Happy Birthday, Merry Christmas to ME

After I got my large canning pot, I was on fire. I was canning the world or so it felt. I decided for Christmas gifts this year, I would give people apple butter. I had never made the stuff before and thought that I found an easy slow cooker recipe. It called for Grade A maple syrup. After more research, I discovered that this is the EXPENSIVE, organic, not the artificial stuff. This stuff was spendy for not that much. It was also kind of tricky to find. I searched two farmers markets and settled on one. As I was nearing the checkout, I passed by the canning display of things that they had set up. I noticed the Ball Blue Book sitting there with a price tag of $7.99. Let me tell you people, that was cheap. I spotted it in another food storage store a while back for $20! I looked up the apple butter recipe, it looked easier and did not require the maple syrup. So I decided to buy the book instead of the syrup.

So Labor Day approached and I decided that was the day.I was going to do it. On top of that, we just picked a ton of tomatoes from our garden and my mom's so I figured that I would start with that. They looked easier. A good tester of my learned skills (the day before I literally read the entire Ball Blue Book no joke-so interesting). I started getting everything out and realized that I was missing a few things. I was missing a magnet thingamajig to get the lids out of the hot water and a jar lifter. I went EVERYWHERE for that stupid (sorry Gunnar for saying that-he thinks it is a bad word) jar lifter. Nobody had it and I mean nobody. I went to Winco (found the magnet thing there but not the other), Shopko (sold out of everything canning and wasn't getting more), Ride Aid, Albertsons, Walmart, Kmart (this poor lady with 2 kids was also looking for the same thing, I told her to trust me that I searched everywhere, I regret not telling her that I had one more place to try around the corner and to follow me just in case they did). So I remember the farmers market where I got that book around the corner. It was worth a shot on the way home. Sure enough they had baskets full of them. I felt so bad about not telling that lady. She could have followed me and I would have run in to check and tell her so she didn't have to get out. It was heaven find those stupid (there's the word again) things.

So on my search at Shopko, I ran across the best thing ever. We have been wanting a really good set of pots and pans for ever, like 7 years. Our wedding ones were trash a long time ago, this second set was a cheapo new se off of craigslist about 7 years ago. So as I was wondering through Shopko, I happened upon a display model of Kitchenaid hard anodized pots and pans with everything there. They looked brand new, not a scratch on them. They just didn't have the box but the paperwork was there. The price tag on them was $79.99. The original price tag on them was $229.99. The cheap, cheap, cheapo sets are that price to start. I seriously could not pass that up and called Jeff right away. He said that I could get them as long as I understood that they were my birthday and Christmas present. I was fine with that. I scooped them up and hauled off for the registered. I was stoked. Jeff tried to tell me that I needed to wrap them up and wait for my birthday in November. Are you kidding me. We could seriously die from something on the other pots and pan sets. They were bad. So bad that I was too embarrassed to take a picture of them. It was bad. The surface stuff was coming off. It was bad.

So after my excitement I got to work on the tomatoes and then some apple butter. Aren't they beautiful. (Now looking at the pictures I forgot that I never took a picture of the other jars of tomatoes. There were about 7 others besides these 3).