Yesterday was the Great Day of Singing to benefit the reconstruction of this church.

The bell tower and the bell blew off and down into the creek bed in 1910 or so, and the bell languished in the basement of the pastorage until the new pastor, exploring with his son, found it behind a casket.

This is the oldest continuously-used church building north of the river, we’re told.

The new pastor told us about how, when he was a boy, you could stand up on the mountain and hear all the church bells ringing one after another on a Sunday morning, and what a fine sound that had been.

Not, perhaps, if you wanted to sleep in on Sunday, but I would like to hear it, myself.

It had been five or six years since the last big multi-church sing, and things have changed since then. All the churches are integrated now, and there was not a hat in the place.

You would still be well-advised, however, if you go to a big church sing at a Southern church and stay after for supper, to choose a cake made by someone named Miss Something. Miss Betty will pretty well always be better at cakes than someone merely known as “Betty.” Perhaps there is some secret process for getting “Miss” added to your name that includes cake tasting.

You will never choose a cake mix again.

The pianists were excellent. Some daft woman sang a song with a tape. She sang well enough, but I don’t know what she was thinking to prefer a tape to the quality of piano players we had that evening.

The choirs were extremely varied, and the music ranged from Lawrence Welk sappy to traditional Southern gospel to spirituals to Whitney Houston style. There was one soloist with a really lovely voice, and a couple of choirs with ragged but very traditional sounds that you don’t often hear these days.

One of the choirs had a woman who sounded like a steam whistle every time she got above an A, and the rest of the voices so quavery with age that it was hard to guess what note they had in mind, but they sang with such joy and dedication that you could not help but smile.

At one point all the choirs joined together for a hymn medley, led by the director from the oldest church. Not the one whose bell tower we were helping; this church dated from before statehood, but has been in quite a number of different buildings over that time. The director did not appear to know how to conduct. She seemed to be dancing, with highly emotional arm waving and lots of hand gestures that had no meaning. She was not perhaps that useful as a director, but she was fun to watch.

A couple of the directors directed from the piano, and one of them took a solo while directing and playing the accompaniment. Our director was, I would say, the second most skillful of them all, so I was proud of him.

It was fun.

Yesterday I did some necessary errands, enjoyed the party, marveled at #2 son’s ability to fly through the air during his gymnastics class, cleaned the kitchen, and then settled in to my knitting.

I show you one of my tidy cupboards here.

I only show you one because #2 son was very scornful about it. “It looks exactly the same,” he said witheringly.

So much for visible results.

To me, the cupboards seem much improved, altogether more logical and user-friendly.

This one has a warped board for its top shelf. Someday I guess we will go get a new shelf, but it has been this way since we moved in and nothing has ever happened because of it, so there is no hurry.

Here is a mess. This mess appeared over the course of the evening. The table started the day with a nice autumnal centerpiece on it. As the day progressed, it acquired a package of lightbulbs because we were going to change the porch light, some magazines people were reading, knitting, the knitting book so I could check the pattern, somebody’s hairbrush for reasons unknown, remote controls when we watched a movie, the phone when it rang and I answered it, bringing it with me back to the couch, and a matchbox which I suppose must have been for the candle. #1 son came home from his date and added a striped tie.

It’s like a midden at an archaeological dig.

#1 daughter came in, having spent the day at work where, since one worker has been suspended for lateness and another went to Dallas for the weekend, she spent a busy day with the manager, who had stomach flu and kept having to excuse herself.

Following that adventure, she went out to dinner with an old acquaintance. They went to the acquaintance’s home after dinner, and were entertained by fights and screaming. Someone walked #1 daughter to her car and she came home to tell us all about it.

“I’m not laughing at you,” said #2 son, laughing, “but it’s funny that you had all that to deal with, and all we had was pudding that didn’t set up.”

This is true. #2 son wanted to try out a new recipe involving convenience foods, and I bought them for him. One of the steps was the making of instant pudding, a task involving the mixing of a powder with milk. I would have said that instant pudding was a foolproof product, but apparently not. It didn’t set up. Not at all. It is still a liquid sitting in our refrigerator. I don’t know what we’ll do with the half-finished recipe also sitting in the refrigerator.

