Know what I love?

STRAWBERRIES!

There are few things on earth more beautiful than a strawberry: perfectly ripe, perfectly red, perfectly topped with a green leafy hat. Strawberries are in season in my neck of the woods right now, and I've spent this afternoon covered in them. I made three batches of homemade strawberry jam! Two high octane batches and one reduced sugar batch for my daddy who is a diabetic.

Now, normally I'm not the happy homemaker type. Oh, I can hold my own in a kitchen and I manage to run a functional home, but I do enjoy transacting business and having a career also. So it's not like you'll find homemade bread or any kind of crafty-type things around my house. BUT part of the magnificence of femininity is that in less than a 24 hour period, I can enjoy traditional homemaking and fast paced career activities... and I mean completely enjoy BOTH.

But I'm getting off the subject... Back to the strawberries.

I love making jam. It's sticky and messy, and I burned my finger but I still love it. You've smelled fresh strawberries, right? Imagine that smell magnified 1000 times as the strawberries and sugar heat up to just the right point. It's amazing, I tell you. PLUS, the process produces this pink foamy stuff that you can include in your jam or skim off the top (most people skim it) and it tastes incredible, has the consistency of strawberry mousse. The jars make the cutest little popping sound as they seal. The whole process is sweet, sticky, productive and incredibly fun.

I've made plenty of jam before, but this time I couldn't help getting a little nostalgic about the whole thing. This time I made the jam in my Granny's kitchen. (I live here, and she's in heaven, but it'll always be her kitchen.) I used a hand held chopper that was once hers. It still has bits of the masking tape she wrapped around the handle to protect her fingers, though my dishwashers have worn most of the tape away in the years I've had it. I stood at her sink, chopping with her chopper and looking out windows she looked out of for so many years as she ran her household. I'm frankly not too sure why I'm here or how long I'll be in this place, but today's moments were part of what I expected to experience here: a reminder of just who I am and where I've come from. I needed the reminder, since lately I've felt as if I'm just back at square one. Maybe I am. But while I'm here, I'm soaking up the facts of who I am so that I can move forward, confident in those facts and in myself.

All that from strawberry jam...

Did I mention I love strawberries?