How to make Herb Infused Oils

Herb infused oils are wonderful to have on hand for both medicinal and culinary uses. I've been thinking I ought to try making them for a year or so. Which is why when I saw a little article on how to do in in an herb catalog, I immediately decided to give it a go. Since I had the time, some useful herbs on hand to try it with and copious amounts of olive oil as well. (I tend to get a lot more done when I have the "seize the moment" and "Why not now" attitude)

As a result, two days and very little effort later I had myself some pleasantly aromatic St. Johns Wort oil which I fully intend to use on burns(including sunburns), scrapes and bruises as a pain-reliever and healing rub. (And when I get some beeswax, eventually, I'll make some salve with it too.)

Amazed at how easy it was, I thought I'd give a little tutorial on the subject.

You'll need: a crockpot*, a washcloth, water, a mason jar, herb(s) of your choice and food grade oil, (I used olive oil.)**

This time around, I decided to use a blend of Rosemary and Sage for a cooking oil. (These herbs are also really antiseptic and effective at fending off viruses.) I used approximately half the amount of each. I didn't measure, though.

I recommend using a mason jar with the proper seal and lid, but any old jar will probably do. Just make sure it has a well fitting and leak-proof lid.


Once you've got your herb in your jar, pour in your oil. (sorry about the blurriness of a couple of these photos)

For the culinary oils I used an herb to oil ratio of about 1 to 3. For the St. John's wort, I used 1:2 because I wanted it to be pretty potent. They both turned out excellent so use your own judgment or experiment to see what works best for you.

Screw the lid on tightly. Place the washcloth on the bottom of your crockpot, set your jar of herby oil on top of that and pour water all around it until it's almost to the top. You don't want your jar submerged, or even water to get too close to the lid because water and oil don't mix and a little water could ruin the batch.


Turn your crockpot onto low setting and then continue your life as usual. Just be sure to check back every few hours to refill the water, as it will evaporate fairly quickly. (I refilled mine 2 or 3 times a day.)

Approximately two days later turn off your crockpot and let it cool, remove your oil and open it up to smell the fragrant infused oil.

Strain and or funnel into the storage jars of your choice. (You can even strain it into a bowl or cup and then pour it back into the original jar after you've discarded the herb remnants.)
(As for discarding the herb remnants, I couldn't bring myself to, though I have no ideas of what to do with them. Ideas anyone?)


Label it up. And....
Tada! Your very own custom infused oils. I'm thinking these will be amazing gifts.

I use brown paper bags and permanent markers for my labels. I like to think that it gives them a rustic, natural and old apothecary style. I also like how it gives me a chance to use all the tiny brown paper bags that I get a ton of and don't have the heart to throw away.

*If you don't have a crockpot, or would rather not use your giant family sized crockpot for such a little thing, you can buy a small one for a fairly decent price. I bought the 1.5 quart one in the picture for about 8.50 on sale at Target. It's adorable and perfect for this very thing.

**I didn't use extra virgin olive oil, though you can use it if you'd like. I can't guarantee, however, that it will retain it's healthy extra fatty goodness or whatever it is, since you do heat the oil. Then again, it may not affect it at all.

Spring Fever

Spring is truly here, friends, I am happy to say. Both officially and weatherwise now.


PJM rhododendrons preparing to bloom.

I took a long walk today to work at my friend's pottery studio for a couple hours, and let me tell you, it is delicious outside! Spring is really springing. Today was positively balmy in comparison to this past week.

Yesterday had decently warm weather; bright sunshine, blue skies. But the wind was something fierce, and if you lingered in the shade you could believe that it had only snowed a couple days before. Today, however, ah today. Beautiful today.

I still wore a coat, mind you, and a scarf wouldn't have been a bad idea either, but half way into the walk, after warming up, my coat was a bit too much, so I took it off and wore it around my waist. What a good feeling!

And flowers are blooming. Have I mentioned that? I've actually been walking quite a bit this week and on Monday I noticed some bright yellow peeping out of the dirt. My first thought was "Are those real?" And upon closer inspection, my heart rejoiced, they were! Lovely yellow crocuses. I And since then I've seen white and purple ones too.Camera at the ready this time. (And from now on for the flowers to come!)