I worked on Ivy. You can see it in the picture above, under the tie. In the last thrilling installment about this sweater, I had completed the back and the right front and attempted to sew the shoulders together, only to find that they didn’t match. Uncertain whether the fault was in the front or the back, I determined to make the left front and see. This I did, and the two front pieces match each other. Accordingly, I frogged the back shoulder shapings and started them again, intending to make them match the fronts, regardless of what the pattern says. I’ll let you know how that turns out.

Today is church and a big hymn sing. I am looking forward to this. One of the other choristers called me to ask what we ought to wear. We, being singers, will be robed, but there is dinner afterwards, plus the question of what ought to be showing beneath the hems of our robes.

The sing involves all five of the Methodist churches in the town. Ours is an integrated church, but we know that there is in the group at least one predominantly black church. “Predominantly black” and “predominantly white” are the polite terms in this part of the country for groups which show de facto segregation. I suppose ours is actually predominantly white, though I think if we calculated we would find that we had about the same proportions of African American, Asian, and Hispanic members as the town’s proportions of residence.

The reason this matters is that it is customary for predominantly black churches to dress up a bit more than predominantly white ones, and we thought it might be respectful to follow the customs of the fancier group. “When I go to my mother-in-law’s church,” the other chorister said, mentioning a predominantly black church, “I often feel underdressed, even if I’m dressed up.”

Miss Manners says that when there is an etiquette conflict, the higher level of etiquette is the one that trumps. The caller thought that perhaps we should follow the custom of the hosting church, on the “when in Rome…” principle, but we don’t know the custom of the hosting church, or even its ethnic makeup, supposing that allowed us to guess.

So I think I’ll dress up, to be on the safe side. Flat shoes, though. You can’t sing properly if your feet hurt.

Thanks to Scriveling for telling us about Free Rice. I thought it was very fun, and donated 520 grains of rice (which isn’t much). Level 47, since you ask. I think I have to go back and play to 50. Sometime when I don’t have so much I am supposed to be doing instead of playing games.

Yesterday was mostly a physical day. I took down sections of the wall (not the plaster and boards, but the things on the wall) and put them back up in more lovely, logical, and alluring ways.

I don’t do that very often nowadays. I’m at the store a couple of days a week, but I am not the manager of that store, and I am responsible for the computer stuff, so I do not usually presume to redo the walls. The manager wasn’t there, though, and the walls were looking very poor and pitiful, so I went ahead. No one stopped me.

There are things to be said for the process of bringing order from chaos. For one thing, in a store, it causes much more shopping to take place. People mostly shop from the areas that have just been rearranged, a fact which brings a pang because they are messing up the area we’ve just cleaned, but really it’s evidence that it was worth doing.

The Empress, during my report on my meeting with the computer person, said that we hadn’t yet seen any result from the computer work. I begged to differ, and told her that I believed it was one of the reasons we survived the move. Since she had recently confided that she was amazed that we had survived it, I would have thought that it was obvious that our online marketing was being effective. We do no other advertising. I also told her that if she didn’t think it was effective, we shouldn’t keep doing it. She said that, since we didn’t know what was working and what wasn’t, we had to keep doing everything, just in case.

The Guerilla Marketing guys say that many businesses that use websites for local marketing decide it’s not worth it and shut them down, only then to wonder where all their business has gone. And practitioners of the dark art of SEO (I like that phrase, Arkenboy) constantly complain that their clients have no appreciation of the value of their arcane work.

So that may have been why I chose to spend time doing something with visible results.

It is the last day for the kitchen on the HGP today, so I intend to spend some more time scrubbing the kitchen, and to rearrange cabinets and the pantry and all that. Visible results, you know. They don’t last any longer at home than in the shop, but there is the brief satisfaction of having everything as it should be.

I have a party this morning, and then #2 son’s gymnastics lesson, and the usual errands. There is a big hymn sing tomorrow afternoon. There ought to be time in there somewhere for reading and knitting or sewing, though it isn’t immediately obvious where that time will be. A nice walk, too, to enjoy the gorgeous fall weather we’ve been having. And #2 daughter and I are collaborating on another writing contest, so I want to put some time into that as well. I also have homework to do. I had better get to it.

