Catch Up

Its been a busy weekend here.
On Monday I stayed home with Kaisha so on Thursday I went into work for a couple of hours. With Kaisha. As she is still coughing I didn't like to ask anyone to have her as all my babysitters have kids themselves. I just needed to whip up a lip balm so took a laptop, some dvd's and colouring in things. There is a desk in the lab with equipment on it out of the way of everyone so I made a cubby for her under the desk and set the laptop up on the a box. She was so good. It was all so different and people were coming and going and she was happy as. Towards the end of the 2 hours she started to pester a little so I finished up then. I needed to then distribute the lip balm to people before I left so we walked about dishing out lip balms to everyone. As I was going past the owners door he asked for a meeting !!!(I had ok'd bringing Kaisha in with him first). I went "umm I have Kaisha with me" and he goes "just bring her too". So I ended up sitting in the board room with both owners and the sales manager with Kaisha on my knee reporting on my latest projects. Was very surrel and went something like this. "I'm up to version 13 for this project and am quite happy with this one although it still needs tweaking as the pH isn't quite right yet, yes Kaisha you can have an orange when we are finished, and as I was saying the pH has to be lower for it to be preserved effectively". They really didn't seem to mind the interruptions tho so its good to know that in a pinch I can take Kaisha into work.
Friday we had mothers group here and William one of the little boys was turning 2 so we had a little party.

Photo time! - William, Joshua, Beau, Kaisha, Delta & Sienna. Jasmin is hidden by Delta's hat.

Cake time - I asked the kids to sit in the kitchen and eat their cake and they all lined up like this.

Saturday we had a lovely lazy day, I did some reading, some gardening and some playing with Kaisha. I also reorganised my kitchen cupboards which will have to count as my craft project this week as I haven't gotten around to anything else. Yes my sewing machine is still at the shop. I really must ring them up again. I am knitting Kaisha a scarf at the moment but I can only do it when she is asleep as she likes to "help" me knit it. This consists of her getting a knitting needle and poking it thru the knitting, not so helpful at all really so I only do it when she is sleeping. Anyway, back to my kitchen. The reason for the reorganise was another tupperware party I attended two weeks ago. Just a little bit more and I will be sorted "wink".


Isn't it beautiful! I keep leaving my cupboard doors open on purpose so I can stare at it.

I have the best job!

I had a really interesting week at work this week. On Monday I made my first sunscreen. From scratch! I was so excited when it actually turned out OK. It will actually be a moisturiser with SPF 15 when I'm finished but to start with I made a sunscreen. Sunscreens are really hard to make and especially "natural" ones.
First you have the Zinc which likes a neutral pH, versus the preservative which likes a low pH. Then you have the zinc + oil + water which don't go together that well. Sunscreens are quite hard to stabilize too, they have a tendency to separate down the track.
Mondays V1 turned out a nice thick white cream but created a ghosting effect which turns the skin slightly white. Tuesdays V2 turned out thicker and matte with even more of a ghosting effect. Wednesdays V3 is a glossy cream and creates a slight ghosting effect which fades after an hour. V3 is definitely the nicest version so far but I'm not sure its going to stay together. Only time will tell. I'll be testing V3 on Friday when we go to the zoo. Half my face will have cream on and half without. We don't test on animals but we test on me! I should really get risk money!
At present the only way to test the SPF of a sunscreen is to send it to a lab where they test it by actually applying it to someone's (most likely a student) back and then sit them in the sun for a specific amount of time, then measure the square of sun screened skin against un-sun screened skin. Primitive and expensive!

I also have been developing a shower oil for winter. I didn't really know what a shower oil was either but while playing round with different ingredients I managed to create this really cool gooey gel which is really moisturising. It rubs on clear and glossy like a thick oil, then when you wash it off it turns milky and leave the skin feeling really smooth and moisturised It was a complete accident and the secret of the consistency is in the method of manufacture. Monday I made 3 versions. On Tuesday I did 4 batches and every single one failed. Tuesday was one of those days when R&D is just plain depressing! Anyway Wednesday I managed to reproduce it so now that I know exactly how to make it I just have to tweak it and make sure that its stable.