The other day the women at the gym had to point out to me that I was wearing two different earrings!  That pretty much sums up my ability to concentrate these days.  Fortunately, sales are going well, but I’m almost going crazy right now trying to keep up with everything.

Last week Marilyn and I baked 340 fruitcakes in two days.  That meant a full day of follow-up to process all of them.  I also did a few hours of fruitcake sampling on Saturday at the Quality Greens store here in Kelowna.  It was a bit livelier than the one I did for them in Penticton the week before.

At the Penticton store there were two women in their 80’s.  One told me a story about how years ago she’d made fruitcake.  She put it in the cupboard and after three weeks decided she’d better go and check it.  When she did, she found that it was all moldy.

She then sampled my fruitcake, thought for a moment, and then said, “I should give you my recipe.”  To which I slowly said, “yeessss” but wanted to say, “But I don’t want a reciple that makes moldy fruitcake.”  The public is always so interesting.

You’d think that someone who goes to the gym as religiously as I do would be somewhat thin, but such is not the case.  We’ve been in a bit of an egg nog mania around here, which is very bad so early in the month.  It doesn’t bode well for the week around Christmas itself.

However, I’ve always used food as medicine during stressful times, so it makes sense.  As you know, I’m almost completely helpless when faced with those Lowney’s maraschino cherries and syrup in chocolate.  Most people run screaming from them, but I’ll eat an entire box in an evening.

I’ve managed not to buy one yet, but if this insane ordering keeps up I’m going to have to get a few boxes.  Yesterday I had an order for 4 cases (96 fruitcakes) which I then had to put in their little white boxes.  Two hours later, I was ready to drive them down to Quality Greens.

That would’ve been fine, had someone not ordered fruitcake with no chocolate, so I had to bake those as well.  Then there were the on-line orders that had to be packaged, addressed and driven to the post office.  For some perverse reason, however, I can’t seem to stop marketing.

I sent samples to a journalist in Vancouver, so we’ll see what happens.  As well, the kind women at Discover Wines here in Kelowna will be interviewed by Mike Roberts of CHBC-TV this Thursday.  They’re featuring a mulled wine with my fruitcakes, so that will surely drive sales.  Oi vey!