Twice in one week complete strangers have offered to help me in my business, for no pay!  The first kind offer came from a woman who works part time at Okanagan Grocery, the German bakery.  She said she loves my fruitcakes and would love to help me bake. 

The second offer came by phone, and it was from a nice woman who had stumbled upon my site while searching for Christmas cookies.  She began to read my blog, took pity on me, and called me to say she was willing and able to lend a hand as required!

It’s funny, isn’t it, how complete strangers, especially women, run to help when they see it’s needed.  I’m not used to that, as I’m surrounded by useless males.  To whit: the other day I bought several heavy bags of salt for the water softener, and unloaded them into the carport and asked Nicky to carry them downstairs for me.

Needless to say, they’ve been there ever since, with Nicky coming and going, whistling a happy tune as he goes by them.  He kicks over his beer and Jaegermeister empties, also in the carport, and comes into the house, all nice and hungry from the gym.

Luke surprised me by arriving home on Friday morning.  He said he came home now because he might not get Christmas off, which is totally shocking.  I told him he simply has to try, but he said as a single guy, he can’t really justify it.  I said, “But tell them about your poor, sainted mother, for God’s sake….”

Last night he and Nicky ran upstairs holding Luke’s laptop, and announced they were going to make cinnamon buns.  I looked for yeast, but must’ve thrown out the last of it due to age, and so they had to abandon the idea.  Luke said, “What kind of artisan baker doesn’t have yeast in the house?”

I said, “Look, here’s egg nog,” and diverted them with that.  This morning when I went downstairs I saw the remnants of their night.  There was the empty egg nog container, a few mini marshmallows sprinkled over the floor, cans of Red Bull with a few dregs in the bottom of each, and an empty tin of those finger-shaped biscuits coated in chocolate.

But besides being masterful junk food imbibers, it turned out Luke was tremendously helpful to his old mother.  As you know, I’ve practically had a nervous breakdown over my vacuum-sealing machine, which is now fixed.  However, I didn’t like the way it seals, and the repair place had no clue how to fix that.

Luke took three minutes, re-jigged the length of the vacuum time, and the machine’s now sealing beautifully, so at least he has some very marketable skills when it comes to me and my business.

Now if only I could get either of them to work for more than five minutes at a time I wouldn’t have to rely on the kindness of strangers.

As you know, I’m a regular gym attendee, so am in fairly decent shape, even though large in girth.  So imagine my surprise at hurting myself doing simple stretching at the end of the Tuesday morning class.  By Wednesday I couldn’t life my left arm, and my left shoulder felt broken.

However, that was just too bad for me, as it’s my High Season, so I had to continue making fruitcake and bark.  On Friday morning I was vacuum-sealing away, when suddenly the vacuum sealer died.  I turned it off, and back on again, as we all know this is the way one repairs computers, so I thought maybe it works for other machines as well.

But the machine had totally and completely seized, and in that moment, I knew I had no-one to blame but myself.  The red oil change light’s been blinking for months, but when I see things like that, I just think they’ll get better on their own, like my shoulder, and ignore them.

As the machine weighs 80 pounds, Nicky had to put it in the car for me, and the guy at the kitchen appliance repair place had to unload it.  When I confessed about my slothful behaviour, he said if the pump is filled with ‘gunk’ and if it has seized, a new one is $1,000!

Can you imagine how furious I was at myself when I drove away from there?  To keep my mind off it, I’ve just spent the entire weekend making bark, as I can’t face fruitcake-production without my vacuum-sealer.  I currently have several Tupperware tubs full of fruitcakes waiting to be sealed.

And can you believe, my shoulder did get better on its own, so you can see how my philosophy has both good and bad applications.  I guess for people with muscle-ache, it’s good, and for machines with red, blinking warning lights, it’s bad.

Whenever I send out my monthly newsletter, I get orders, and I did again the other day.  However, some of them are for Okanagan Fruit and Rum bars, which I have yet to make.  So my nerves are kind of bad, with five weeks to go until Christmas, and still producing stuff, with one of my major machines down.

Then Alison phoned to say, “It says teat on your website!”  Although Steve the web designer is absolutely adorable, whenever he writes stuff on his own, I have to e mail him and say, “Look.”  This time it says teat instead of treat, and special is misspelled, but the intent is very nice.

Remember when I had just the Totally Decadent Fruitcake, and so people naturally only bought it?  Then I added Okanagan Harvest Cake, and people ordered one of each.  Then I added the bars, and now the bark, and so my orders are getting bigger and bigger.

I always said I will never, ever make cookies, but now I’m thinking, hey, why not?  I want on-line sales, and once people trust you, they just add on whatever you make, so maybe that’s something to ponder for 2012.  For now I just have to weep over my inability to believe that a red, blinking light usually spells trouble.

I simply can’t believe my luck.  First of all, mom’s partner Gerry’s son and family are coming to Osoyoos for Christmas for the first time.  They’re coming all the way from Virginia, so mom wants to buy some decent things for them for Christmas.  So she handed me a cheque and basically said, “Get at it.”

