Strawberry balsamic vanilla jam.

I was asked to share this recipe. It's not completely mine, it is actually cobbled together from several recipes I liked and tweaked until I found what worked for me. Hope you enjoy it!

Ingredients:

8 cups fresh strawberries, roughly chopped

2 vanilla beans, each split in half

4 cups of granulated sugar

4tbsp of aged balsamic vinegar

The juice of 2 small, or one large lemon (our family tree just happens to produce giants)

Directions:

Wash, hull, and roughly chop berries. Toss with 2 cups of sugar and  the halved vanilla beans (scrape the seeds out a bit and mix them in too) in a large bowl. Cover and chill in fridge overnight.

When you’re ready to make the jam, prepare canner and wash/sterilize 6 half-pint mason (or equivalent) jars. Keep jars in hot (not boiling) water until ready to use. Warm lids in hot (not boiling) water to sterilize and soften seal. I honestly just do the sterilize cycle in the dishwasher and leave them in so they are still warm when I need them.

Pour the berries and all liquid into a large saucepan along with remaining sugar, discarding vanilla beans. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and simmer until the jam reaches 220 degrees F, stirring regularly. If you are getting a lot of foam, add a tbsp of butter, it will help. You might need to turn down the burner as it gets hotter so as not to get splattered with burning jam. Use a candy thermometer for the temperature-- they aren't too expensive and they help you make sure you will get the gel effect without having to add pectin or test on a dozen frozen spoons. Add in the lemon juice for the final 5 minutes of cooking.

You can test the gel of the jam by placing a spoonful on a chilled plate or spoon. Return to the freezer for 1 to 2 minutes, then check for doneness. If you want a firmer gel, cook for a few minutes longer.

When jam has reached the desired consistency, remove from heat and skim off foam. Ladle hot sauce into jars, leaving 1/4-inch of headspace. Wipe jar rims and threads. Screw on lids and rings. Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Remove from water and let cool completely, 12 to 24 hours. Check seals. Any
unsealed jars should be refrigerated and used within 3 weeks.

Sick Baby

        Looking back although I knew you could never be "ready" for parenthood, I felt fairly well prepared in terms of having spent a lot of time with kids, even being a nanny at different times in my 20s.  I guess the main thing I wasn't prepared for was all the emotions that come with that my being a "mom". It is significantly different from being a nanny no matter how much you love that little cutie you care for.

(the sick kiddo at the Dr's office)

        For instance if I had thought the baby I was watching was sick in a way that warranted a doctor's visit I would proclaim so confidently; but as a mom, I decide to call the pediatrician and immediately have second thoughts. Is he really sick enough to warrant this? Am I just some sort of crazy over-worried mom? Actually at this moment he doesn't seem nearly as sick as he did 2 minutes ago. Should I? Should I? So, I do and then all the same doubts return on the way to the doctor's office. Of course, now he is smiling and cooing in the car seat, happy as a clam, forehead cool (no sign of that previous 100.8 fever). I am now convinced that everyone who works at the pediatrician's office will think I am a neurotic alarmist. I almost start praying he will look more sick, like he did 2 hours ago!  Oh well, too late to back out now-- here we go!
      What is this weird insecurity? Where does it come from? It has not been proved to be a reasonable insecurity. My pediatrician is awesome and would never make me feel stupid for my concerns, not to mention that last time I felt this way it turned out to be an ear infection, and guess what? Turns out the kid actually was legitimately visit-the-doctor-sick this time too -- an infection in both ears! Why do I doubt my judgement more as a mom than I ever did as a babysitter/nanny/ etc.?  This fear of being seen as "that mom" is ridiculous. . . I mean even if people did judge me like that honestly, what does it matter? Who cares?
     Maybe it is because being a mom is more of an identity thing than any other job I could ever imagine and I so want to be good at it.  The truth is I will make mistakes-- heck I accidentally hit my kid in the head with the washer door this morning!  But overall I need to learn to trust that I do have some idea what I am doing. The kid is happy, reasonably healthy, bright, sweet and a dear little love. We are almost coming to his first birthday (which we all know is really about celebrating that we kept him alive for a whole year).  Time to start trusting those mom-instincts.
      Today started with a fever, snotty nose and crying. It has ended with a kid asleep, a bath for mommy, a plastic kids cup full of Baileys on ice (bath safety is key) and a good book-- it feels almost like old times, minus the baby monitor next to the tub and an extra achy back from holding the sick kiddo all day.  We're about to start trying for #2 and for a moment I don't feel like it is pure folly. We are far from perfect, but there is God's grace, mom-instincts and book-reading baths. We'll be okay.

