perfection = soap and cake

It is a perfect, cloudy fall day of soap- and cake-making. What could be better?

(I have always been obsessed with these cakes for the bazaar in  Disney's Pollyanna.)

When I was pregnant with Alexander, I fell in love with the smell of soaps and cleaning supplies of every kind, an obsession that has not entirely left me now that he is 9 months old.

Today I made homemade laundry soap, two gallons of it! It is the easiest thing in the world, and costs one cent per load!  My favorite moment by far, in all of the soap-smelling and stirring, (neither of which is really required by the recipe) was grating the bar of ivory soap with a cheese grater. The lovely sensation, the slippery ease and the pile of soap shavings, along with the increased soapy smell did my heart good.

I would have taken pictures, but in the moment, I forgot.  Well, I did take one boring one, but the pile of soap shavings was already dissolved, so how much fun is that?

I also found this post about making cakes like the ones in Disney's 1960 Pollyanna. I will try to take pictures when I make that.