All Grown Up

I have spent all day canning Bread and Butter Pickles. I know that doesn't sound like much but this is my first time canning in my kitchen all by myself. I am exhausted!

I was reading my canning book yesterday and I thought I could hurry and get some pickles made relatively quickly but Big D wanted to go boating for Brook's birthday. So I decided to hold off and wait until today, boy am I glad I waited.

I ran out to my mom's to grab the canning pots and a few more jars. After searching her garden I found a few more cucumbers and zucchinis. Then I had to stop at the store to buy some canning salt and some onions, yeah like that's all I'm going to walk out of the store with.

I don't think I even got started until about two thirty and I am just barely getting done at eight. After five and a half hours of work I only got seventeen pint jars done. If I had to sell them in a store I'd have to charge like twenty bucks a jar to make it worth it. Now I understand why canning is a dying art.

However, the one thing buying store canned pickles could never give me is the satisfaction in knowing that I did these pickles all by myself. I planted, watered, and grew the zucchini and cucumbers. I picked, washed and sliced them. I followed the recipe and canned them all by myself, okay with about ten phone calls to my mom.

I have the wonderful knowledge and boast in my self-esteem that I know how to do this. Yes, it is a lot of work but I can do it! Growing up my mom always tried to teach me how to cook or can. She is a wonderful mother in every way, but I never wanted to learn either of those things no matter how many times my mom said, "This will help you when you grow up." I think that is half the reason I never wanted to learn, because if I learned I'd have to grow up.

I guess the jokes on me because I still grew up and I never learned how to cook or can, or sew for that matter.

I gotta say these pickles better taste better than anything I've ever had. If nothing else my kids had better like them because they are the ones who are going to eat most of them.