Well this is it! My first blog post on the Covenant Creek website. I thought I would use this as an opportunity to talk about my passions. Yes, soap. But also human health and wellness.
My academic background is in fitness and human performance, with an emphasis in health sciences, and additional coursework in preventive and community health, including biomedical sciences. I have worked in academia, industry and in government in a variety of specialty areas: personal trainer, lifeguard, weight training and swimming instructor, fitness center manager, and for most of the last twenty years, served as a government contractor working with wonderful people who help astronauts stay healthy before, during and after spaceflight. I've had the pleasure of leading university courses where I have brought in experts from all over the world in the areas of cell biology, systems physiology and spaceflight analog models. Opportunities have allowed me to serve as project manager for a national (now international) fitness program for kids, helping them to train like an astronaut, and to coordinate astronaut medical tests and serve as an post-flight crewmember test operator. I've worked alongside the brightest exercise physiologists, nutritionists, neurologists, cardiologists, biomechanists, machinists, engineers, flight surgeons, and my favorite - interns! I've always been interested in learning new things but there is almost always a common core - human health and wellness.
As I'm growing my experience (and Big Pharma continues to grow), I continue to look for new ways to use the miracles of Mother Nature in my daily regimen. In the last ten years or so, I started becoming more interested in essential oils and herbs, tinctures and teas, and the magic of base oils in wonderful, beautiful natural soap.
What oils make a bar of soap hard? Cleansing? Conditioning? What about bubbly or creamy? With skin as your largest organ, does it actually absorb what is put on it? These are things that keep me up at night.
Humor aside, there is SO much we can learn about these natural plants and oils that are right outside our door. Thank you for coming on this journey with me as we dive into God's bounty and blessings, in an effort to help you (and me) support our bodies with the ultimate goal of opening our eyes to our generous gifts from Source.
Here's to living life to the fullest!
-Courtney