Well maybe no bells. LOL but definitely books and blog!

It is book day again! This is a great time to pick up a few great titles from me.

First, be sure to sign up for my newsletter here: http://www.weirdstuffinmydesk.com. I will be offering up an awesome giveaway in a few weeks for an Amazon.com gift card and other goodies!

I have been adding a ton of reviews, and several of the e-tailers are offering my WSIMD readers SWEET discounts. Be sure to read the reviews and add your input, I would LOVE to hear from you.

Also, please take a look at my half.com store and purchase hard to find/rare
books from my private collection. PLEASE NOTE half.com does NOT ship
outside the US at this time.

http://shops.half.ebay.com/racoo_W0QQmZbooksQQsellerZQ2aracooQ2a

There are a very few unique titles up for purchase on my amazon store
as well. Be sure to check them out!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/shops/index.html?ie=UTF8&sellerID=A10K1JMIPOWD0I

The more books you buy, the cheaper shipping is. You save a lot if you
buy several from me at a time.

For those who prefer to buy new books, please shop at my great store right here!

HUGS, Blessings and a beautiful week to all!

This is a multi product review so I will not be using my usual format. We don’t eat sugar here at our house and live a pretty regulated low carb way of life. But we are human, and I am always looking for some type of delicious chocolate treats for those chocoholic tenancies. Let me tell you sugar free candies and especially chocolates have come a LONG way over the last 5 years, heck even the last 2 years. They used to be nasty. Plain and simple. I am going to review several chocolate bars / candies of varying brands, that I have selflessly tried out for your benefit. LOL

First is a line called Lean-up by Carbothin. Yum! Oh I suppose you want more than a one word review eh? I picked these bars up at lowcarbu.com. These bars are not made with malitol which is well known to cause gastric distress (this my friends is an understatement) when consumed in large quantities. Instead they use erythritol, and have 1 net carb per bar. They offer several varieties, but I stuck with what I like (go figure) which is dark chocolate and peanut butter! The Dark Chocolate Bar was slightly bland, but still a good bar. It didn’t have a weird after taste which many sugar free chocolates have. I don’t know that I would order this one again because I like a slightly bitter taste to my dark chocolate. The Peanut Butter Cup bar however is a different story. I may buy a case of these delicious little beauties! It is milk chocolate which I typically don’t like, but hey, it DID have the word peanut butter in the title. The center has a lovely peanut butter filling. This one is definitely a winner.

Next up is a line of bars I really enjoyed from Maine Cottage Foods. I didn’t get these directly from them, but through another low carb distributor. Next time, I am ordering from their site because they have a much better selection. But you do have to buy in bulk versus singles when you do it that way! Again these bars are made with erythritol. I purchased Raspberry Dark Chocolate, Dark Orange Zest and Mint Dark Chocolate. These were all amazing, perfectly blended so you could taste the flavors but not SO over done they drowned out the chocolate. My favorite of the three was the Mint Dark Chocolate because my friends it tastes JUST like an Andie’s Thin Mint! I couldn’t believe it when I took the first bite. Don’t tell the husband person, but I have hidden what is left of this bar. he he he

You can purchase singles of these bars at Carb Smart. Though they don’t have some of the more exotic sounding bars like Milk Chocolate Cinnamon or Milk Chocolate Butterscotch that the Maine Cottage site offers. They even have sugar free baking chunks for cookies! They are testing out some spiced chocolate recipes as well as herbal / tea flavors. Up on their drawing board are: apple-cinnamon, orange-cinnamon, chili, ginger, oolong tea, green tea, thyme, rosemary, and yuzu just to name a few! I have great hopes for this company and can’t wait to place my next order.

A bar that I have been treating myself to for about a year is the Dark Chocolate Chocoperfection bar. They come in Milk Chocolate AND recently Raspberry Dark Chocolate. The bars are a whopping 1.8 oz of smooth chocolate goodness and the milk/dark varieties are only 2 net carbs for the ENTIRE bar. The raspberry dark is 2 carbs. Again, no malitol madness in this product line, instead they are made with oligofructose and erythritol are 100% natural sweeteners derived from plant fibers. These sweeteners have a glycemic index of zero. Oligofructose is a prebiotic fiber. I have to say I have never tried the Milk Chocolate just because I don’t care for milk. The dark chocolate is smooth, not too bitter and oh so lovely. I recently picked up a Raspberry Dark Chocolate aka The Livin’ La Vida Low Carb-Bar from Jimmy Moore. My verdict is still out on this bar. It almost has a floral taste to it, not overtly, but the raspberry part isn’t what I expected. I will probably stick with plain dark chocolate after I finish this one.

