Strawberry Jam

This one starts with a new years resolution. In the last couple of years I've been trying to keep my resolutions simple so that I actually feel like I accomplished something by the end of the year. For 2009 my resolution was to . . . pick berries and make jam. I should say right now - if this is all I accomplished in a year then all of you reading this have the right to come to my house and kick my rear end. And, especially, if that's the excuse you need to visit then I will welcome it.

I started this adventure by inviting a friend of mine and her kids to join me in picking strawberries. We chose a lovely farm nearby, and of course, got lost on the way! It took us nearly an hour to get there.

Her youngest, Luke, is 18 months and especially enjoyed picking the berries and squeezing them between his fingers. I don't think my friend even attempted to get the stains out of his clothing!

The picking went quickly. But, it was a little hot outside so our time concluded with meltdowns from both kids. But, by that time our boxes were as full as we needed them to be anyway. Success.



I came home with 11 pounds of strawberries costing $1.47 per pound. I cut up one pound and divided them into sandwich bags to freeze. That way when the margarita urge comes my way I can just grab a bag from the freezer and throw it in my blender. I cut up another 1/2 pound to just put in the refrigerator to graze on.

A couple of days later I gathered some canning supplies and hoped to make jam with the rest of the berries.

There is a strawberry jam that sticks out in my memory from my childhood. I wonder if Em remembers it too? Our pastor's wife made the most wonderful jam. She used to stockpile it in the freezer and pull it out for Sunday lunches. It occurred to me that it probably wouldn't be difficult to find a similar recipe and make some of my own.

Then, serendipitously, House on Hill Road (one of my favorite blogs) posted about her strawberry jam making process. I love it when that happens. I ended up using her recipe and made 12 jars of my own.

Boy, does it have a lot of sugar in it. But, it is so good! Just in case you're at my house (you know . . . in case I'm spending far too much time on the couch and you need to kick my rear end) be sure to grab some jam on the way out the door. You'll be glad you did.

Faribault Flowers

This one is really for Mom. Just wanted to show you how happy my flowers are on the front porch.



Jesse convinced me to buy the terracotta pot rather than a black flower pot. I'm loving it. So simple. So classic. He tends to be right when it comes to those kinds of decisions. I better keep trusting him.

Cabinets = Stained :: Mom = Best Ever

Last month we tackled a project that I had been dreading ever since we moved in. In fact, since we moved in, I have tried to come up with a variety of excuses as to why we shouldn't do it. But, in the end, Jesse won, and we re-stained our kitchen cabinets.

Let me begin this post by saying I have the most wonderful mother in the whole world. Now, I know that other people think the same thing about their moms. And, that's okay. I just . . . you know . . . in the end . . . I know I'm right about mine.


My mom came to visit for a whole week in the middle of May. It's the longest she has stayed . . . and we filled up the week having the best time together! I had to work for three of the days that she was in town (ran out of vacation time) so before she came she kept telling me that she wanted to help with some projects around the house while she was here to keep her busy. Well, one of those projects that kept coming up was re-staining the kitchen cabinets. Like I said before, I tried to come up with many excuses to not have my mom working her butt off while she was on vacation (really I did). I truly felt bad in having her do this. But, in the end, it only seemed logical that if we were ever going to do this project, now would be the time.

Here are the cabinets before their makeover . . .



Before Mom came into town we took the cabinet door fronts and drawers to a strippery . . . a place called Ye Olde Strippery, which is in town . . . what? Yes, I'm serious. Doing that was more expensive than I thought, but probably well worth it, as it saved us many hours.

After she arrived we had this list to accomplish:

1. Strip and sand the varnish from the bases of the cabinetry
2. Decide whether to stain or paint
3. Choose stain color
4. Apply wood conditioner and two coats of stain
5. Apply three coats of varnish to bases of cabinets
6. Re-hang the cabinets and insert drawers
7. Apply three coats of varnish to cabinet doors and drawers
8. Re-hang cabinet hardware

Did I mention we have 34 door fronts and drawers? Ack! That's a lot of work!

We did steps 1-3 together (with the help of my wonderful mother in-law). Then, Mom put on the first coat of stain all by herself while Jesse and I were at work! It took 8 hours. Oh. my. Mom and Jesse applied the second coat together the next day. By the time she left we had done part of the varnishing. During the following week Jesse and I finished it up. Here's the project completed!




I made some curtains for the windows. We had some leftover king size pillow cases that we don't use. Those became curtains. I hope they like their move from the linen closet to the windows.



Still have some painting to do. I would like to paint the doors white to match all of the other woodwork in the house. And, we still need to address the floor and the oven . . . eventually.

We're so happy with our (new) cabinets. They came out just as we had anticipated. I'm loving the contrast of the cabinets with the wall color. Perfect.

Thanks for your help, Mom! We love it.

Eat Your Veggies (Part III)

Photo courtesy of Martha Stewart Living, May 2008

Well, I did it. I pared down my garden shortly after I wrote the last post. Although it was difficult to start it wasn't so bad once I got in there. I had to keep reminding myself that we couldn't possibly eat all the vegetables that those plants were going to produce anyway. Eight tomato plants full of tomatoes? Not likely.

