small batch strawberry vanilla preserves

I love making preserves. I love the way may pantry looks lined with glass jars filled with colorful fruits and tasty sauces, I love that I don’t have brand name labels staring me in the face, and I love the simplistic beauty in a jar of jam. Unfortunately, sometimes preserves, jams, and jellies call for insane amounts of produce.

Really, who has 40 pounds of tomatoes or strawberries laying around?

I don’t. Now: 40 pounds of laundry laying around? No comment. 😉

Unfortunately, we can’t make preserves out of 40 pounds of laundry. Although there is a Latin dish called Ropa Veija which translates into “old clothes”… but that’s another post.

Eeek. Speaking of posts. I have slacked here. I have treated this blog like the forty pounds of laundry…. not that I haven’t wanted to post or write… things just happened to keep me away. For instance:

My “new” (1 year, 3 months) computer was “terminally ill”. Seriously. How many times have you heard four computer techs say: “We took it apart, even called the company. We can’t figure it out.” However-!!!! This “quieted” my husband who kept saying all along that I got a virus on it from Facebook.

And, I saved up and got myself a new one…. and- get this: I can do my videos again!!! YAAAAAAY! Remember the “keeping it real” cooking series I did a while ago? Oh yes. More of those are coming.

Speaking of Facebook, (and viruses)I unplugged from my personal page and news feed for near forty days… and, can I tell you how awesomely enlightening it is to be away from social media? I wake up and live my own life instead of vicariously living through someone else…I realize what an extreme time sucker news feeds can be so in the future, I am only going to check news feeds ONLY at red lights and school lines. I’m sure I’ll be honked at on ~~occasion~~ a lot.

In a way, those news feeds ARE a virus. A time sucking virus that numbs your mind to the existence of real society and life. Just look at your average pre-teen with a device in their hands…I’m still not sure if my stepdaughter knows we got a new couch…

So… with my new-found “no news feed time” I managed to:

have more time to read devotionals and do homework

get laundry done before 7am

lunches made before the children awake

animals fed/watered

be a better wife and mama

I challenge you to unplug for a week (or month?) from social media. See what you can accomplish. And, share it with me, who knows maybe we’ll start a whole movement together. Sound fun?

Now: back to the preserves.

I has a lot of strawberries… not 40 pounds but maybe two or three.