lifestyle to new levels, to take more pictures (is this possible?) to write in my own blog and hopefully to inspire others.  Most recently, I used Renee’s recipes to make my own moisturizing lotion and lip balm.  My mom’s birthday was coming, and I wanted something lovely, homemade, and useful to give to her as a gift.  I had a friend who gave me something she made, and wanted to give her something in return.  So, I began gathering my supplies.  I had to order a few things that I couldn’t find at our co-op, such as beeswax.  That came from another lovely homeschooling family in northern Vermont.  I felt really happy being able to support their family business/homestead, if only in a small way.  I ordered a few containers to package the gifts in, also.  I borrowed a kitchen scale (then bought my own when I realized my friend’s scale wasn’t quite accurate enough) and got to work one rainy afternoon when we were all content to be inside.

I’ll never buy lip balm again.  It was so easy and simple, and even quick to make.  It feels and smells wonderful and stays on a long time.  It doesn’t feel like I’m wearing wax lips!  It will make wonderful Christmas gifts.

Lip balm cooling

My lotion didn’t quite turn out how I expected.  I loved how it smelled (so did the boys!) but it isn’t quite runny enough to call lotion – I have been calling it body butter, but it might also be called salve – I have to use a spoon to get mine out of my jar.  Once I do a thorough job of massaging it into my skin, it does feel really nice!  However, next time I think I will add some liquid oil instead of some of the solid fats I used.  I didn’t use any essential oils because I liked how it smelled as it was.  I do love the smell of coconut oil, and would love some lotion that smells just like that – so I may try to concoct something for summer using that.

My next concoction is going to be deodorant.  I’ve just been using corn starch and it works really well, but I’d like something for Scott to use, too, that isn’t full of unpronounceable ingredients, and he’s not too excited about using corn starch.

All this homemade goodness had me reflecting on inspiration.  Plenty of times I’ve come across good ideas, but they don’t necessarily inspire me to change the way I do things, or make something I haven’t made, whether useful, lovely, or otherwise.   There are hundreds of beautiful blogs out there, many full of good ideas, but they don’t inspire me the way Renee’s blog recently did.  Maybe it’s because Renee is sort of like me.   We do have a lot in common.  Of course, there are differences, too.  There is a lot about her family life that I’d like to see in ours, but I (most likely) won’t.  I cherish what we have here, but there are ways of life that I value that I will never probably not achieve, because I live with three other people, not all of whom are on the same wavelength as me in a few of these areas.  Scott hates hiking, he loves meat, he’s a little jaded and stubborn when it comes to the health of our planet.  That’s not to say he doesn’t have some excellent qualities, of course!  But some of our values are a bit different from each other.

There’s another popular blog out there that many, many people find inspiring.  Another Mainer – another homeschooler – another crafter.  She’s published two books that arose from the success of her blog.  I actually own both of those books, but I don’t find her lifestyle or a lot of the things she does or makes all that inspiring, for some reason.  Why?

I guess for me, inspiration comes from the combination of beauty, purpose, creativity, skill, and simplicity.  I like to read about interesting people with interesting, close families, that do interesting things together and apart.   The things they do are familiar enough, simple enough and valued enough by me that I know I can or would want to do them, with the amount of time I have available.  My kids are great at inspiring me, of course, but moms like Renee inspire in another way.

Where do you find your inspiration?  Why does it inspire you?