Then Luke e mailed me and said, “Look, I hate Christmas shopping, so can you please buy the gifts for Margaret and Brendan for me?”  I e mailed back, “Thank you!”  On my way south to Osoyoos the other day I immediately got an adorable thing at that cute antique shop in Okanagan Falls for Margaret.

And then, joy of joys, mom advised me to do the same for myself as I did last year.  She told me to buy a bunch of stuff that I want, and then say it’s from her.  Last year I wrapped my gifts beautifully, and chose lovely to/from cards.  I plan to do the same again this year and am basically breathless with anticipation of how I’m going to surprise myself.

I’m just not sure how to fit all of that in, as I now seem to be baking daily.  Of course I have to do it, but I’ve noticed I put the dough into the pans with less and less enthusiasm as the days go by.  But I suppose that’s the lure of a seasonal business.  The moment you think you simply can’t make another fruitcake, it’s over and Christmas has arrived.

Yet anything you do over and over again is bound to get monotonous.  The other day one of the nice women at the gym said she feels bored with the gym routine and often has to force herself to come.  I said I feel the same way occasionally, but as a true hypochondriac, there’s no way I could stop going.

Although I have to admit that sometimes when I’m in the class, lifting the weights over my head dozens of times, doing a hundred dead lifts, a myriad of squats and countless stomach crunches, I do feel a bit cranky about it.

Chytra Brown of Savour Magazine asked me for the list of stores which carry my fruitcakes, so I imagine that’ll boost sales when it comes out on December 1st.  Jennifer Schell, the editor of Wine Trails and writer for EAT Magazine and The Capital News also said she’d mention me in her Christmas columns.

Today I was called and interviewed by Kevin Parnell, the business writer for the Kelowna Capital News.  It was a half-hour interview, in which I wildly expounded upon many fanciful things, so I’m somewhat hesitant to read the interview.  Sometimes in the heat of an interview I can say the darndest things.

I’m often working until late afternoon, and sometimes find myself in a less than favourable mood for making an elaborate dinner.  Fortunately Nicky’s been able to keep himself fed with meals like the one he had around 3:00 PM; five scrambled eggs on two pieces of toast, which he spread with a mixture of mayo and a hot sauce called Spiracha hot chili sauce.

I’ve decided that the gym and sleep are the only really necessary things I have to do , and outside of that, I have to concentrate on just two things: shopping and baking.

I always love Daylight Savings Time.  Today I have an extra hour, and what better way to use a gift like that than to shop.  In the spring, we lose an hour, and since the day’s shot anyway, is there any better time than that for a shopping excursion?

Although due to not having baked ahead, I have an awful lot of catching up to do, and therefore have precious little time for joyous shopping.  Yesterday I made 84 fruitcakes, and hope to do the same again today.  It sounds like a lot, but those sell very quickly when stores like Quality Greens order 8 cases (192 fruitcakes).

As well, I get asked to make adorable little gift baskets, and that can be time-consuming. You know the nice woman from the gym who ordered bark for her business’ conventions?  She wanted to see a little gift ensemble for their managers for Christmas.

I recalled the half fruitcakes I made for the huge Nokia cell phone company order I received in 2007.  I still had some fo the cute cube-shaped boxes left, so cut one of each fruitcake in half, vacuum-sealed them, and put them in the little boxes.  Then I put half a pound of bark in one of the larger fruitcake boxes.

All three labels, the Okanagan Harvest, Totally Decadent and Okanagan Chocolate Bark, have the same orchard and sun-rise theme, so they look absolutely fab together in the box.  I wrapped the bark box in a thin green fabric ribbon, and placed all three items onto a pillow of white tissue.  Voila!

It’s a really nice-looking gift.  I put a note into it for Joanne saying, “I scare myself sometimes.” She loved it, and said they want a minimum of 12, but maybe more.  That’s the kind of thing I love fooling around with so much.

I guess that’s why an article about macarons caught my eye.  I’ve heard of macaroons, of course, but never macarons.  It turns out they’re also a meringue confection, but made with almond paste and filled with butter cream.

There’s a new chi chi French patisserie here in Kelowna, called Sandrine, and I see they make macarons.  I plan to go in there and buy some, so I know what the finished product should be like.  Then I can start to experiment.

And wouldn’t you know Alison, whose mother was a home ec teacher, and who can’t stop emulating her mother’s penchant for hunting down new recipes, said she has a recipe for macarons which she’ll send.  There’s even one in the older edition of The Joy of Cooking, even though I’ve never heard of these little delights until now.

I’m telling you, the old home ec teachers from Osoyoos Elementary Junior Secondary School would be amazed.  My best pal Liz was called a “lazy pudding” by one of them, and I only survived because my mom would sew my projects for me.

But here I am, all Martha Stewart-like, with tons of ideas, and no time.