I am done with the past week.

My family suffered a bereavement this past weekend. My uncle, my mother's brother, died early on Saturday morning. He had been ill for the past little while, and he made the choice that basically ended his suffering, so I'll guess he preferred to move on rather than linger. I'm glad he's not suffering any longer, and hope he's found happiness in the OtherWhen. He died on what would have been his mother's 99th birthday, so we all believe he got an invitation to the party. Perhaps he was a surprise guest for her?

I've been cooped up in the waiting rooms of the ICU at a local hospital for the past week and a half, so you can imagine how little I've gotten done in the past ten or more days. It's hard to get anything done when you're in the middle of a slew of relations, chattering away like a cage full of monkeys. And for once I've actually got work to do -- my church has engaged my services. They need to rebind the old church registers and have them conserved, and they want me to manage the project. I've got some notes I need to write up and then a conference to arrange with the priest and office manager to see what they think. Then I get to start working on how to accomplish their goals. I'm looking forward to it (it's my kind of fun; yes, I'm that weird) and can't wait to get it up and running.

But I had one big project to get finished today: My book is downloaded at Amazon, title and all, just waiting the 24 hours so Amazon can check it to make sure I'm not a dirty plagiarist. I will provide a link tomorrow -- when it's supposed to appear. I can't believe I've done it and it's too late to stop the thing now. I'm terribly ambivalent, excited and scared and exhilarated all at once.

Wish me luck.

In other news, I did something fun today (aside from spending hours and hours and hours on end trying to get the damn document in Kindle format): I made some lemon-lime marshmallows. Using these:

and the basic vanilla marshmallow recipe from the Brownie Points blog. Juicing a standard lemon and two limes gives you the 1/4 cup and 2 tablespoons of liquid required to bloom your gelatine (I also added in a few little drops to make it the full 2 tablespoons). Boil the sugar, corn syrup and that portion of water, whip the whole together and hey, presto:

a half batch of marshmallows. Actually, this is all that is left over -- I took them to coven tonight and they got predated by the ladies. They're soft and tender and have a really bright, light lemon tang. You can just barely get a hint of the lime. It's like eating soft sunshine.

I like this flavor. Lots.

I'll be making my friends marshmallows for the holidays -- only for their marshmallows, I'll be using hard candy to give them peppermint and cinnamon flavors. My mother wants me to figure out how to make coconut marshmallows, which should be an interesting adventure.

And on top of it all, I managed to get my mother's Christmas Cowl cast on tonight at coven.

I spend a week in the pound and come out swinging. I'm not sure if I'm entirely proud of myself, but it sure doesn't hurt.