Drollerie books keep getting better.

I liked Angela Korra'ti's Faerie Blood very much, and last night I read Cindy Lynn Spear's The Chocolatier's Wife and liked it even more.

The Drollerie Press sale had a glitch one day, so they've extended it by one day. If you go there now you can look at excerpts (some quite long) and buy ebooks for $1.99 or less. Tomorrow the prices return to normal.

The Chocolatier's Wife is basically a murder mystery. ( Review, with prob. not much in the way of spoilers, but some, yes. )

I had a dream.

I'm up and trying to remember my nightmare while circulation returns to the 3 outside fingers on my left hand.

( cut for subconscious weirdness and rambling. )

The End of the World is at hand

I'm not talking about the ozone layer and global warming, mutant frogs/starving polar bears, hurricanes, droughts, red dust storms, floods, blizzards, Tasmanian devils and koala bears with incurable disease, killer bird/swine/hippopotamus, etc. flu epidemics, economic crashes, evil insurance companies, inadequate health care, energy crises, drug-resistant VD, AIDS, sexy fashions for small children, popcorn-popping cellphone radiation, terrorism, warfare, Microsoft, or pollution.

No. I'm talking about CHOCOLATE. In a moment of weakness, I bought 3 bags of old favorites to hand out this Halloween. As I haven't had many kids come by in recent years, I chose chocolates that I like & which had no gluten on the labels, in case I have to spend the next four months eating them myself.

One ingredient in the Mounds and Hershey's fun-size bars, PGPR, was a mild puzzle, but I recalled that it was a non-gluten emulsifier, so I got them, along with PGPR-free M&M's. I googled PGPR today. It is a derivative of the CASTOR BEAN PLANT.

They're replacing cocoa butter with castor oil! I ate a Mounds and a Hershey's and can report that it makes them taste like DIRT. BOYCOTT PGPR!! SAVE THE WORLD.

Pic Spam. Dragonfly, Butterflies and one lizard

( 9 pics )

Giraffes and Drake's Halloween costume

( 5 pics )

My sewing room.

My sewing room-- and honestly... this is nowhere near all the sewing stuff I have. There's a ton of leather and yarn still hidden in the closet in the 'computer room', along with 100's of craft books, a 'love chest' full of fur, and oh, yeah, LOTS of fur is in the guest room along with lots of leather, and there's a chest of fur in the living rooom... I have GOT to do lots of sewing and either give or sell stuff.

This is the last room I need to strip out and repaint. I did the ceiling (three times... *sheesh*) and ONE DAY, I will do it.

But it's not going to be soon. I labeled some things, but not room enough on the pics to describe everything. If you wonder what something is, just ask.

( 9 pictures )