I also saw a tufted titmouse on the birch tree outside my window today. I wanted to pull my eyes out it was so adorable. And on my walk home, as I crossed the little bridge down the road, what did mine wandering eyes see? Mr and Mrs Mallard taking a spring afternoon float down the creek. I gaped and grabbed my camera as fast as I could, but they were a bit far when I finally snapped the shot.

(There are ducks in this picture, I promise.)

My heart is light and I feel a bit floaty. Pretty soon there will be leaf buds on the trees and one day we'll look out the window and BLAMF! there will be leaves.

And another thing: squirrels are skinny again.

Wordless Wednesday: Colours of Fall

It feels a bit funny to be posting these autumnal pictures with spring rounding the corner the way it is, but I did say I would! So, here are the promised photos from last Autumn. Enjoy!

Movie review: Alice in Wonderland

I meant to post this yesterday. So, here you are.



Maybe it's a bit late to be doing a movie review on a movie that came out like what.... a year ago? But I rarely see movies in cinemas (way too expensive) and it's even less likely that I'll rent a movie as a new release. Pretty much, if I hear about a new movie that I'm interested in seeing, I settle in to wait until it hits the library.

So when I noticed this one on the shelf at our local library I grabbed it up. I had seen previews for it when my father-in-law took us to see Avatar for Christmas the year before last (last movie I've seen in cinemas, and I only went that time because it was a treat). My first thought was "not another Alice movie!" The Disney Cartoon was good enough! And lets not go into that entirely-too-long live version they made a while back. Really, the book was an excellent read and no movie can really capture the politicality (did I make that word up?) Lewis Carroll incorporates into his strange and imaginative stories. Books, I should say, though they always treat Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass as one and the same.

But then. *cough* I noticed it was by Tim Burton. I have liked a lot of his movies. Even though Charlie and the Chocolate factory was really nothing like the book, and Johnny Depp will never beat Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka...I totally enjoyed that movie. And I loved the Corpse Bride which was really a good story and quite whimsical despite the grim title and scary idea it conveys. So.... I thought I'd like to see it after all.

I brought it to our friends' house to watch after dinner with them one evening. And the result? I liked it!

A lot. It was inspiring art-wise, and funny story-wise. The characters were fun. To look at, watch, listen to. The graphics were beautiful. It was whimsical and mysterious, beautiful yet darkly real too. Real, that is, for a fantasy world.

I loved Alice's clothes. The first dress was a bit boring; the typical Alice in blue. But as she shrinks and grows, her clothes frequently do not re-size themselves with her. (You never see anything though, thank goodness!) So she acquires new dresses and outfits throughout the movie. My favourite was the red and black one she gets when she goes to the Red Queen's castle. (as pictured above)

I also really enjoyed the emphasis on the "Six impossible things before breakfast" quote, which has always been one of my favourites. It just makes me feel like every day is rife with possibilities (impossibilities?) when I think of that in the mornings.

As for things I didn't like it, there weren't many. Since it wasn't actually supposed to be the traditional Alice in Wonderland story, I didn't mind that it veered a lot from that track, but I didn't like how some of the traditional characters were represented. The caterpillar, I felt, didn't get enough screen time. And the March Hare was just kind of there and jittery and not really much of a presence either. Occasionally, I felt I saw Jack Sparrow coming out of the Mad Hatter, but then, Johnny Depp is just an actor and I suppose he can only be so different before he's really just...the same. The White Queen was...well, she seemed too good, too perfect; it made me wonder if it was all just a facade, but you don't really get to find out. And in the end, I was disappointed that Alice didn't stay. The beginning really didn't give you a feeling that she had any real reason to live in "The real world."

The Cheshire Cat, however, I loved. Adorable. Makes me want to get a green tabby cat with big green eyes and a big white grin. Haha. And I loved the part where Alice was small and rode on the dog's back. Makes me want to be small and gallop away on creatures I wouldn't normally be able to ride.

