able mabel

I only had a few items that I wanted to accomplish today. See, I'm learning. One was to get started on these boxes of peaches taking up prime real estate in my kitchen.

After settling the Littles down for their afternoon naps, I rolled up my sleeves.

The jars, washed and ready to go.I blanched the peaches (so the skins would come off easily), pulled out my handy dandy food chopper and was on my way.

The first batch of cooked jam was taking it's bath when I started in on a batch of freezer jam. The timer beeped alerting me to the fact that bath time was over. I ambled over to the stove and started taking the hot jars out of the boiling water. All was well until...

I went to take the one quart jar out. It slipped, fell to the counter and shattered, sending a spray of peach jam all over! I stood there momentarily stunned as I surveyed the scene. Jam dripping off the counter, down the side of the stove, under the stove, under the toaster...Ugh, double ugh, googleplex ugh. (couldn't resist throwing that in there. It's my kids' fav number.)

I heard the second timer beep. The freezer jam was ready to mix up. Then I heard a wail from the baby monitor. Lou was ready to eat. Eeek! Now what do I do?! What "fire" should I put out first

I stuck my tongue out at the jam spread to the ends of the earth and back and went to get Lou. With her draped over my left arm, I got the freezer jam mixed up and put into containers.

When I finally made it back into the kitchen to clean up the jam, it had gelled. I briefly thought about having toast for dinner and having each kid scrape their own jam off the counter. ;)
The mess was much easier to clean up than I thought. Just a constant rinsing and wringing of the rag.

JB had just been teasing me about my lack of canning tongs when she was here. She's right, again. I'm not doing any more canning until I get a pair.

Now I can't get the stove back into it's slot. Whoever tiled the kitchen had to do a patch job under the stove so instead of sliding nicely back where it belongs, you have to lift it over the hump as you slide it. For the life of me, I can't get it. Looks like I'll be cooking dinner in the middle of the kitchen. Literally...