The next chocolate up for review is something kind of cute called The Chocolate Traveler. They are small wedges of chocolate that come in the cutest little travel tin!

These DO have malitol as the sweetener, but I didn’t experience any issues with these. Though I do limit myself to the 4 piece serving. Of course I opted for the Dark Chocolate Mint. These are really good, there is a good mint flavoring, but not too much. I picked these up at Carb Smart. I will probably not get this brand again, not because it isn’t tasty, but I much preferred the Maine Cottage Dark Chocolate Mint to these. They have 4 different varieties in their sugar free line and they also have regular sugar blends as well on their website that look pretty amazing for the sugar freak in your family.

Winding up here I have Ross Sugar Free Chocolate bars. Ross was the first real chocolate I had on my low carb transition more than 3 years ago. You used to be able to find them just about anywhere. Now I can only find them online. I picked up an assortment box the other day. You can also purchase single bars at Carb Smart. So far I have tried the AWESOME Dark Chocolate Orange. This bar really packs an orangey wallop! Yum. I also took a little bit of the no sugar added Milk Chocolate Almond bar as well. This is pretty tasty even for milk chocolate. These bars can have a few more carbs than the other, just be sure to read the net carb information on the website. They are also made with malitol, so don’t eat more than one bar a day.

Last but not least is Chocolate Dreams and Wishes! These are not a bar, but a HUGE chocolate cup (2 oz) and have about 2 net carbs depending on the flavor/type you choose. There are several delicious flavors to choose from. My favorite are their Dark Chocolate Malt, Dark Chocolate Raspberry and Dark Chocolate Coconut. You can also purchase these directly from the company as well. Oh these are also made with erythritol.

So, the bottom line is that if you are diabetic or just want to have healthier options in your chocolate drawer, there are LOTS of great companies and products to choose from.

Website: http://www.demeterfragrance.com/

Country: USA (soaps made in Italy)

Blog: http://www.demeterfragranceblog.com/blog/

Newsletter: Yes

US Shipping: Yes, flat rate, $6.99

International Shipping: Yes, flat rate Canada $12.99 and flat rate air elsewhere $40.00

Discounts: Currently when you place an order of $25.00 or more, you get a free 1oz Cosmopolitan Cocktail perfume spray. I don’t know how long this will last. There is usually some type of special offer on the home page.

I have only ordered from their online store one time, and it will be the last time. I cannot remember when I have been more disappointed with a purchase than the one from Demeter Fragrance. The service was fast, the packaging is professional and minimal. But the product was an utter bomb in my opinion. Several years ago I ran across their fragrances in a small boutique and picked up a couple of sprays in Tomato Leaf and Dirt, more for the novelty of wearing something wacky than actual love of the scents. They actually smelled completely right on. It was because of this I decided to actually give them a go again. I was surprised to see how BIG their fragrance collection had grown and was very excited. They now offer shower gel, candles and soaps as well as an array of the bath and body products. Of course I had to get several of each.

So, I picked up a Cinnamon Bun Candle. It is a good size tin (5.6oz), and has a pretty decent throw, but nothing to write home about. It smelled more like straight cinnamon. The free gift at the time was a shower gel in Angel Food Cake. This had almost NO scent at all. The consistency was nice, but with no scent, what’s the point?

Next are their Olive Oil Soaps made in Italy. I am a HUGE fan of olive oil soaps, so was excited to see these and held high hopes for these bars. These items were the BIGGEST disappointment to me out of everything in this order. There was virtually no scent. The bars are huge (7 oz), but I wanted to smell good after using them. I picked up more than one (what I was thinking I have NO idea) I bought, Angel Food, Apple Pie, Orange Cream Pop and Sex on the Beach. They are extremely hard bars that began to crack along the sides and split apart as I used them. I finally took them out of the shower and have been using one for hand soap and the others for door stops. To its credit the hand soap has lasted a long time.

I saved the best (if it can be called that) for last. They offer 1/2 oz humongous mini splash colognes for only $5.00 a pop, so of course I got several of these. The first ingredient is alcohol, second is fragrance lastly is water. Pretty basic recipe. And you can definitely smell the alcohol. If you have a sensitivity to it (which I do) be forewarned.

Jelly Belly Sugar and Spice – Thankfully this smells right on, and is pretty darn yummy. I would possibly buy this in a spray if it was on sale somewhere.

Jelly Belly Blueberry muffin – Smells right on and really drys down nice.

Creme Brulee – Sucks, basically smells like vanilla with a strange slightly powdery note.

Cotton Candy – No way this smells like cotton candy, not even close kids, really smells chemically. It is hard to dupe this scent anyways. This one fell flat.

