Dragon's Orchid Garden

As a library information specialist, it is my duty to read as many books as possible (with the exception of books by Danielle Steel and her ilk) so that I may be a more well-informed reader advisor to our library patrons. With this in mind, I reserved several books recently mentioned in the book review pages of our local newspaper, The St. Pete Times . One of them was Cake Wrecks: When Professional Cakes Go Hilariously Wrong by Jen Yates. After coming home with the book and sitting down at my kitchen table with a beer, I began reading and came to page 68. That is when I snorted beer out of my nose. I was trying desperately to NOT spew beer out of my mouth onto the new library book, and the beer just went up the old sinus cavity instead. Carbonated beverages tend to burn a bit when exhaled in this fashion. It seems that Ms. Yates also has a very popular blog . I suggest a look. The descriptions of cake catastophies are even funnier than the pictures, ie. "it looks like some kind o...

I took Liz's shawl with me to the yarn shop to show Rosalind how well I've graduated from simple scarves and dishrags. Her advice on the type of yarn to use was so spot on that I asked about yarn for the Exonumist's Shawl . I've ordered the pattern and can't wait to get started. I picked up 4 skeins of Berroco Ultra Alpaca Fine in Prune Mix for it. I also bought two balls of really soft Mini Mochi washable wool in purples/blues/greens for socks. I am determined to learn how to knit them first with dpns, maybe just to spite my dear cousin Eric , who counsels me to try the magic loop method. I LIKE lots of little pointy needles sticking every which way. If there's more than one way to do a thing, I like to learn the hard way first (I seem to have done that all my life), then every other way is just cake. Now I say goodbye to my companion of 3 months as the Tuscany Shawl is wrapped in it's box waiting for the USPS to take it to Coeur d'Alene to hug my li...