Blog | Strategic Living

Gratitude and Thankfulness

Gratitude does not come naturally to me which makes Thanksgiving especially challenging. The reasons are many and they are very personal but lest you are curious, I will simply say that I have been a silent warrior for most of life. Fighting, be it for fairness, justice, acceptance or simply to get by, has defined me. It lead me into the life I live now and to what I like to call a “strategic life”.

That being said, it is my opinion that these days we take gratitude and thankfulness for granted. I blame it on the clutter and proliferation of minutia of our lives. Work, chores, social media, and keeping up with the events of the day (whether real or fake), can be overwhelming. Does that sound like you?

But I digress. In this week of giving thanks, it is important that we take time to think about the blessings on our life, and enumerate those things for which we are both grateful and thankful. I will start us off.

I, Gaye Levy, am grateful for many things: my husband, my brother and his family, my home, and the blessing of good health I am grateful that I have saved enough to carry me through (I hope) retirement and that I am well-prepared for disruptive events. Not to be omitted, I am extremely grateful to have been born in and to live in the USA.

Now it is your turn. What are you grateful for?

Easy Homemade Melt & Pour Soaps: Interview with Jan Berry

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When I become passionate about something, be it prepping, essential oils, CBD, adult coloring or ballroom dancing, I go all in.

By that I mean I spend hours embracing my new passion, learning as much as I can about it, and spending hours practicing and enjoying my craft. Reading between the lines here at Strategic Living, you know that my latest passion is soap making. Hot process, cold process, rebatch, and melt and pour, I do it all. It is the latter that I do when time is short and I don’t want to mess with lye and the associated safety precautions and cleanup.

Melt and Pour soap takes a lot of the work out of soap making. Because it starts with a premade base, you can focus on your inner creative self by customizing your soap with colorants, fragrance, additives, swirls, and fancy shapes.

For those of you that are new to the soap making world, there is one name that stands out as somewhat of a legend when it comes to making soap naturally. Her name is Jan Berry and she is a prolific do-it-yourselfer when it comes to DIY body care projects. When I learned that she was coming out with a book on Melt and Pour Soaps I knew I just had to have it and let me tell you, if there is such a thing as an MP bible (MP is the acronym for Melt and Pour), this is it.

Today I am thrilled to share a brief review and interview with Jan and, in my usual Book Festival style, offer up a print copy of her new book, Easy Homemade Melt & Pour Soaps, in a giveaway.

Who Is Samantha Biggers and Why Should You Care?

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For those of you that don’t know, Samantha Biggers is the editor in chief at Backdoor Survival. We became friendly shortly after new ownership took over and did my best to mentor her relative to the ins and outs of full-time blogging. Since then, I have grown to respect her opinions and her lifestyle which are both pretty remarkable given that she is a millennial. You know, a member of the younger generation that is not known for independence, belief in free speech, and the other rights us “grays” hold near and dear to our hearts.

A few months back I asked Samantha if she would be willing to subject herself to an interview and she agreed. It has taken me a while to post this, not through any fault of Samantha, but because of the personal funk I have experienced as I watch the degradation of what I perceive as the erosion of our freedom. You may recall I recently wrote about that in Is American Freedom Under Siege?. A must-read if I do say so myself.

More to the point, you should care about Samantha Biggers because she represents forward-thinking while at the same time embracing a traditional lifestyle of homesteading and preparedness. While I do not always agree with her, she represents our future and that gives me optimism.

Homemade CBD Salve that Really Works

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For almost six months, I have been trying to formulate a topical version of CBD that can be used to mitigate the toughest forms of pain and inflammation. With my understanding of how the endocannabinoid system works, I was convinced that a topical CBD salve would provide relief from both chronic and incidental muscle and joint pain.

It seemed simple enough since all I thought I needed to do is add some CBD oil to a base carrier, similar to what I do when making an essential oil salve. As it turned out, it was not so simple.

Most of my attempts became expensive and messy failures as batch after batch was either too greasy, too firm, or simply too messy to use. I finally resorted to purchasing a pre-made CBD salve and it was perfect in all ways except for cost.

I did not give up, however. About six weeks ago I went back to the drawing board, this time using a CBD concentrate in powdered form. Within days, my resident tester (husband Shelly) told me that not only was this DIY version better than the purchased salve, but when layered with essential oils, it was “unbelievable”. His words, not mine.

So here you go. I am thrilled to share with you a homemade CBD salve that is perfect for back pain, sore knees, wrenched shoulders, sprains, pinched nerves and more.

Beginners Guide to Budget-Friendly Hot Process Soap from Scratch

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For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to make soap from scratch. By that, I mean making soap using only the basics of water, fats, and lye. Yes, lye. As much as I had the desire, I was scared of the process and the perceived dangers. I had visions of suiting up in a sick room outfit suitable for treating a patient with Ebola. That said, with some time on my hands, I decided to do some in-depth research, mostly to get up the nerve to try. I read blogs, ordered some books, and watched dozens of YouTube videos. I convinced myself and I could do this and so I did. The rest is history.

Something I learned right away was that making soap can be a useful, budget-friendly hobby or it can be a money pit, especially at first. As a matter of fact, I used over $30 worth of essential oils in my first 3-pound loaf of soap, and that does not include the cost of the various fats I used, all of the highest quality.

My very first batch of soap made with lye turned out fantastic, but clearly, as a hobby, I could not afford to continue to spend that much money when making soap just for the fun of it. So, after a few months of experimenting, I came up with foolproof recipe for making a budget-friendly soap using commonly available, grocery store ingredients. This is a basic soap. It cleans well, is sufficiently moisturizing, and pleasant to use. The use of fragrance is optional and honestly, there is a simplicity in pure, unscented soap that I find attractive.

With that, let me introduce you to crafting homemade soap using the hot process method.