Chopsticks, jigsaws, cordless drills, and soap: Thinking of you in the bathroom . . .

Let me explain this thing in the picture below.

I wrote to my friend the Grasshopper recently, saying,

"Thinking of you in the bathroom . . . "

. . . specifically, every time I open the bathroom closet where we store shaving stuff, extra toothpaste . . . and three bars of soap you made.  (The fourth is on the counter).  My bathroom closet smells so good now, and whenever I open it, I get a wonderful whiff, and think of my friend.

My friend makes soap (if you can't tell), and I'd bought four different flavors (if that's what you call them) about a month ago. mmm, but they smell great. She wrote back to say, in part,

I am so glad you like the soaps!  They will last a good long time if able to drain well; do you have a soap lift, those little silicone bumpy things?  They really, really help!

So, no, I don't have a bumpy silicon thingy.  Alas.  I do keep the soap in a square orange bowl that mostly keeps the soap upright (and hence, largely dry).  But I heed the advice of my lather-wise grasshopper, and I've jonesed over my sister's wooden soap rack for a bunch of years.  So I decided to make myself one. 

I was fortunate to have a couple of extra pairs of chopsticks lying around (I'd rescued them from somewhere -- I'm trash-averse enough that I bring my own metal pairs to restaurants, so not exactly sure where these came from).  For the support bars, I first tried to cannibalize paint-stirrers, but they split apart whenever the drill touched them, so after a few tries, I gave up and went to bed.  

The next morning, I located another small-ish scrap piece of wood that didn't mind the cordless drill as much (and after all, it's an awesome cordless drill!)  So I made the holes first, and then jigsawed the two even-smaller blocks off the smallish, hole-y scrap.   And then I squeezed everything together.  

This lovely little soap rack fits perfectly in the bottom of my orange bowl (phew for measuring correctly!) And so now my soap -- which smells sooo good -- has its own breathing space.