My Home-Made Ginger Ale

I would like to set the record straight about my home-made ginger ale and lemon-lime "soft drinks."

I've offered these recently to friends and they've politely refused, saying they don't drink sugared drinks. Great, they got plain soda water, made from my filtered-water put through the sodastream machine. That's about as home made as you can get.

I make my own ginger "syrup" and lemon-lime "syrup" to flavour the home-made soda water for one reason only: to control the amount of sugar.

I don't know the exact number of tablespoonfuls of sugar that are in each serving of commercial soft drinks, but I know it's a LOT.

Here is mine, for all the world to see. I'll do the ginger "syrup," and then maybe you'll understand why I'm putting quotation marks around the word "syrup."

I used one fair sized ginger root. I peel the ginger root, cut it into small portions and press them through my garlic press. I add 2 cups water.

And one-quarter of a cup of sugar.

I bring it to a boil and simmer it long enough for the water to reduce to one-and-a-half cups. Then I strain it and pour it into a container which I keep in the refrigerator.

Are you with me? I have 1.5 cups of liquid here, and dissolved in that is 1/4 cup of sugar.

To make a ten-ounce glass of ginger ale, I put a HALF TEASPOON of the ginger syrup in the bottom of the glass, and top up with soda water. And ice, if the patron wants it.

A HALF TEASPOON.

I don't actually know how many half-teaspoons are in one-and-a-half-cups of liquid, but it's NOT MUCH.

So really, when I offer you a glass of home-made ginger ale, you can drink it. You've eaten more sugar than that from your diet bar this morning. You get more sugar than that from your vegan protein powder. You get more sugar than that from your bran muffin.

Believe me, you can drink my ginger ale!

Is that laughter...?

The Universe is laughing at me.

A month or so ago, I set out, with a couple of pals, to make beeswax-infused cotton cloths to be used, and re-used, instead of plastic wrap.

The project was a resounding success, the most difficult part being the grating of the beeswax.
But I didn't make enough, and I've been meaning to get around to making more...

In the meantime, my kitteh Spooky got very ill and had to be hospitalized for two days and have a blood test and an ultrasound and a new special veterinary diet. This very diet comes in large tins, and I have to store half a tin in the fridge for a day, since she only gets a half tin at night.

So I have to put the unused portion of the vet food on a plate, and wrap it in - you guessed it - plastic wrap. Each and every day.

I'm using four times as much plastic wrap as I've ever used in my life.

Then, I started a fresh round of migraines. I'm currently waiting for a set of six, repeat, SIX injections into my cervical vertebrae to curb the incessant cluster migraines. In the meantime, I'm taking a migraine medication-of-last-resort: and, it really is a last resort, no pun intended, because it's a suppository.

So in addition to using plastic wrap at four times the norm, I'm going through one latex glove each night.

I did briefly contemplate re-using the glove, but quickly thought better if it, given my scattered thinking processes and somewhat messy housekeeping habits.

Better safe than sorry, I figure. One has to draw the line somewhere!

So much for saving the planet by using less plastic.

Moving on, there's the home-made soap adventure. It only takes a few minutes to make the various recipes. It does take a bit of experimentation to find recipes one likes though. This past week I finally gave in and tried a recipe I'd seen on the internet at least a hundred times, equal parts coconut oil, honey, and Castillo soap. Plus some essential oils.

I used it once, and had to use Boyfriend's Old Spice body gel to wash it off as best I could immediately. I don't know who all those people on the internet were who were raving about this stuff, but I think they're nuts! Bonkers! I've never felt so greasy or sticky in my life! I promptly went back to an older recipe which is much more watery but leaves me actually clean.

Know anyone who likes feeling oily and a bit sticky after their shower? I've got a generous supply of body wash to give away...

I don't mind the loss if the coconut oil. I can even stand losing the half cup of Castillo soap. It's the liquid honey that pisses me off - I could have used that in my tea!

So much for saving the planet with my home-made soap. At least, not this week.

Then there was the palazzo-pants fiasco. I made a lovely pair of pants and wore them going to work last week when I had that unfortunate encounter eith the motorist who didn't want to stop for pedestrians and ended up tripping on the pants, which were too long.

Boyfriend pinned them up for me this week and I'll try again, but not before I managed to seriously injure my already dangerously weak right knee. It's been putting out a fresh bruis each day this week and the pain is getting worse, not better.

So  I'm off to the doctor in the morning. Because I made home-made pants, trying to save some money. I wonder what this fiasco will end up costing me.

I'm not winning.