LVMM Craft Fair

I LOVE planning events.  I do!!  Until the event is right around the corner and then ...AAAAAAAAUUUUGGGHHH!! 

And the Quaker Meeting Craft Fair is right around the corner.  Say it with me!!!  AAAAAUUUUGGHH!

So tonight I made my Special Chocolate-dipped Orange Sticks to sell at the "Bake" Sale table.  My craft this year is Paper Bead Stars.  I hoped to be able to make more but the planned-but-never-realized cruise and its destroyer, the-mother's-hospitalization sort of stole my crafty time and inclination.

One of our earlier craft fairs - beeswax ornaments!!

The Chocolate-dipped Orange Sticks are - need I say? - awesome.  And I priced them accordingly - as in not too cheap.

So, what are Orange sticks?  They are old fashioned candied orange peels.  But, when you dip them into a mixture of quality chocolate chips and candy melts - dark, of course - they become something so much more.

 I truly hope they all sell because I do not need them hanging around my house.  And my father, God rest his soul, is no longer here to help me eat them.  Hub is not a big sweets eater.

So, this event is October 26th from 10 am to 3 pm at Lehigh Valley Quaker Meeting - 4116 Bath Pike, Bethlehem, PA 1/2 mile north of Rte. 22 on Rte. 512.

Jewelry, pottery, glassware, miniatures, ornaments, knitted goods, soups and bread and baked stuff, delicious honey from our resident beekeepers, some vendor-y types like 31 Gifts and Tastefully Simple and a rather impressive used book sale - AND live music from 11:45 to???

Please come if you are in the area.  I will be there - thinking wistfully of Florence - but only if I have the time.

Disappointment - and relief

The Hub and I were supposed to be winging towards Venice, Italy, right about now.  Off on an adventure that included St. Peter's Basilica and Mt. Etna and the walled city of Kotor in Montenegro.

We have one aged parent left between us and she is dear to both of us.  So when she ended up in the ICU last Sunday night we had to consider what we could do.  Our adventure seemed too far away and took too long to leave her.  So, we postponed it.  Sigh.

Mom is home and the only wear she seems to have borne is the wear of spending six days in the hospital.  No one knows why her body did what it did.  Further tests will wait until she heals a bit more.  She is fine.  She's at a play right now.

So disappointment is followed by huge relief.  And the need to scurry around preparing for three weeks of travel - and a Craft Fair - has disappeared.

I wish I could say I have been reading and taking copious notes for reviews.  NO.  I have not.  I have been trying to make sure everything was ready for the Quaker Craft Fair this coming Saturday.  (Stop by.  Even I don't know what is going to be there.)

So this blog post is really all about letting you know I am still here.  And soon, I hope to get back to the business of books.

BTW- Fright Night was a lot of fun.  Next Wednesday, Oct. 30th, stop by Godfrey Daniels for more spooky fun.

Fright Night Approacheth

The Lehigh Valley Storytelling Guild's Fright Night events will be Saturday October 12th at Dutch Springs off of Hanoverville Road.  This is an outdoor event so dress warmly.  Click here for details.

I will tell on October 12th.

The other event is at Godfrey Daniels on October 30th - for those who prefer warmth while their blood runs cold.

Both performances charge admission.  Both will be super scary and fun!

Star Wars Reads Day!!

October 5th is Star Wars Reads Day.  Pull out your copy of Origami Yoda (or other books in that series), or Darth Vader and Son or any of the hundreds of Star Wars novels OR any of the DK Star Wars compendiums, including the Lego(r) books and READ.

I wonder if reading something else while dressed as a Star Wars character might count.  Hmmmm.

My Reading List and Halloween Books!

Booklist Online has a great Halloween list of 2013 titles for young readers - most of which are picture books from well loved authors and illustrators.

Click here to reach the list.

I had to return two books to the library unread.  Big Fail!  Here are the reviews of the other three that I DID read.

Goblins  by Philip Reeve.  We meet Scarper, smarter than the average goblin and literate besides, just as he is catapulted from a tower. He ends up teaming up with a less than brilliant human to rescue a princess from a giant but all is not what it seems.  And then, there is the Lych King's tower, those three traveling mages and the weird case of the exploding cheese that came to life.  Oh, and a comet and a prophecy and some men made of bones and...goblins and boglins and flying lizards????  Yep.  This is a fun romp through the standards of fantasy.  Grades 4 and up.  Older fantasy fans will enjoy it, perhaps even more.

The Watcher is the Shadows is Chris Moriarty's second entry into the Inquistor's Apprentice series.  Reading the first book is recommended.  Sacha, Lily, Mr. Wolf and Payton are still monitoring New York City for magical crimes.  But there is a strike against working conditions in one of J. P. Morgaunt's sewing mills and suddenly all of the NYC police force, including the Inquisitors, are on riot watch.  In the meantime, the mysterious death of the Klezmer King proves to be more than just an accident.  And then there are the sudden unexplained deaths of mobsters and a not-quite-invisible watcher in the shadows.  Set in an alternate turn-of-the-20th-century New York, and infused with Jewish mysticism, this series is a fascinating read.  Grades 6 and up.  Not for the easily frightened.  I made sure NOT to read it at night.

The Great Trouble  by Deborah Hopkinson was my favorite of all the books I read in the last week and a half.  When Eel is accused of stealing the money he has saved, he runs to the tailor for proof that he has been working more than one job.  But the tailor is one of the first victims in the London cholera epidemic of 1854.  Left without a roof over his head and desperate to protect his secret, Eel turns to another one of his employer's, Dr. Smith.  Hopkinson skillfully weaves in historical facts and allows Eel and Dr. Smith to be the sleuths that solve the mystery around the epidemic.  This book was fascinating, with an excellent sense of place and time.  For historical fiction buffs of ALL ages, especially those 10 and up.