Suntan Lotion – This kind of smells like suntan lotion with a chemical kick. Think dollar store scented. ewww

Marshmallow – Another total let down. there may be a FAINT (and I mean very faint) hint of marshmallow. It did get a little tiny bit stronger after about an hour or so.

Seriously, it pains me to have to share this poor review of this company. I was really hoping for better quality and scent accuracy like the first two sprays I purchased long ago. Maybe I should have purchased all the scents in sprays and from their top 30 scent list (of which the Jelly Belly scents were). Maybe I would have had better luck. The good thing is that they have a 100% no questions asked money back gaurantee. Too bad I threw away my receipt and can’t find my online confirmation. Nor is it stored on their site. I will probably pitch all the soaps, let my friends have dibs on the scents I didn’t like and use the rest.

This was a non sponsored thread, meaning that I used my own money to buy these products for review, and I have received no monetary gain from this post.

I am SO excited!!!

I actually one a few items from the Bloggy Carnival Giveaway last week. So far I have won a bag of Laundry Tree Soap Nuts from , a $20.00 Gift Card to Toys R Us from Hullabalooloo AND a reading from Arwen at Tarot by Arwen!!! I am pretty sure most of the participants have drawn their winners. There were a few that ran through May 5th I think. Not too bad of a haul for going through almost 900 blogs in 3 days or so. LOL

Did you win anything from the Bloggy Carnival Giveaway? If so, post it here with a link to the blog you won from so we can see what we are missing out on! This was so fun, I can’t wait to do it again in July!

A HUGE thank you to everybody who participated this time around. There were a lot of really creative and generous prizes.

Lodi Vineyards

This weekend we picked up a bottle of this interesting wine. The Seven Deadly Zins 2006 from Lodi Vineyards. Admittedly I have never even tasted red zinfandel so had no idea what to expect. As with most wines I purchase based on the label art and the type. In this case the label was hilarious, so it warranted a place in my wine nook. Here’s what the vineyard which produces this blend had to say on their website:

“A sinful blend indeed! Our flagship Zinfandel was devised by the two Phillips brothers in their search for a blended Zin so captivating that no one could refuse. With consistency in mind, the brothers decided to blend the fruit of Lodi’s finest growers to fill the bottles of Michael~David’s new-fangled wine. In the end, seven vineyards were chosen for their superiority. Now, how do you label a wine so unique in style? Looking to their past, the two Phillips brothers quickly related the Seven Sins from their Catholic school upbringing to the seven Old Vine Zinfandels blended in their wine.”

Sooo, let me be the first to say (at least here on my blog) that this wine tasted NOTHING like their descriptive promises of

“Lustful Flavors: A vibrant, sweet bouquet of raspberry jam, molasses and cinnamon toast evoke the senses of carefree youthful nights. Excellent oak integration provides silken tannins and spice to pair with Lodi’s unrestricted wild berry fruit.”

At first smell and taste it was like burnt wood. Not unpleasant mind you, but burnt wood none the less. Maybe that was the “excellent oak integration” coming through for me. Maybe and this is a short maybe I could smell a hint of some kind of spice, but it was more like a tich of tobacco smoke. Very hard to describe. I can tell you that I did not taste any molasses (thank the Gods), raspberry jam or cinnamon toast (come on guys really?). LOL

Their site mentions that it would be good with BBq’d Salmon (back to the burnt wood theme) or prime rib. I paired it with lamb and beef with plenty of garlic, and it offset the meal quite nicely if I do say so myself. It wasn’t too overpowering yet held its own through the life of the bottle.

All this being said, it was a pretty tasty bottle of wine. Not one that
I would probably purchase again, but would give as a gift for the
novelty of the name and premise behind it. Very creative in that
respect. I leave you with this additional poetic excerpt from their site:

“Schulenburg’s vines, grubby with GREED,
Embrace Lodi’s soil, to drink and to feed.
Oh Lord, forgive me my zin.
Secure in it’s strength, weathered with PRIDE,
Standing like soldiers, the forest of Snyde.
Oh Lord, forgive me my zin.
Hearts filled with LUST, ole Maley’s trees.
Court Lodi’s sun, and flirt with it’s breeze.
Oh Lord, forgive me my zin.
Good Bishofberger did raise some GLUTTONOUS beast,
Vines fattened like turkeys before Thanksgiving feast.
Oh Lord, forgive me my zin.
With the tilt of the glass, I commit seven zins,
Oh Lord, with your help… I’ll do it again.
Indulge!“

This was a non sponsored thread, meaning that I used my own money to
buy this product for review, and I have received no monetary gain
from this post.