I also kind of feel like making cookies and icing them with the words Eat Me. Overall, I'd recommend seeing it if you're the magic and whimsy type, which I definitely am.

p.s I have my computer back up, thanks to my darling husband, so there should be a good photograph laden episode tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Parenting conference thoughts

We went to a parenting conference today, despite lack of kids.

It was good and thought provoking. I'm not sure I can honestly say I learned anything new, but I definitely got food for thought and heard things that I feel I've always known but never quite knew how to express and got all kinds of ideas of how to put them into action. Pretty enjoyable, that. What I liked best was that they focused on understanding the heart of the matter and teaching children good attitudes above mere behavioural modification techniques.

Among the many interesting points they made, a few stood out in my mind:

You teach children life-lessons when they are young so that they know how to be good adults. I loved that this was one of the main themes throughout the conference. I wonder how many parents think about that. You aren't just training your child not to throw temper-tantrums because you don't want to deal with that while at a supermarket, you are teaching them that losing control and throwing oneself on the floor is not socially acceptable, as children or grownups.

Of course someone wants to have good, well behaved children, but they also want their children to grow up to be well-liked, successful and responsible adults. I think when you teach your kids with that in mind, it may give you a lot of perspective on what course you take as you raise them.

Yelling is what you do when you don't have a plan. This rung very true for me. I hate yelling as a means to teach children, because I don't think it actually teaches children. When you yell "NO!" either once, or repeatedly, all it does is get the child to stop for the moment. It's an instant gratification method but not a long-term solution. They stop, but it doesn't mean they won't do it again.
Now, I didn't grow up in a yelling family, in general, but there were occasional times when we got yelled at. And while it did cause us to get our butts in gear to clean our room right away, it didn't encourage us to keep our rooms clean, nor did it make us think "Well, I should just do this without being told."

Think about it; yelling at adults doesn't work, yelling at kids doesn't work.

Instead of telling them what they are doing is wrong or yelling at them, give them pointers as to how to do it well or what you want them to do instead. This really is good advice for anyone teaching anyone anything. It starts as redirection for very young children, I think. If they are destroying a book, take it away and attract their attention to something else; a child safe toy. When they are old enough to understand take them aside and tell them that books need to be treated with care; show them how to turn the pages gently and so on. If they are an adolescent aged child, explain to them that books need to be put on the shelf and not left on the floor, couch etc. so they don't get ruined or make clutter.

Anger is a signal but not a solution. Can you recognise the feeling of anger before it begins to take action? It seems like a useful skill. When I get angry or defensive, I feel myself get hot through out my whole body. Being angry is not necessarily bad. It's actually good if you take it as a sign that you need to stop whatever you are doing before you lash out.

Both adults and kids get angry. But when adults get angry, they recognise the emotion for what it is. Young children are still learning. They know they have a strong feeling and want take action because of it, but they don't know what it is and until they do they can't control it, indeed, don't even know that they should control it.

So first, it's important to teach your kids how to identify their emotions, particularly anger because it can be such a catalyst to some strong reactions. When they can identify it, you can move on to teaching them how to control it. The conference leaders mentioned three steps to controlling anger:

Identify it. Anger has a few stages, and the sooner your child (and you, for that matter) realises he is angry the sooner he can move on to step 2: Stop and pull back. Instead of hurdling towards destruction charged with emotional energy, stop. Instead of yelling or throwing something, walk away, breathe and so on. When you are calm you can start step 3 which is Think of a solution. And there are lots of solutions any one problem. But yelling, stomping, and or throwing things does not solve problems Help your child learn how to focus on solutions instead of being angry about a problem. Once you give them some ideas to get the ball rolling, most kids can probably come up with quite a few on their own. I love this because it totally applies to adults too.

Of course, the conference leaders had all kinds of good examples and stories to illustrate their points which I can't quite remember or don't have time to go into. But you're clever, you can think of your own, I'm sure. Especially if you have kids.

They had a lot more cool tips and really interesting points too. I felt particularly drawn to their advice about teaching young kids, since (obviously) I'll be dealing with that before I'm dealing with teenagers. And if everything goes as planned, if I teach them all the good attitude and responsibility stuff at that age, then when they're older, they'll only be perfecting it! (Haha, we'll see, right?)