Enjoy your respective weekends, all!

I had a meeting with a computer person yesterday — excuse me, a technical design specialist. It was very fruitful, not least in the educational benefits for both of us. Each of us had “ah ha!” moments when the other gave us information we had needed but not had access to before.

She runs her business from a little building which she shares with a woman who does bookbinding. Sheets of paper at $18 apiece line the walls, and sample handbound books sit on the conference tables. The bookbinder had her baby with her. Next door is a little gallery with beautiful pottery, jewelry, and hand knitting. In the next block is a quirky little bookstore and the French bakery I’ve mentioned before. In between there are auto mechanics and a manufacturer and little houses.

This is how I like towns to be.

Anyway, I have some next steps for what I’m working on and so does she. The fabulous Arkenboy told me that SEO was “a dark art,” but not where to find the real estate on the web.

The design person and a graphic artist of my acquaintance are both doing estimates for what they would charge to do the formatting for the books. We will have to compare the costs of learning to do it ourselves, hiring it done, or leaving it undone.

She will also, I think, be able to do tech workshops for us this summer, a thing our customers have really been wanting. She has not previously been able to attract teachers to her classes, but I have the secret to that. I was really pleased when she said, “That’s what they meant by projects! I feel so stupid!” Not because I wanted her to feel stupid, but because I had been the one going, “You can write html in Word?! I had no idea!” up to that point, and it was nice to be able to reciprocate.

Yes, well, I realize that this has been neither meaningful nor interesting for most visitors. What can I say? That’s what I did yesterday.

Actually, I also made brownies for my optometrist. The Princess and I have often mused, when we were at work during the afternoon lull, on how nice it would be if someone brought warm brownies to the store for us, yet no one ever does. So I thought it would be nice if I took warm brownies to the excellent Dr. T, along with a catalog and order forms, on my way to the tech meeting. I worked on, but still did not finish, the last section of the first grade book, got a couple more links, and in the evening I prepared a mailing for my business.

I did make dinner for my family. But apart from a little cooking and baking, all I did yesterday was work. Today will be much the same, though I intend to be frivolous this evening and possibly finish up that skirt or get a few more inches knitted on Ivy.

I am not getting to the gym enough. I was there one day this week, and had a walk on another day, and am feeling fairly determined to get there this morning before I leave for the store, but whatever happened to 30 minutes every day no excuses?

I had more time when we were getting up at 4:00 a.m. I was exhausted, it is true, but I did have more time.

Hymn class last night was about “Hymns as Language,” which means that we were looking at hymns which have been either banished or changed because of their sexist, racist, militaristic, or archaic language.

The group I have for this class has been particularly interested in the idea of hymns being removed from the hymnal. We have previously looked at hymns that lost their place for bad theology, excessive sentimentality, images that modern worshippers find repulsive (like people being plunged into a fountain filled with blood), and so on. This time we were looking just at language. ( This article on inclusive language expresses the current mainstream position on this, in case you’re not familiar with the controversy.)

For example, “Have Thine Own Way, Lord,” which had the line “Whiter than snow, Lord, wash me just now,” in 1907 when it was written, now has “Wash me just now, Lord, wash me just now.” I’ve also heard “brighter than snow” substituted for “whiter than snow.” The thinking here is that the imagery of whiteness as purity can be interpreted as racist. “Good Christian Men, Rejoice” is “Good Christian Friends, Rejoice” in the current Methodist hyman; I’ve also sung it “Good Christians all, rejoice.” The idea here is that “men” makes women feel left out.

Now, with songs like these that can be altered pretty simply, the debate is likely to be over whether the new version is bad poetry or not. “Wash me just now, Lord, wash me just now” is arguably a worse and a less sensible line than the original. “Good Christian friends” doesn’t quite mean “good Christian men” or even “good Christian people.”

And sometimes, including last night, there is a suggestion that people who are offended are just being touchy. “If you looked at every page of the hymnal, trying to be offended,” one person said, “You could find something to be offended about on every page.”

