Cleaning and Canning

      This week has been absolutely crazy! I spent the first half of the week cleaning my old apartment. There was an interesting little fiasco (only to me) with that. I had been given a gift of 2 free hours of housecleaning from a housecleaning service, and was planning on using that to help with the bathroom and kitchen (my 2 hardest areas). Well, I had tried to set up a time for Monday, but that was Labor Day, so they had it off. The guy then offered the next day, but my mind had moved to other things and was occupied by moving and pregnancy and packing, and, and, and... (this is me after all). So, by the time I remembered that I needed to get back to them, it was too late, and they were all booked. So, it was just me, Nathaniel, and my Mom came and helped on Wednesday. (It actually ends up that it isn't too horrible of a thing that I wasn't able to use my gift, because the expiration date on it is my due date. So I can just use it to deep clean bathroom/kitchen right before the baby is born.) Now, I didn't have to spend all day every day cleaning, but with taking care of Jessica, and trying to get my own house livable, it sure felt like it. Wednesday, we did pretty much spend the whole day. We got it done, and it got checked off, and she was impressed and happy with it; but I was so very exhausted by Wednesday morning (before even cleaning) that I had broken down in tears because I felt like there was still so much to do, and not enough time, and that I was too tired and sore to do it. (but I couldn't just stop, because there was a deadline.
      Thursday I was still feeling the effects of the cleaning, and spent the second half of the day unable to do much because of a sharp pain in my lower back.

      Saturday (so yesterday) was fun. I spent all morning running around crazy doing grocery shopping and trying to get my peaches.
     Story time. My sister had found a place near my mom's house that was selling peaches for $13 a bushel (box). That ends up about $0.54 per pound. Most roadside stands are at least $5 more than that, and the peaches don't always look very good. Most stores are also a bit more than that, but there you're going to find peaches that are hard as rock, because they have to be that way to survive shipping. Anyway. I was excited about the $13 for a box, because I want to start canning my own fruit. I've been using my mom's, which is great, but you learn something best by doing, so if I don't ever can my own fruit, then I won't know how once we get somewhere we can have fruit trees. So, from the 1 box of peaches, I should be able to get 2 batches (12-14 quarts) of peaches in jars and in my food storage. (Honestly, I don't know that they'll count much as food storage, because if Jessica has her way, they'd be gone in a month.) Well, Friday I got out to that area dropping Nathaniel off for work, so I decided to try to find those peaches. I found a house that had a sign for peaches out front, but it was before 9am and there wasn't anyone outside, and not everyone is an early bird like I am, so I didn't dare knock on the door. So I went to my mom's to see if she knew for sure where Kathy (sister) had found her peaches. I had been at the right place, but we waited a little longer, and tried to get them on the way to the Women's Expo. Unfortunately, they didn't have any, and said to come back in the morning, like before 8:30am. So I would have been at about the right time when I had driven by there the first time.
      Okay, so Saturday I went back over there at 8am (which isn't very early for me, just so you all know, that wasn't a problem) and got my peaches, and then spent the rest of the morning running around like crazy trying to get Nathaniel where he needed to be, and trying to get my grocery shopping done (I also bought raspberries for making jam), and get ready to go to my Relief Society lunch that was at noon. Phew, got it all done, went to the lunch, came home, finally got the dishwasher up and running (we hadn't had detergent, and weren't quite sure how to hook it up to the sink) and then puttered around for a bit, doing some of my smaller things, because I couldn't make jam without full use of the sink. (No, I didn't think that one through all the way, I just thought that I needed the counters and sink clear from dishes before making jam.)  So, by the time the dishwasher was done, it was getting close to time to start dinner, and Jessica's bedtime, so I decided to wait until after bedtime/dinner before making jam. For me, these days, that was a dangerous decision. It very well could have doomed my plans of making raspberry jam yesterday. But it didn't. So I made my raspberry jam, and cleaned up, and they are beautiful, and they all set up and sealed. It's great. I love making jam. Honestly, at this point, as my mom said in her blog: "and so it begins". My mom's fruit trees are starting to be ready to be picked, so she has lots of extra fruit, because she doesn't have all 5 kids living at home anymore. So, tomorrow (Monday) I plan on canning my peaches, and by Wednesday, I'll bring my mom's canner back to her. But, then I'll probably also be helping her can peaches over at her house (I just wanted some that were completely my own) and I'll try to help her with the pears, and corn, and whatever else as well, because I feel better asking for some of those if I've helped her can them. But, I've also got a few more things I'll be doing here at my house. I have plans for at least 3 more types of jam, and possibly a jelly as well. I want to make some Peach/Raspberry jam, some Peach/Pear jam, some Strawberry jam, (possibly some straight peach jam) and the jelly, I want to make apple jelly, but we'll see where we are on that one. That will probably be last, because I'll be buying the apples, and Costco always has them, whereas, the fruit is coming on now, and won't last forever.
     So yeah, sorry, no pictures, maybe next week, after I've done some more canning/jam I'll put them all together and show you the "fruits" of my labor. (yes, I did intend to make the horrible pun)