But really, Any method to teach a child should be respectful and done in love and thoughtfulness. One of my personal thoughts is If it wouldn't work on an adult, it probably won't work on a kid. No good manager yells at their employees, or punishes them by hitting them repeatedly when they do the wrong thing or even sending them to "time out." Why do we think these work on children?

You can learn more about the people who put on the conference here: http://www.familybuilders.net/index.html

In which I ramble

Since I've kind of opened this blog up, I feel a lot easier about stupendously going for it whenever any particular thoughts hit my brain. I have so many ideas sometimes it's hard to extract them one at a time. Not to mention how many other ideas swarm in when just ONE is removed, and then remembering what they were when I focus on a new thought. Making lists really helps me in this area, but only for the five minutes or so that I'm actually making and looking at the list. Once I turn my mind to other things....well, until I randomly spot that list laying on the coffee table, I'm probably just as confused as I was before. And if I make my lists on my computer, then it's even less helpful; I have to deliberately open that file and read it. And even if it's named in all CAPS and in the middle of my desktop I'm not very likely to do that. It may be an understatement to say I make a lot of lists...

Well, I happen to have a list of ideas for future posts for this blog. Sometimes I wish the days would go by faster so I could just get them all on here without looking like I have waaaaay too much time on my hands. Which I probably do, particularly on days where I wake up at a modest time. Which I do a lot on days hubby has to work. He likes getting up around 6:45 and being out by 7:15 every morning. Which means I have to be up then too, in order to make his breakfast, get his lunch ready and give him an endearing goodbye kiss.

Well, I don't have to. I want to. John tells me every-now-and-then, on mornings like today where I really don't want to wake up, that I can sleep if I want. Well I've taken this option a couple times and believe-you-me, it's never worth it. I hear him bustling around and can't fall back asleep, then I smell his breakfast and start feeling hungry, but the worst part is when he comes and kisses me goodbye while I lie in bed and then he leaves and I hear the door shut and I want to run after him and appologise for being such a loser wife. Which when I do, he tells me not to be silly because I'm the most amazing wife in the world, but I still feel pretty crappy about it and the sleep is not worth it.

note: I realize there are lots of wives who may not get up every day and do this for their husband and I'm not implying that THEY are loser wives. Everyone's got their own style. It's worth it to me, though, when I see how much John appreciates it.

Besides, I like being up early, it makes the days feel long. And on long days I get a lot done and feel like I still have time to do fun stuff. But I hate waking up. Doesn't matter if it's 7am or if it's 11am. Pulling myself out of the creamy, slippery, delicious vat of sleep, separating dreams from reality, extracting myself from my warm covers and releasing my pillow is pretty much the hardest thing I have to do in any given day. It definitely doesn't help that I love dreaming. It's adventurous, magical and full of amazing ideas. Thankfully, my reality is as sweet or far better than any dream I have these days.

Well I was going somewhere with all this at one point...

Oh yes.

Lists. Ideas for the blog. I have a lot and it makes me mad that I didn't post yesterday, but the main reason was that I couldn't decide. And then when I got around to pulling up my blog my computer went kaputz. I think that's how you spell that...

Well, obviously, I can still post because here I am, posting. I'm on my husbands computer. My computer, which has the lists and photos, needs some mal-ad-viral ware clean up. Which John can easily do when he has the time. Hopefully that will be soon. But until then photos may be on hold, unless I decide to plague John's computer with bunches of files of new photos...Which I very well may, depending on how fast he figures out how to un-kaputz my computer.

In the mean time, I'm going to catch up on reviews of some of the books and movies I've been reading and watching. Mostly books though. I read a lot. And I feel very fortunate that I have time to spend on such an enjoyable hobby. And a heads up, John and I are going to a parenting conference this weekend, so I'm hoping to get some fodder for a post on that. Should be interesting.

Anyway, just letting ya'll know.

Wordless Wednesday: Dirty house, Clean house

I cleaned my house today...It really needed it.


Laundry, dishes, clutter etc...
Eww...



Tada!


A clean house is a happy house.
Do you get depressed when your house is dirty, too? Which chores do you hate or enjoy the most?