In response to that, we looked at “Rise Up, O Men of God.” This hymn was written for a men’s group wanting a hymn on brotherhood, and there is no way female listeners can feel included in it, it seems to me, even if there are still women who hear “men” as an inclusive term for humans, which I doubt. I suppose that when it was put into the hymnal, a woman who said, “This hymn depicts the church as a weak woman waiting for men to come and rescue her, and it talks only to men, and I don’t want to sing it,” would have been considered hysterical, but it probably doesn’t belong in modern hymnals. A song like this cannot be fixed with a couple of word changes, and often the tune is simply given a new set of words, or the whole thing is thrown out.

There also are usually discussions on what Brian Wren calls, “How I love that awful old hymn!” That is, we may know that “In the Garden” is vacuous treacle, but love it anyway. We may recognize that “The Church in the Wildwood” has a rudimentary tune and nearly content-free lyrics but still think it’s fun to sing.

One of my own favorites is “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” and I think you’ll enjoy this youtube recording of it, but I always forget what “Here I raise my Ebeneezer” means, and in fact large sections of the text are completely incomprehensible to the average congregational singer.

Now that few families gather around the parlor organ to sing hymns in the evening, people agitate to keep their beloved hymns in the hymnal where they’ll get some chance to sing them, no matter how horrible they may be as music or theology. Realistically, being removed from the hymnals of the mainstream churches is a death sentence for a hymn. Who among us now knows “We’re a Happy Pilgrim Band“? Google does, but just barely — there is only one entry for this song.

But last night one of the women said that removing or changing hymns for the sake of inclusive language was censorship.

“It’s like taking Harry Potter out of the library because someone finds it offensive.”

I suggested that asking people to stand up and sing something offensive with a group was different from having something available for private reading.

“I appreciate the very clear way you explained the difference between the two cases,” she said with impressive courtesty, “but I still think that it is censorship, and something that shouldn’t happen in a free country.”

I imagine that, were we to ask the committee currently working on the new edition of the hymnal, they would say that there are so many hymns that it is impossible to include them all, that old ones must be removed to make way for new ones, and that it is not cencorship but prioritizing.

But I am finding it an interesting question. Take it beyond the hymnal: should we lose good songs and stories because they are offensive or archaic? Should we have museums of bad old hymns people love?

I have a long long long to-do list today, as well as work, lunch with a friend, and the Wednesday afternoon line-up of study group, then bells, then class, then choir. I’ve knocked a few things off my list already, but it is still very long.

This is good. Someday I will be old and bored and lonely, looking back on these busy times with nostalgia.

That is probably not true. The old people I know are not bored and don’t seem lonely, but are in fact extremely busy and continually having trips and parties and things. But I like to look at current difficulties and tell myself that I will miss them in the future so I ought to appreciate them now. It hasn’t been true yet. I enjoyed my college days, and the time I had with my babies, and all that, but I wouldn’t go back for anything.

I went to class last night without my homework, and lived. Then I came home and #2 son and I unpacked the boxes of Pampered Chef swag. He is great at this. He gets excited about things, and helps me test them, and helps to decide which things we should keep for ourselves and which should be gifts and things like that.

Pampered Chef, I told the boys last night, is a lot like World of Warcraft. You have these quests, and if you succeed, you win cool stuff. I have never played WoW, but all of my kids do, and I see it going on. They do things like go fishing for an hour and then they get a cloak or a hat or something.

They did not see the similarity.

Among my quests for today (not Pampered Chef; I am back to my to-do list here) is to figure out permalinks, trackbacks, and pings. One of the troubles with the SEO aspect of my job is that the terminology is way too cute and way too specialized. It is easy to get lost in the jargon.

That’s true in education, too. I’ve just been in that long enough that I can assimilate new buzzwords with ease. I remember, in my first week at the store (and I had been teaching for years before that, but in college, which is different from the vocabulary standpoint), someone came and asked, “Where are your math shelves?”

