Accomplishing Goals: Learning How To Can...or not.

    It all started the day I met Yvonne and invited her over to my house for breakfast following mass.  Well, I suppose it started even before that when I listed "learn how to can" as a goal of mine in the fall of 2012.  I hadn't given it much thought since then.  So the morning my mouth opened and out came the words, "Hey, would you like to come over for breakfast?" (shocking me as much as it gave surprised delight to the receiver of my words) was the day that the ball (haha, ball...I'm canning..."Ball" jars...sorry, no one probably knows what I am talking about)...ahem, was the day that the ball started rolling towards my future in canning, which I now find myself in the midst of...literally.  I have water simmering on the stove with cans in them (see below), strawberries mashed and ready to go in a big pan, but I have hit a snag and so am typing instead.  More on the snag to come.

Happy at the very beginning of the process.

  The reason the words flying out of my mouth gave me such surprise is although hospitality has been engrained in me by my mother the reality is that I had very little sleep the night before with a baby that was waking up every hour, on the hour, to nurse and my house was shy of a disaster.  I got into the car after my invitation and looked at my sister, "Why did I just do that?"  "Aha...I have no idea, I was wondering the same thing", replied the also tired sibling.  We arrived home and madly rushed around to make my home look neat, if not perfectly clean.  We wiped off the counters and cleaned off the table so that we could hurriedly make them dirty again by serving up a breakfast of eggs, pancakes, and coffee, while leisurely appearing as if our kitchen had been clean since the night before.

    Yvonne left my house an hour or two later and I was stunned.  What had just happened.  What had I agreed to?  What did we talk about?  This woman had ENERGY!  I felt as if a tornado had flown through my house and left and I just needed to process what had happened.  It felt good, a tornado of life and energy had blown through my home but....what?  Was I still in one piece?  I think I agreed to go by her house and get some apples...why?  I don't remember....okay.  Well, I went to her house, she gave me apples and instructed me to go home and make an apple pie for my husband because he would love it.  And I did it.  Cause I was told to.  And I'm obedient.  ....that was the second time in my life I had made an apple pie and you know what?  It was good!  And my husband was excited about it!  Since then Yvonne and I have become good friends.  I am good at slowing down her energy at times and she is good at motivating me to do more.  Sometimes I have to say, "Yvonne!  Stop!" because she gets so excited, and sometimes she has to say, "Hey, you can do better than this, how can I help you succeed?"  It's a symbiotic relationship.

    So now I find myself elbows deep in strawberries because Yvonne has tapped into my latent desire to be a more self sustaining person and has fostered and encouraged it since that first day when she told me to make an apple pie...from scratch.  Since meeting her last fall she has been telling me that when berry season comes in, and when our gardens come in, thats when, "we are going to get busy".  Now that my warrior ninja has planted twelve tomato plants, I can see that I will definitely be needing to can a lot of food if its not going to be going to waste!  Yvonne called and told me the strawberries were ready.  If I wanted them through the winter I better buy up a lot.  I bought five gallons.

 I have since been spending hours pinching the greens off the tops of these little bitty berries.  Everyone suggested I make, "freezer jam", which truly does sound easy and delicious.  But you know what?  I figured I might as well dive into the canning world as strawberry jam is touted as being an easy first entry into the water bath canning world.

  I had my jars set to slowly bring them up to heat so they won't crack when the hot liquid jam is poured in.

I mashed up my berries and put them in the pot, anticipating bringing them to a rolling boil, with the lemon juice and pectin.

Then I realized I didn't have enough pectin.  I thought multiple packets came in the box.  I guess I was thinking sugar packets?  But no.  Just one.  I need two.

  So now I am sitting here, waiting for Yvonne to come save me.  This is not supposed to be part of the canning process.

     She generously found herself in need of going the store at nine oclock at night anyway and would be more than happy to bring me another box...two just in case. :)  Thats why we are friends.  Because we help each other out like that.  I'll let you know how this all ends up when I know...much later than I had intended.  On a side note, aren't these going to look so cute with all that little jelly?  hehe!

   Yvonne suggested I go to bed...and start over tomorrow...she is right.  She isn't ALWAYS right.  But she is right now.  It's just so DARN frustrating!  Blach...I'll conquer this tomorrow!