Strawberry Jam

This afternoon and evening, I made a huge mess in my kitchen but I also made a huge batch of strawberry jam! It was quite the ordeal because I had to make 2 major stops in my jamming: first I had to go down to the bottom of the hill to pick up the kids off the school bus. However, the substitute school bus driver flew by our driveway and went all the way through the rest of the run before dropping them off. After sitting in the car with a 2 year old for over 45 minutes (Annie was asleep in the house - yea, that's bad, too), I finally recovered 2 kids from the bus - one crying, the other fuming! Okay, so back to my jam. Stick a frozen pizza in the oven for dinner. Flop Annie to keep her quiet. Feed Annie to keep her quiet. Change Annie to keep her quiet. More jam. Then - uh oh- out of jars! I was going to make a quick run to my mom's to pick up a few more jars so that I could finish, but then Chad called and Aaron had forgotten his soccer ball at the house. Okay, just a 30 minute loop out of my way to take the soccer ball to soccer practice, then to get more jars, then home. Baths, book, bed. Back to the jam. Finally finished at 9:30! 25 pints and 5 smaller jars of homemade strawberry jam!!!! Besides a few to be used for gifts, we will likely eat it all this year. Not a difficult process, but a messy one for sure. And today, a very time consuming adventure!

(I would have taken a picture of my mess - and my jam- but my camera battery was dead.)