I, shell-shocked from terms like “Punkydoodle” and “boo-boo tape,” figured there was an object called “math shelf,” and toddled off to ask about it. The customer wanted the shelves on which we kept math materials, but I could no longer understand normal English.

Back to the list!

 Yesterday was a difficult day. Not in the sense of having bad things happen, though that is what we usually mean when we say that.  And not in the sense of having to work hard, though I did. It was difficult in the sense that I was doing things that are difficult to accomplish.

I nearly finished the rough draft of the first grade book, but the parts I am working on are hard. I am taking the store blog through a transition, and that is hard. I’m trying to keep the store website poised for the next step with it, without actually knowing when I will be allowed to take the next step. I am trying to figure out some things about my new business that are difficult to achieve. I had talks with my kids on changing majors and coping with marital troubles and working on a career, and those are difficult topics, especially since I am trying to be supportive but not intrusive. The music was hard last night, and just at the point where I felt I was beginning to sing it (as opposed to merely producing notes), the director got frustrated and said “Oh, come on!” to the sopranos, and then, after a moment, “We’re done. See you next week.” I had a bunch of frustrating tasks to undertake, none enormously important, but all having to be done.

I also discovered that one of the terms I was working with in the first grade book is so commonly used in Bondage and Discipline circles that the B&D usage is what you come up with when you first type it into a search engine, and that was an unforeseen difficulty, let me tell you. I was tempted to decide that it didn’t matter, since few first graders travel in B&D circles, but I had a mental image of teachers googling the term in order to get more background… And of course I am terminally unhip, so it might be that teachers would, rather than googling the term, snap the book closed and put it back on the shelf instead of buying it, having seen that expression. Kind of like the way my kids bridle with disgust when I mention thongs, which were a type of footwear in my youth.

What all this made me think of is how rarely we do difficult things as adults.

 We expect our kids to all the time. If they struggle with math, we expect them to work harder. If they want to give up on their piano lessons, we refuse to allow them to be quitters. But for us, as adults, the fact that something is hard for us is enough reason to give it up.

We are prepared to work hard. But not at things that are hard for us.

How many times do you hear people say, “I’m no good at that,” “I don’t do that,” “That’s not one of my gifts,” “I’m just not a _____ person”?

And perhaps that is a privilege of adulthood, and one that we have earned by trying hard at all kinds of things for which we have no natural talent, all through our childhoods.

 In any case, I was struggling enough yesterday morning that my usual 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. stuff wasn’t completed till nearly 10:00. I normally go to the gym around 8:00, but by 10:00 I felt too rushed. I also definitely needed to get up and move a bit.

I decided to lop the changing and driving time off my morning workout by taking the dog on a neighborhood walk instead.

It was cool (by our standards, I mean — #1 daughter reports that going from an 80s autumn to Pennsylvania ideas of “great weather” is a chilly experience) and misty, and I enjoyed checking out the seasonal decorations. I even took some pictures for you.

You will have noticed a sameness, I expect.

Essentially, in my neighborhood, we have pumpkins on the porch, with choice of potted mums or autumnal wreath.

Me too. I went with the wreath.

I think you have to go downtown to get resin tombstones or phosphorescent skeletons.

I might have to do that.

Go downtown, I mean. Although #2 son might prefer to have the tombstones and stuff. This may be what he has in mind when he says that the house is not sufficiently decorated.

 It was Fiona, the big dog, that I took with me on my walk. Going for a walk with her is like going on a walk with a tractor or something, at least for the first mile. After that, she gets worn out and quits trying to pull my arm out of the socket.

She needs to learn Controlled Walking. Or, since I am the human, I need to teach it to her.

We stopped by the pumpkin patch, where we were sociable. This is a side benefit of Pampered Chef, actually. Having practiced a higher level of sociability with strangers, I am finding it more natural to be sociable with acquaintances. Fiona the dog is just naturally sociable. She and I found this wonderful warty pumpkin on the table of winged gourds.

It was part of a new truckload of pumpkins that arrived yesterday. I may have to go back and buy it. I had already gotten some winged gourds when  I was minding the pumpkin patch. Yesterday’s mail brought a very sharp Hallowe’en card  from Scriveling, and I think it looks very good on the mantle with the winged gourds.

