Puberty Stinks!

As a teenager, my mother would step into my bedroom, get one sniff, let me know I needed to fix that (aka clean my room), and leave again. I am sure she would come down to communicate about something much more important. She would get one whiff, forget everything and would get out before the smell could penetrate her. I used to think she had an over sensitive smeller. Now I think, I was equipped with a defense system similar to a skunk. As a parent she presented a danger to my teenage social life and social appearance; in defense my body would use its defense trait to keep any adult far away. How do I know this..... it is hereditary!

That's my theory and I am sticking to it!

I'm Jammin'

It has been very quiet with the girls at school all week. I have enjoyed doing a few projects, some productive and most not. I am still harvesting raspberries and today I hope to get some plants out of the ground. If you know anyone who wants some ... give me a call! If I don't give them away to friends, I think I will advertise them on Craigs List. $5 a plant sounds fair!

This year, is appears the more I harvest the more they produce, every four to five days I can pick another batch of jam. So far I have put away 4 batches Raspberry Treasure Jam... I call it that because I threw my few treasured Strawberries in there (and a few from Costco), there weren't enough to call it Raspberry Strawberry Jam.

I read somewhere that the 1/2 sugar pectin sets up the best so I bought some of it, then I read the box, it has Splenda in it. I don't like artificial sweeteners, I steer away from most diet stuff, call me silly but I am concerned with the long term heath effects. Also, Miss Tay will surely notice and not eat a bit of it, she can taste the difference, and doesn't like it . My next batch will be made with good stuff.... maybe even ORGANIC sugar!

For those of you who have gotten recent phone calls (or where sent to the hospital) about the last items canned in this house; I took extra precautions, in the sterilizing process, and can guarantee there was not a moment in the process were anything cooled down enough to have been contaminated. I will also test it out on a focus group (JOHN) before I give any away.

Here I am cooking the berries, not very appealing at this stage....looks like road kill...eww! I couldn't get photo's of the canning/jarring process, I only had two hands and the hot stuff had the priority, but here is the end product. I have a few more items I want to can up before the apples are ready to be processed. I will let you know how it goes.