Well, the good news is that I survived this truffle-making round ... over 350 truffles made. But it took longer than I had planned (keeping the chocolate in temper was the primary time-eater), and did leave me in a time crunch. The truffles have been sent on their ways, however; and I hope to get some pictures up later today. I took lots of shots of all the goodies lined up, but haven’t had time to so much as glance at them.

I noticed Sunday evening that my hands were starting to feel quite dry ... not surprising, given how often I needed to wash—or at least rinse— them while working. Using lotion isn't a good idea while working with chocolate; if it’s strongly scented it could contaminate the chocolate, and I’ve been told some of the substances commonly found in lotions can interfere with tempering, too. Best not to take any chances. But by the time Monday was done, my hands were full-on chapped, and painfully sore. Any motion that required moving my fingers was uncomfortable, at the least. Taking yesterday off from typing and washing helped a lot, but my hands aren’t completely healed yet. Not sure how to tackle this unexpected problem in future rounds ...

Yesterday afternoon, I noticed an uncomfortable sensation taking root in my head, but being out shopping, I wasn’t able to do much about it. It felt a lot like a caffeine-withdrawal headache, but that didn’t seem possible to me; I’d had my usual morning dose of coffee. Giving in to the temptation of a Coke, the discomfort eased ... but returned a couple hours after I’d finished the drink. Upon returning home, I ate a bit of chocolate, and again, the headache dissipated some. Now, I hadn’t been licking my fingers, nor liberally sampling my wares, so I was at something of a loss to explain this until some research this morning turned up what I had begun suspecting: caffeine is absorbed through the skin; and with my hands having chocolate all over them for the better part of two days, it seems likely that I was getting a steady low dose—and not working with chocolate yesterday, the withdrawal kicked in. “Kick” is the right word, too: when I woke up this morning, my head was really throbbing. Still working on eliminating that. I guess that means that this product would work as billed, although I wouldn’t count on absorbing a cuppa’s worth from a typical shower.

And last, I really took a hit on private shipping on the truffle orders! I underestimated how much weight the boxes add to orders ... still a lot of room for improvement, packaging-wise. But progress is being made, so I’m not too unhappy.

In other “ouchy” news, commenting remains turned off, as the spambots appear to be hovering nearby still. I hate to say it, but we may not be able to re-enable comments until after the move to the new software platform is complete. Progress on that project is proceeding well, however; my goal is to accomplish it before February 1. And it has become top priority, so off to it I go.