Tea Jelly!

Well, I lied. I am going to do one more post before bed. The baby is down in his crib, but I'll make one more post before I hit the pillows.

This time I want to post about the jelly that I made in December. I wrote last year about how I was excited to make this jelly as a gift for family and friends. The tea I used was one of Steeped Tea's blends: Christmas Chai! Ooooh, it smelled DIVINE. Rich and warm and deep, like sliding into a hot tub or relaxing by the fire in fuzzy PJ's. Oh, it was most heavenly. 

Anyhoo, I used a recipe I had found on Pinterest. I had never canned anything or made any kind of jelly before in my life, so this was a completely new experience.

My ingredients: tea, lemon juice, powdered pectin, and sugar. H2O not pictured. Simple, right?

Now, a problem I have is not really following recipes to an absolute T. After making several observations about the fact that this recipe was NOT in fact going to give me as big a batch as I'd hoped, and seeing that 1.5 cups of water was going to pretty much dissolve into steam as I boiled it, I added an extra .5 cup. Plus, I had to steep 12 BAGS OF TEA and dissolve 3 CUPS OF SUGAR in 1.5 CUPS OF WATER. It just didn't seem right, but I was nervous about deviating any further from the recipe.

After steeping my tea in the boiling water, I added the other ingredients and then stirred, boiled, and added where necessary according to the recipe. The recipe itself was kind of vague and did not tell me about whether or not I needed to prep the jars in any way or if I needed to put the lids on right away after pouring the jelly. In short, I was doing a lot of experimentation. Where was Elliot, you ask? Oh, it was Sunday. The grandparents had hold of him. 

The pre-canned jelly looked and smelled a lot like syrup, and was a rich, golden brown color that of course smelled divine. My stove top was sticky and gross and the burners were stained with residue from where the stuff had accidentally boiled over, but I was pleased with the result.

Canning the jelly was more difficult than I had anticipated. For one thing, I didn't read until later that there is a process to prepping jars for any kind of canning, and of course I had been dumb enough not to realize that. I poured the hot jelly into the jars and then put the lids on and stuck them in the refrigerator. The recipe was very unclear about this part, so I put a few in and left a few out to observe the "setting." According to the recipe, the jelly would set within 2 hours. But still after 2 hours, the jelly (both refrigerated and not) had not set even a little. Bewildered and flustered, I gave up the attempts and told myself I would fix things at my parents' place when I visited them for the holidays. 

That did not happen. 

Neither did the cute cloth can-topper I had envisioned and bough special cloth for (at a bargain price, too). I consider myself crafty, but I had not planned the thing out very well, and so only a few cans got "topped."

I even added gold ribbon and my business card! Ignore the diaper bag in the background.

When I got home, my focus was getting that jelly to set right. I added more pectin to each batch and re-filled the jars. This time, the jelly set right, and I was able to give them out as promised to friends and family in time for Christmas (and after that, too). 

I took several lessons from this. 

1. Don't wait until 2 weeks before Christmas to start DIY Christmas gifts.

2. Plan everything out step by step.

3. Do a practice run, especially if it's something you've never done before.

I'm the kind of person who has to jump in the water in order to learn how to swim. Silly analogy, but there you go. I learn by plunging in head-first, experimenting, and making mistakes. On the other hand, doing that sort of thing for crafty Christmas gifts probably isn't the best idea! But I had a lot of people compliment the taste, and certainly I had a few inquiries as to its construction and flavor. It's definitely a project I would do again!

First Blog of the New Year 2016!

Hi everyone! I know it's been a while since I posted. But it's a new year, and with the new year comes resolutions, including keeping up with the blog!

So where to even begin? September 2015 was officially classified as "hectic," as my family saw the arrival of baby Elliot and suddenly we were dealing with the care and nurturing of a tiny human. That puts more stress on the human body than you can imagine! I spent a lot of sleepless nights caring for the little tyke who did not want to fall asleep and wished instead to be held constantly. But Elliot is now 4 months old and is pretty much sleeping right through the night, waking only once for a meal. During the day he is so active and cognitive, babbling baby talk and laughing more and more. That means more food, more naps, and, fortunately, more time for me (mostly to get chores done!). We are steadily falling into a steady routine that will hopefully become even more beautiful with every change Elliot makes! 