Hello all!
  I am returning to the blog as I take some much needed time off facebook in order to still have a space where people who want to keep up with what's going on with us can check in or who just want to see pictures of Jed and what he is doing can do so as well.  A slight warning-- I may use this as a place to do some written musing as well. Enjoy what you like, ignore what you don't, and comment where you will. :)

My favorite Easter poem-- by John Updike of all people!

Seven Stanzas At Easter

By John Updike

Make no mistake: if He rose at all

it was as His body;

if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules

reknit, the amino acids rekindle,

the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,

each soft Spring recurrent;

it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled

eyes of the eleven apostles;

it was as His flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,

the same valved heart

that--pierced--died, withered, paused, and then

regathered out of enduring Might

new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,

analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;

making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the

faded credulity of earlier ages:

let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,

not a stone in a story,

but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow

grinding of time will eclipse for each of us

the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,

make it a real angel,

weighty with Max Planck's quanta, vivid with hair,

opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen

spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,

for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,

lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are

embarrassed by the miracle,

and crushed by remonstrance.

Orion

 ( This is an old poem I wrote a very long time ago-- as I am enjoying each last night I can see Orion in the sky at this time of year I was reminded of it and thought I'd throw it out there. :)

Orion

a gray rock,

dragged from its mountain by some

ambitious landscaper to sit sentinel

amid the iceplant of our front yard,

where it could nightly experience

the indignity of a clambering barefoot child

posing for sunset on it.

my brother’s sweatshirt, jeans, an afghan

and bare feet wet from crushed iceplant,

i’d mount my boulder and pet the

molting eucalyptus at its side.

then, chin on knees-- pulled up, limb-locked,

hair spilling from its clip’s hard bite, and

my toes gripping the cool rock, i’d wait

for the pink to fade

from the edges of my picture;

and for bright tips of light to

prick me until Orion came out.

He would stop the bullying

right away and, bow drawn taut,

swear to shoot all dragons haunting

my cul-de-sac at night.

i thanked Him kindly,

made a wish on His belt,

and went inside,

never knowing the dragons He killed.

Dancing in Public and the Horribleness of the Word "Blog"

Welcome to my secret blog. Secret because no one knows it exists but me just yet and I rather like that. It is not that I am attempting to hide my identity here --  just a quiet hope that I won't get noticed, or at least not much, as of yet.
         I read blogs; I enjoy them; have been told to write one for years now, but there are just a few problems with that: First, I am stubborn as hell and if you tell me to do something I am 100% more likely to not do it for just that reason-- childish, ridiculous, but there you are. Secondly, well. . . beginning to blog feels vaguely like dancing in public: You want to join in the fun, are fairly sure you'll enjoy it, but rather hope you won't be noticed until you have loosened up, tried out a few moves, had a drink or two, etc.  There are some people who can just jump right into that gyrating circle and show off their stuff.  That's not me. Let me get a glass of wine in me and put my time in on the edges first.  I'll get there eventually.
         All this to say that if you have discovered this wee bit of rambling you are the first to have noticed me at the dance. I'm white and 1/4th Jewish. I grew up at a Dutch Reformed School. If my rhythm is lacking be merciful. It will improve.
                 As a final note I would just like to say that I hate the word blog. It just rhymes with too many other bad, clunky, stick-in-your-nose words like bog, clog and smog. I can't say it without feeling I have a head cold.  Can't we come up with a more palatable word? "I'm blogging." "I'm a blogger." Yuck. How can you say that without feeling like you need to blow your nose?