Sand Candles

I spent the past few days making sand candles. That almost sounds like I've spent the entire day, several days in a row, making candles. But it's more like an hour here, half-an-hour there to come up with four nice-looking candles.

As with most things in life, especially if one is past a certain age, there's a back story. One doesn't simply decide I'm bored, I think I'll make sand candles today and then jump in and do it. For starters, you have to have wax with which to make the candles, unless you're making soy or bees wax candles.

Most of what is commonly called wax these days is actually paraffin, a petroleum-based substance. (Candlescience.com is a basic site for candle stuff; for a short, easy to read blurb on paraffin, check here.)

But back to the sand candles. Besides wax, you've got to have sand. I know, shocking, right? Sand candles, sand. You also need wicks so you can light the candles, and some way to anchor the bottom of the wick so that it doesn't float to the surface of the liquid wax. Then, if you want your candles to be something other than white, and maybe even have a nice scent, you'll need these, too.

Okay, so I had all this stuff. I'd bought wax - tons and tons of it - that I'd bought over the years. Maybe not tons of it, but I'd bought enough of the stuff in 14-pound blocks to be ridiculous. I still had the busted up remnants of a block of wax, as well as some leftover coloring, scents, molds, and wicks.

Over the past ten years or so, I'd made chunk candles. This involved melting several blocks of wax in small amounts, adding different colors to each batch, pouring each batch into a large pan (old, beat-up metal baking pans are great for this), then, letting each batch harden. Somewhere along the hardening process, when the wax is starting to firm up and no longer liquidy, but not hard hard, I'd take a sharp knife and cut criss-cross lines in the wax. That way, when the wax was hard, it'd break up fairly easily.

Once I had enough variety of colored chunks, I'd take the candle molds out, oil up the inside of them (this makes sliding the hardened candles out a lot easier), start melting some colored wax, making sure to dip the wicks into the hot liquid, then put the wicks into the molds. (There are holes in the bottom of most of the molds I used, through which to thread the wicks. You then have to have a way to finish plugging the hole.) Then, as the wax melted, I'd take chunks of wax in complimentary colors and arrange them throughout the molds in such a way that they show up around the edges of the candle after the main color was poured.

The nice thing with these chunk candles is that you can use the colors to make candles for different holidays and times of the year: a combination of red, green and white for winter holidays; red, white and blue for, say, the 4th of July; reds, oranges, yellows and browns for fall, etc. The main problem with the chunk candles happens to be the fact that you need tons of different colored chunks and a ton of time. Even with all the chunks ready, making a batch of chunk candles will easily eat up a couple of hours at a time - and that's not counting letting the candles cool and harden.

Sand candles are easier. You take sand, put it into a container, such as a small casserole dish, then use your hands to scoop out the candle's shape. While chunk candles (or most candles, for that matter) tend to be vertical, sand candles are horizontal. Once you dig out the shape, making sure that the bottom will be flat (and anchoring the wick[s]), you can add shells around the edges. This is what I like to do, since it adds a little more interest to the candle.

So, getting back to the candle-making: I knew I had wax set aside, just being there. I also knew I didn't have the time or energy to make chunk candles. Also, my daughter, M.H., and her family live near the beach. M.H. is frequently offering to drive me to the beach. We've actually managed to make it there once without a car mishap.

I'd mentioned once or twice that I needed sand for sand candles. M.H. offered to pick sand up the next time she went to the beach. Of course, when she'd get there, she wouldn't have anything to bring any sand home in. Several weeks ago, though, she swung by my place.

"How about coming with me?" she asked when she was ready to leave. "I've got to stop by work for a little while, and then wanted to go to the beach."

Off we went. After stopping by work, we picked up a couple of small pails to carry sand home in, then headed for the beach.

The sky was gray and looked like it might rain before the end of the day; it fit in well with the gray water and lighter-colored sand. M.H. and I walked around, picking up shells, walking ankle-deep into the water, enjoying the almost-empty beach. Between the sound of the waves, the raucous cawing of seagulls, the sound of the wind, and the skittishness of the small sandpipers, it was wildly peaceful. (If you've ever walked on the beach before a storm, you know that wildly peaceful in not an oxymoron.) The occasional person walking by didn't bother me the way seeing people on a packed beach would have.

Just before we left the beach with our shells, we filled the two small pails with sand, then put the pails into a couple of bags and tied the tops to keep the sand in.

Periodically, M.H. would ask if I'd made any sand candles yet, and I'd have to tell her I hadn't. We hang up and I'd think I really should get around to making them. After all, I'd mentioned needing the sand and shells so often to make them, it would be crazy not to.

A couple of days ago, I pulled down a small casserole container and filled it with sand. Then, as the wax melted into a blue-ish green, I set some broken shells around the edges of the scooped-out mold.

