Back from the Alabama Soap Meeting

Friday and Saturday I drove to Prattville, AL to attend the 10th Annual Alabama Soap Meeting, which was a whole lot of fun. We had wonderful door prizes, goody bags stuffed with neat samples, coupons, magazines and other wonderful things, vendor tables, garage sale tables to buy each other's surplus stuff, and wonderful talks and demos, including how to hand-dip candles, how to make massage candles and frosted soap cupcakes. Our extra-special guest speaker was Anne-Marie from Brambleberry and Otion, who spoke about how to succeed in business and how to set goals. Talk about a dynamo! She is so full of energy and enthusiasm that she made me feel like a sloth (anybody who accomplished as much as she did before the tender age of thirty AND goes running before breakfast makes me feel like a sloth!). I didn't take a camera, but my fellow soapmaker/friend/blogger extraordinaire, Karen, did. You can see her pics and read more about the meeting on her blog, Rurality.

The trip home yesterday was a little harrowing- it rained buckets--so heavy at times that you could barely see the car in front of you. Fortunately, the car in front of me during the worst of it turned on his flashers, so I didn't rear-end him(or her). At one point, though, I was behind a truck pulling a trailer with some tall box-like containers. The straps holding the boxes looked to be vibrating an awful lot and the boxes seemed to be swaying. I wondered whether the straps would break, sending the boxes crashing onto my car. Thank goodness they didn't, because when the rain let up and I was finally able to pass him, I saw the truck was hauling porta-johns. I have no idea whether they were full or empty, but if they'd fallen off, it would have been one stinking mess, for sure! I was so happy to finally exit off the Interstate for the last ten miles of the trip. Except that last ten miles took over an hour, thanks to a resurfacing project.

The rain here was good for the garden, but getting home at dusk/dark both nights, and being in a rush to leave in the mornings, I didn't check to see how the veggies were doing, so this morning I was picking some cucumbers, zucchini and yellow squash that had grown to elephant-like proportions! Since I don't like to cook humongous zucchini as a veggie, I'll probably grate them. I can see a zucchini cake in our future.