A warty pumpkin might be just what is needed to complete the effect.

Today I will be at the store, so there is no hope of my finishing the draft today, but there is always tomorrow. Maybe I will return to it refreshed and do better.

This is also the night when I go directly from work to class, with no dinner in between. And I am expecting shipments today, which I will not be home to receive, sort, and deliver.

I have also mislaid the homework for tonight’s class. I may or may not be able to find it in the time available this morning. And it is bill-paying day, so I must try to fit that in somewhere.

All these things are small things, hardly worth mentioning. I don’t know whether I am hoping for an easier day today, or trying to convince myself that I will have another difficult one.

We woke to the sound of rain this morning. Very nice. Discovering that the books under the dining room window were soaked was not as nice. Sitting on the sopping wet seat of my husband’s car was not nice. If I ever looked at weather reports, I would know when to close the windows.

Never mind. As you see,  I finished the jacket yesterday. I had been thinking of it as kimono-like, but Smarticus’s comment opened my eyes to the bit of ’40s vibe it has, and I bravely topstitched it and turned up the cuffs.

Topstitching is brave. There you are with a nice garment, you do some bad topstitching, and it is ruined.

Fortunately, the operation was successful. I love this jacket. What you would not know from reading this blog is that my eyes are this color, though a little lighter, so it is a good color for me, too.

Smarticus asked what shoes I intended to wear with this suit. I sort of feel that that question should be reserved for the graduate seminar, but I will give it a try.

My first thought was of the pointy bronze witch-toe shoes. You see them here with the print skirt which is still unfinished while I think of how to solve the whole twining and clinging issue.

I realize that flats with a suit are geeky, but these shoes ought to be good when I wear the jacket with a long skirt or with pants.

Then, below, there are the burgundy pumps, with the top of the two-piece dress from SWAP part I. I could perhaps wear them with the suit. The people on What Not to Wear frequently say that shoes can be a complete contrast to the outfit.

It seems to me that a gray shoe with a comma heel, whatever that may be, would be perfect. If I still have the suit when #1 son graduates, I’ll buy some.

I hadn’t thought about shoes, though. I probably should have.

It is kitchen week on the HGP, so I put in some scrubbing time yesterday. I also put a King Ranch Chicken casserole into the freezer. The HGP has you put some meal into the freezer each week, so that when the holidays come and you are very busy, you will have something handy.

Since I am currently away from home at dinner time at least two nights out of each week, it’s hard to believe that I will be busier come the holidays, but I am dutifully following directions.

This is also the point at which we are supposed to look honestly at our handmade gifts and consider whether or not we are really going to finish them.

Since I never did come up with an inspiration for needlework gifts this year, #2 son and I plan to give all kitchen gifts, a plan which is less time-consuming but also dooms me to lots of last-minute stuff. Perhaps I will be glad to have meals in the freezer.

I didn’t get any Hallowe’en decorating done yesterday, but I do have a creepy candle on the table.

I have rehearsal tonight, and must get to the gym, and of course it is a work day, but I hope to sneak in a bit of sewing at some point. Once I finish the skirt, I will have my autumn suit ready and will only have to think of shoes for it., Or chance looking geeky in flats. Those witch-toe shoes have a half-inch heel. Does that count?

Conditions yesterday were perfect for a PSD. The weather was lovely, three Netflixes arrived in the mail so I could have background movies, my trip for groceries also yielded buttons at a serendipitous 40% off, and no emergencies arose.

So here are the results of my sewing, unfinished, unpressed, full of pins — but it’s a suit.

The jacket is Vogue 7941, a Very Easy Vogue pattern, and it is, too. The fabric is a spruce-colored wool off the clearance table. I cut and sewed it without making any changes at all, just trying it on as I went along to check the fit.

The skirt is my TNT straight skirt pattern, Simplicity 4950, and I cut it about an inch longer than the pattern calls for.

The sleeves have an interesting shape. There is a facing, which is interfaced and sewn on at the wrist edge, so the length cannot be adjusted after the sleeve is completed. I feel as though the sleeves are a bit too long, but I think it is the style, so I am going to go with it.