The first candle came out beautifully; so did the next three that I made yesterday. When M.H. and her daughter G. came by today, I showed her four sand candles.

"They're neat," M.H. said. "But why is there sand all over the outside of the candles?" I explained that was how I'd made the molds; she'd thought I added the sand to the wax. We both had different ideas of what sand candles meant.

I have to admit: adding sand to the wax might not be a bad idea.

Now if I could get another hour or two to try making sand candles with sand in the wax, that just might be something to see!

Birthday wishes and children

My daughter came over today; she spent a couple of hours here. I'd called and asked her to come over, since I had a birthday card for her.

I can distinctly remember the day she was born. I'd been told that I wouldn't be able to have any kids after her older brother; there were times when they were growing up when I'm sure they both would have preferred being only children; instead, they were joined by two younger brothers. I tell M.H. that she's my favorite daughter; it helps, if you're going to be the favorite daughter, to be the only daughter. (For the record, she's married to my favorite son-in-law; he has informed me that I'm his favorite mother-in-law. I also have a favorite oldest son, a favorite middle son, and a favorite youngest son.)

Several days before M.H. was born, her father and I put up our Christmas tree and decorated it. The night before she was born, I'd peeled several oranges. I was making homemade orange spice tea to give out for Christmas presents, and it called for the peels of three or four oranges; these were cut into strips, then baked for several minutes, then cut up further and mixed with loose tea, whole cloves, stick cinnamon, and several other things I no longer remember.

After baking the peels, I decided to go to bed; the cloves, cinnamon, et al could be assembled the next morning, then packed to send out.

But M.H. had other plans. Sometime during the night, I woke my then hubby up; he called my mother so she could come take care of J.A., after which, we'd head for the hospital. When Mom showed up, I was puttering around the kitchen, putting the tea kettle onto the stove so I could fix her a cup of tea (obviously not the spice tea, since it would have to wait an extra day to be assembled). She came in, checked to make sure J.A. was asleep (he was), then asked how far apart the contractions were.

"About five minutes apart," was the answer. The hospital was a good half-hour's drive away; five minutes apart meant things were beginning to speed up a little.

"What are you waiting for?" she demanded. I thought it was obvious; she'd always taught me that when someone came over to your home, you fixed that person a cup of tea! The water was almost to a boil, and..."If I want a cup of tea at three a.m., I can fix myself!" she scolded. "Now GO, before you end up having that baby in the car!"

As she pushed me out the door, hubby pulled my arm. "Let's go!"

M.H. was born several hours later. As with most babies, she looked a little like an elfish prize fighter, but a beautiful one. Ask most parents, their newborns are the most beautiful babies in the world.

Two asides here: When M.H. gave birth to G., sometime during the night, B. called from the hospital and left a message on our voice mail. "Hey, Grandma," the message started; you could hear the emotion in B.'s voice. "G.'s here. She's beautiful." When I visited a few weeks later, the man who swore nobody had better come up with any nicknames for G. already had two or three for his little girl.

The second one is from when I was born. Dads were not yet allowed in the delivery room, and Dad didn't have much experience with newborns. He figured I'd look like a two or three month old right from the start, all pink and clean and advertisement-cute. After Mom got back to her room, Dad came in to see her.

"Did you stop by the nursery and see Robin?" mom asked. Dad nodded solemnly. "Well, what do you think? Isn't she beautiful?"

Dad struggled to find the right words. He'd never seen a newborn before. Finally, he managed to spit out the truth, in a round-about way: "I'm sure she'll have a nice personality."

Fortunately, Mom forgave the remark, Dad realized newborns are beautiful in their own way, and things got better. (I hope my personality is at least passable.)

But back to M.H.: She seemed very alert and happy (i.e., she wasn't a screamer), she had a tuft of red hair, and the nurses ooohed and aaahed over her.

That evening, after dinner, hubby and I sat and watched TV, me in the bed, holding M.H., he on the chair nearby. After he left, I watched one of our favorite shows while he watched the same from home ("Starsky and Hutch"). I managed to keep M.H. with me until 10 that night; she slept most of the time she was with me. I only half-watched the TV; I was busy counting tiny fingers and toes, looking at her red hair, remembering how tiny newborns are.

We went home the next day morning, a change from when her brother was born, when we nearly had to stay in the hospital three days (he was four hours shy of the 48 hours of age that babies were required to be before being released). That afternoon, I managed to finish putting the tea together, then let hubby take the presents to the post office to send out.

Now, years later, M.H.'s taller than I am. Fortunately, she's also more organized than I am. She's a mom, wife, sister, sister-in-law, artist...a lot. She does them all well...

Happy Birthday, kiddo.