It is official, the area in which I live has been classified as having a severe drought. We are also having lower than average temper- atures for this time of the year. That is a small blessing in disguise because it means less of the available moisture is evaporating. The day began with fairly heavy cloud cover but there is no suggestion of rain in the forecast.

Yesterday I made chocolate bread. One of the local grocery stores used to have chocolate bread. A while back the store greatly scaled back its on premise bakery and no longer bakes chocolate bread and other very delicious breads. Wednesday I looked through my Italian cookbook because I wanted to make some focaccia. I was pleasantly surprised to find a chocolate bread recipe. The picture does not show the bread as dark brown as it really was but I still think I will make some changes to the recipe. The first thing will be to add more cocoa. Just the same, the bread is good; in fact, it is good enough for me to make a trip out to pick up some mascarpone to spread on it. With the low temperatures, baking is much more pleasant.

I continue to stitch on the first ornament and it is progressing very well.

Perhaps the most excitement yesterday was generated by a delivery. My little webcam/microphone combination arrived. We need to introduce it to the computer and then I can download Skype. This is going to be exciting.