I like the wrap. If my photography skills were better,you would be able to see here the pretty Celtic knot buttons from JBH. I have the same ones in a larger size for the skirt. The closure involves making loops of soutache braid (I used some tiger tail that I had on hand) and sewing them into the seam of the self-facing.

The pattern also has a tie and a buckle option for the closure. A two-part clasp or frog might also be nice.

I am pleased to report that I had no difficulty with setting in the sleeves. Maybe I have gotten the knack.

The lapels are the major design feature for this jacket, of course. The instructions do not suggest topstitching. I am hoping that pressing will be enough for them to keep their shape. I pinned them overnight to sort of give them the idea.

It is unfortunate that this is not the kind of jacket you can make multiples of without its looking like multiples of the same jacket, since it turned out so successfully.

Though perhaps I shouldn’t say that yet. I have hems and finishing and pressing to do yet, so I could still ruin in.

I am fairly sanguine, though.

I’ve only done the darts and seams on the skirt. It doesn’t have a waistband, but I still have the waist facings, the hem, and the zipper to do with it. I hope to complete the suit today.

In addition to the collection of Netflixes, I also received another box of free stuff from the Central Office. I bet that gets sort of addictive. People who have done this for a while and then give it up must begin to feel a little bereft, since no one is sending them presents any more.

One of the things in the box was the candy-making gear I plan to use for December shows, so #2 son and I tried out the recipes. In December, the pretzel things will be wreaths, but we were going for a spider-web effect. The other thing is almond-cranberry bark.

Almond bark is a thing you can buy in the baking section of the grocery store. It was new to us. It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with almonds. It is made of sugar and partially hydrogenated vegetable fats, or at least the only brand I found is made of those two things. It doesn’t contain almonds until you put some in. All I can figure is that it is customary to put almonds into candy made with almond bark, or that the stuff was somehow inspired by a candy also called “almond bark,” which is chocolate with almonds.

We were suspicious of it, frankly, so we also used some Ghirardelli chocolate, just in case. The Almond Cranberry Bark tastes good, though. I sometimes make Opera Fudge with cranberries at Christmas, and this candy is reminiscent of that. It has almonds and dried cranberries and Rice Krispies in it, an unlikely-sounding combination which is actually quite tasty. It is also extremely quick and easy to make, and will certainly find a place in my Christmas baskets. It is supposed to be broken into pieces rather than cut, perhaps to make it look like tree bark.

I have a feeling that most people are more familiar with this sort of thing than I am, and I probably sound unusually ignorant as I describe this exotic candy.

The idea of dipping pretzels into candy was new to me, too, though #2 son was familiar with it. He liked drizzling the chocolate, so there was a great deal of drizzling involved.

The boys tell me that our house is not sufficiently decorated for Hallowe’en. I’m going to see what I can do about that today, and try to finish up that suit.

Lolling around may also be a feature of the day. There is a church meeting this evening which I feel as though I ought to attend, but I am not going to commit myself to it. I am finishing up a book called Cyber Cinderella, by Christina Hopkinson. It is a Booksfree.com book, and it is about a woman who finds that someone has made a website about her. It could have been a creepy book (I need one more creepy book for the RIP autumn challenge) but it is not. It also has no elements of the Cinderella story, and I have done numerous workshops on the Cinderella story, so I can say that with confidence. It doesn’t even have a whole lot of computer stuff in it. I am confident that Pokey could have solved the supposed mystery within an hour or so. But it is a fun little book of the British chick lit variety in which people drink enormous amounts of liquor, travel around a great deal (but maybe distances are shorter there since it’s a small country, so it is really the equivalent of our going to the next county) and rarely do any work. My mental image of England, based as it was so largely on the BBC and classic mystery novels, may be changing slightly since I have read a good few books of this genre since joining Booksfree. Maybe someday I will go to England. No one will be murdered, no one will ask me to tea, and people will spend their work hours working rather than drinking, and I will be somewhat disappointed. Like people who come to America and are a little let down because we don’t all carry guns and have sex with strangers at all hours of the day.