On the same day we finally were able to pull some lettuce from the garden and eat it. So exciting! It went nicely with bleu cheese burgers. (Bleu cheese purchased in Fairbault, MN with my mom!) Yum.

Eat Your Veggies (Part II)

Photo courtesy of Martha Stewart Living, May 2008

This post has been a long time coming. It's almost 3 weeks overdue. I've been distracted this month with having my wonderful mother in town for a week, and a cabinet refinishing project that came along with her. (Pictures of that project coming soon.) I can't talk about that, though, until I share more about my little garden. First things first.

As of three weeks ago tomorrow all of the vegetables have been planted, a lot of the extra dirt (mentioned in the previous veggie post) has been removed and a little fence has been put into place to divert the bunnies - thanks to Jesse for encouraging me to put one in place. It would have been so like me to put in all the effort of this garden, forget the fence, and then cry when the bunnies came and ate my new veggies - he is so good at gently helping to prevent any breakdowns. So perfect for me.

Things are coming along well. I planted too many of each vegetable with the idea that I would pull out the excess plants once they have had time to sprout. I figured at that point I would be able to select the strongest plants and allow them to grow well. Now that they have been planted, though, I realize that pulling any plants out will be very sad for me. Humf. Because it's necessary I think I'll need to somehow grow a smaller/harder heart and muster up the courage to do that soon. The next post about my garden will come after I've done that. Maybe that will give me the motivation I need.

In my garden I have (from top left): pumpkins, green, yellow and orange peppers, beefsteak and grape tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce, beans, watermelon, carrots and acorn squash.

I'm loving watching it grow so far . . . so fun.

Hemming Jeans

Just recently I learned an awesome new way of hemming jeans. Sometimes with these kinds of things I figure the whole world has got to know this and that I'm just late in the game. That makes me a little embarrassed to share. Nevertheless, my recent hemming job has me awfully proud of myself . . . which means I'm gonna share it anyway!

So, you know when you're hemming jeans and it feels painful to cut off the beautiful, professional hem at the bottom because you know you're not going to be able to recreate it? This has pained me many times. Well, there's a way of hemming that allows you to keep it in tact! I just did it with a pair for my mother-in-law. It's genius!

1. Try on your jeans and measure the amount that it needs to be shortened.

2. Lay out the jeans on the table and roll up the bottom cuff.


2. Using a calculator, if necessary, divide the amount that you measured by two. For example, if you need to shorten your jeans by 1.5" then you will use .75".

3. On the "wrong" side of the jeans measure the calculated amount (.75" in my example) from the top of the professional hem.

4. Pinch that amount of fabric from above the hem and pin it.

5. Make sure your side seams are lined up correctly. Then, sew a seam just above the professional hem.

6. Do the same on the second leg, and you're done! It's as simple as that.

Now, if you have a lot of fabric hanging out because you had to shorten your jeans by several inches then you can use pinking shears to cut off the excess and use fray check to secure the edge.

Here's what my complete pair looks like:

**Update: I found my original source for this technique - you can see it here. The tutorial answers some more detailed questions at the bottom, just in case you have questions.

Also, my Mom was a little worried that I had hemmed the jeans incorrectly because in the last picture one of the legs appears significantly shorter than the other. Just in case anybody else was also concerned about my sanity/measuring skills I can assure you that I hemmed them the same length, but I had them hanging on a hook to take the picture, which made one leg seem significantly shorter. Thanks for questioning it, Mom. Lord knows I need the sanity check! ♥ Love you ♥

All Things Red

So many fun things are happening in my gardens this year. (Update on the veggie garden is coming.) It's the first year that I have been more present to the outside of my house than the inside of it come spring. There has always been a long list of projects to accomplish in the house that I haven't had enough time to even think about our yard. This year, though, is wonderfully different. Enough things have been crossed off the list inside that I have space and time to think about the outside. I'm enjoying it.


Last fall I planted my first ever flowers! I love tulips so very much, and I saw them on sale at Wal-Mart, so I thought, "What the heck? I'll give it a try". Not knowing whether or not they would actually come up (combined with the fact that I'm extremely frugal) I didn't buy very many - hence the sparsity.


I'm delighted that I actually grew something, and they compliment our red front door so nicely.

About the same time my tulips sprung up I made my very first strawberry pie. (Nice awkward transition from tulips to pies, huh?) I was asked to bring dessert for our family Mother's Day lunch and as a result of two things: a) Jesse and I had a delicious strawberry pie with a friend about three days prior and b) strawberries were selling for only 99 cents . . . strawberry pie seemed like the right thing to bring.


I used a nice, standard Betty Crocker recipe for the crust. It turned out well. Next time I will try a new way of crimping the sides - my technique was a little elementary. Okay, embarrassingly elementary. My mom has the most beautiful way of doing it, which I will try next time.


I used this yummy recipe for the filling. It was delish!