Canning Disasters

Being Fall and all, and being that apples and peaches were only 88 cents a pound, I did the only natural thing and made up large quantities of pie filling. 

Day1. I completely fail to make sure that I had all the ingredients required before peeling, coring and slicing 2 dozen apples.  I didn't have the car so I ended up juicing about 6 of those apples that took so long to prepare all for a measly 2 cups of apple juice and I ended up having to go to the store that evening to stock up for day 2. 

I should note that we have VERY hard water here and so I have to use several gallons of distilled water  for the water bath. I should also note that I failed to get more water....

Day 2. Lots of apple pie filling. It's going well. I prep all the peaches and pour the rest of my water into the canner (preparing peaches takes forever by the way). I put the last couple of apple jars in the canner and, POP! Jar breaks. Apple pie filling EVERYWHERE. The last of my precious water is totally contaminated. I have 7 quarts of peaches just sitting there waiting to be turned into pie filling. I have a pot of sugar and clearjel just waiting for the peaches. Oh, and I don't have the car. While dealing with all that I had left my huge food storage bucket of sugar open and the 4 year old decided to taste it...which, incidentally resulted in sugar all over the floor.

I ended up waiting for Paul to come home (which resulted in browner, mushier peaches than I would have liked, even with drenching them in lemon juice) and spent the entire evening canning up peach pie filling.  I can't say that I'm eager to do any more canning for awhile. In any case, I've got a bunch of delicious pie filling going on in my cupboard.

one of those days...

Today started off well enough. I ate cheerios and watched cartoons with James before we got ready to swap the car with Paul. Then we went to the library and the park before heading over to the medical center for my appointment today.

That's where the trouble began. I'd only been to this office once before and Paul drove. The medical center is this huge beast of a place with hospitals and unmarked parking garages EVERYWHERE. My GPS was confused and showed a random dot in the middle of some complex somewhere but really didn't know what to tell me as far as where to go next. I wouldn't know where I was at until I was already at the gate and there was no turning around so I had to take a ticket and find my way to the exit. At one point I thought I recognized where I was so we got out and started walking only to realize that I had no clue as to my whereabouts. So I went to another parking garage, parked, got out, walked around, was lost, walked back, cried, drove around some more...

So I sent Paul a message that said something like, "I'm so lost, don't know if I'm going to make it to my appointment." Then he started sending me texts that said things like, "calm down," and, "it'll be fine," which did absolutely nothing to calm me down.  I stood still in the humid heat holding a very sweaty 4 year old's hand and called the office to tell them I wasn't coming (because I'd cried multiple times already and felt pretty much done...I blame hormones).

I got the automated: Please hold, we value you as a patient blah blah blah. This went on for at least 5 minutes before an actual human being picked up. 5 minutes may as well have been an hour. James had no idea what to say to me other than he didn't want to hold the hand of the sweaty, hysterical woman who happens to be his mother. The lady was really nice and said there was no need to cancel the appointment and that she'd stay on the phone with me until I found them. I cried and cried and tried to explain where I was and she said not to worry because they get these calls all the time and it's a hard place to find and yada yada. I finally made it.

I was a hot mess. Red in the face from sun exposure, hair wild and crazy from the humidity, completely drenched in sweat and on the verge of mental break down at any moment. No one said anything though and I really didn't feel like rehashing the experience. A random nurse brought me a cup of water. Apparently I looked like I needed it. The appointment lasted all of 10 minutes and my Dr. informed that I'd gained more weight than he'd have liked this month and how about I watch that this next month...

I've taken a cold shower and a nap and I still feel emotionally exhausted from the whole thing. Dramatic?

maybe.

Unfortunately, drowning my sorrows in sugar isn't really an option now as I'm already fat enough as it is. Thank goodness Duck Dynasty comes on tonight. The end.