Here are some changes were are implementing as a family for 2016:

1. For me, dressing modestly. Modesty is not supposed to compromise human dignity - it is supposed to glorify it. I am not against shorts, jeans, or even the occasional "sexy" outfit, especially when I'm with my husband! But my goal is to make cute outfits with skirts and thrift-store tops, and to attend church wearing a veil, as ladies used to do. This is a personal decision, not forced upon me by my husband, peers, or my religion. I want to do this because I feel this is a Good Thing. Besides, I'm pretty sure that by dressing appropriately, I can teach my son the value of respecting women!

2. Finances. Our medical bills were so ridiculous it wasn't even funny. During my pregnancy I had visited four different hospitals, so I was getting billed from several different places all at once, and living paycheck to paycheck simply wasn't enough to cover costs. Regardless of bills, however, Jeff and I are taking care of our budget in small ways each month. It really makes a difference in paying attention to the food you buy, the gas you spend, and how much air or heat you pump through your house! Sticking to a budget plan each month is also helping us put away money in our savings, which we hope to use by next year for a down payment on a house.

3. Investing More Time With Family. I know this sounds like a no-brainer, but I am such a reclusive homebody, which could be detrimental to Elliot's development. It being winter doesn't help, nor that Elliot is still to young to really "play with," but just getting him outside to see the wonders of creation would be beneficial for my son, who needs to learn vocabulary beyond what he hears in stories, and see things beyond the walls of his home. It will be good for Jeff and I, too, to spend more time with the in-laws and our friends, when we can!

4. Organizing Life. This one sounds nearly impossible, but in the few months that I've been a mom, I have discovered a lot about myself that once before I thought impossible. I'm paying bills, making doctor's appointments (and keeping them), moving furniture, cooking healthy meals, keeping the budget, and, most importantly, keeping up with the laundry and the dishes. I'm also functioning on less than 7 hours of sleep, roughly. If I can do all that by myself, then I can do even more! 

5. Trying New Things. Jeff wants to start a comedy club. I want to publish short fiction. Jeff wants to continue our weekly D&D campaigns. I want to continue my Steeped Tea business and keep current with my blog and Facebook page. And, of course, we want to spend more time with our son, together! 

Those are just a few of our New Year resolutions. As you may notice, there's nothing in there about eating healthy or getting "fit." We keep fruits and veggies on our table, and our budget limits our eating-out. Otherwise, we're not into the protein shakes or kale salads. Some people adore them, and such things fit their needs and lifestyle, but Jeff and I are very laid-back people who enjoy pizza on a Friday night and our carrots with ranch dip (or our apples with caramel sauce, no regrets). As for getting fit, both Jeff and I are aware that we could afford to hit the gym at least once a week, but working out daily is not our thing. We are not overweight or unhealthy - we simply don't do weekend marathons or pull-ups. 

Another family goal is to be more world-matter-conscious. Last year hit me hard in the emotions as I read with horror about Planned Parenthood. Both my husband and I are pro-life, but before Elliot came along I felt detached from the issues, though they do bother me immensely. Being pro-life is more than rallying for unborn children; it is the call to recognize dignity in every human being, and the rally to celebrate life rather than its demise simply for convenience. As I read about the atrocities being committed, I thought about the baby inside me, and I considered his development - I thought about how he was not just a "bunch of cells"; those cells grew and changed every single second regardless of my will. Jeff and I were poor at the time; we had a crappy apartment, no insurance, a meager income, and only a few hundred dollars when we married and conceived. Anyone would have encouraged us to have an abortion because of our situation. But women everywhere must be reminded that their situation is not without hope. If women are surrounded by love and propped up by hope instead of fat dollar signs and disappointments, they would not feel the need to kill their precious, precious children. We are living in an age where science has deemed a fetus human from the moment of conception. Any excuse otherwise is pathetic and a sad attempt to justify murder. Therefore, I am making it a personal goal to be more involved with the pro-life movement, and to raise my son in a household that prays for both enemy and victim - and to educate him in the value and dignity of human life, which is also both sacred and precious. The world can be a vicious place - but it doesn't have to be!

I will write more in the upcoming weeks. There is a lot to blog about, and I would write more tonight, but I'll probably hit the pillow when I put the baby down tonight. Mommy's exhausted!