Suzy, To make a spritzer, the easiest thing to do is buy a small bottle of 'pure lavender essential oil'; (EO) from your health food store. Just make sure the label says that exactly. Some "fragrance oils" are actually carrier oils like canola or almond oil that has had a few drops of pure essential oil of lavender added to it - you can do that yourself with pure EO and much more. Plus carrier oils are oily to the touch, pure EOs are not oily to the touch, they absorb quickly into the skin. That's another way to tell but best bet is to look for proper label wording and read the ingredient list -- there should be only one ingredient: pure essential oil of lavender. With pure EO you can just put 10 drops in a 4oz spritzer with some distilled water, shake well and spritz your skin. Lavender is great for the face, anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties. I use this to set my pure minteral make up powders. Plus you'll have a whole bottle left for other things like: *Swirl 20 drops on top of your bath water before you step into the tub -- for relaxing and stress relief, lavender can help you sleep and the warm water helps it get further into your skin. *A few drops on a piece of cotton, tuck that into an old cotton sock and put that into your pillowcase for scent to sleep by, again helps w/relaxation *A few drops of the pure oil on a burn, immediately - yes it works to take the sting out and prevent blistering. This is an essential natural first aid in the kitchen and will NOT hurt the burn -- this oil absorbs almost immediately into your skin penentrating at the cellular level to heal. It is not like butter which Drs. wisely advise against as it seals in heat. Google Rene Gatefosse for the full story on lavender oil and burns... *A few drops on cotton balls stashed in pots and other out of the way spots in rooms you'd like to scent naturally *Mix about 4-6 drops per oz of unscented natural body lotion to make your own lavender lotion. I like Trader Joe's brand - just make sure there is no mineral oil or petrolatum/petroleum products in the lotion. *Mix about 4-6 drops per oz of pure canola oil to use as a massage oil. Great for sore feet. Add some pure EO of peppermint to make it really refreshing. *Mix a few drops into a mister filled with rose water or orange blossom water which you can purchase from a middle eastern grocery for a two note fragrance spritz instead of using distilled water. Obviously if you buy another EO that you like the fragrance of, you can mix some of that in too for a light spritzer of 3 notes. Mandarin and graprefruit are wonderful light oils for summer. Be careful, I ended up with over 40 EOs because I got hooked on mixing fragrance! Kept cool and in dark bottles/away from sun, they last forever though... On your questaions: Yes you can pull fragrance from plant materials using alcohol but don't use rubbing alcohol - it smells bad, just take a whiff and you'll see what I mean, very harsh. Vodka has no scent - it's the closet alcoholic's favorite for this reason - that's why it's used but the highest proof will be most effective. Yes you have need to strain out the plant materials and after you are finished with your extraction process you can add some distilled water (non-distilled might let bacteria grow). You will also need to add copious amounts of plant materials to the soaking jar (I'd use a mason with lid), crushing the flowers down into a small amount of liquid over a period of weeks to get some fragrance into the vodka. Placing on a warm windowsill will probably help speed the process. Rose is probably a better choice as you can gather a lot of petals if you grow a few bushes in your yard. With lavender, the scent comes from the flowers and you'll need a lot of them. I think it takes about 2000 lbs of lavender blossoms to steam distill out just a pound of pure essential oil. Obviously leaching the oils out in alcohol is not quite the same and will result in a much weaker fragrance than steam distillation done professionally. Go get some lavender essential oil and maybe a few others and begin playing!

Sending wishes for four special ladies: Carol, congratulations on the new baby in the family and hope you are feeling better now that your meds have caught up to you. Susie and Anita, prayers for you that you will be better soon. Sassy, I'm hoping the situation with you brother has improved. Take care of yourselves! The sun has been out here the last two days which is helping. We had bad storms the day before that. We have been getting rain regularly since January and I guess we forgot about the problems it brings - my winter sown containers get flooded and then I spend a few days completely taking the tops off in the daytime so they can dry out a bit and recovering them at night. At least I don't seem to have lost anything yet. However, now that I have planted over 100 containers, it is quite a project! Actually, most of the milk jugs seem to be able to handle the rain, it's all my smaller "use anything style" containers that are having the bad problems. I will definitely save the milk jugs to use again next year. Actually, we go through lots of milk at our house but nearly all the milk jugs now are opaque rather than transparent so there are only a few that we can save. Sometimes I cut the whole top off the opaque ones and try to use them, but then the plastic that I put over the top does not hold up well to the heavy rain. I use rubber bands to attach plastic to the top of the container and those seem to snap apart every few days. Maybe eventually I will get just the right set up. However, the plants in the ground are happy as can be and I will have wonderful displays of daffodils and tulips this year. Will have to post pictures soon. Jeanne

Hello ladies and happy every Holiday I missed. To those of you who do know me, I am back and mentally back on track (I think). To those of you who don't, well I was I am a member, love everyone here. Went away to do some great mission work and had some very tragic things happen. Many hours of therapy later, and actually returning to the Dominican I think I have healed, I am not bitter, sad, or frightened to leave my house any more. I am able to talk about it and I feel that I can share with postive feelings now. But enough of that. Am I to late for April? Please tell me that I can play in April? Max is 4 and we just looked at Co-op preschool. HE is a mama's boy and didn't want to go to big boy school yet. Maryanne~ I have a box for you that I need to send, but um lost your address.. So Merry Christmas when it comes. Ahh. I just don't know what to say or who to say it to because I am scared I will leave someone out. I tried to read as many posts as my brain can handle, but I am sure that I will need some help. Babies and ornaments, tornados and ahhh.. I am not in Kansas anymore. Please feel free to email me with any personals that you'd love to share. I apologize for being gone so long. If there is anything that you want to know email me. If I need to re-join let me know if there is room. Mayanne_ my big sis.. I hope all is well, miss you and thanks for all your support thru this, even though I was a bad lil sis and became an introvert. But guess what? I am back and better. Missed you all Laura.... beans

When we were kids we just wore bright colors. They didn't want the parents to be obligated for costumes. I'm talking about in school, not dance class. When I was in Mexico in college and taking dance classes, short skirts were in. That is below the knee but not floor length. And we wore them with plain peasant blouses. No embroidery. Just ribbons on the flounce. I think it was meant as anti-colonial, and to be less quaint. Even though the skirts flirt the same way as the long ones do, they could otherwise have just been stylish skirts of the time. I think I still have mine somewhere. One is turquoise with red and white ribbons and lace. The other is a black and white print with white ribbons. We did really really traditional for one show, and more interesting ones for the other, but it's the traditional ones I remember best. I knew Jesusita En Chihuahua from school but we did the bridge in Mexico. :) And we did the real version of Jarabe Tapatio instead of the one everyone everywhere learns in school. And La Culebra, which is one of my very favorites. And a showpiece to Guadalajara. I don't remember the more intricate, less trite ones though.