not quite knitting

When I first start a vacation, I always cycle through the same basic stages. “Vacation?” I first say to myself. “This is the BEST EVER. I’m going to do so many FUN THINGS. I’ll never be tired again!

This elation lasts for approximately an hour (give or take), before I get bored. Quickly, it becomes clear that I’ve completely forgotten how to do fun things, except in short two-hour bursts bookended by work. So I start thinking of things I can do, and end up making work for myself. You know, fun work. Things I’ve seen other people blog about, or have been meaning to do around the house, but haven’t quite had the time for. Projects.

In other words, I made my own jam this week.

It wasn’t a terribly labour-intensive process, much to my surprise. I used the freezer jam recipe on the back of the pectin packet – 1.5c sugar to 4c fruit, which was a surprisingly low ratio, as all the reading I’d done led me to believe that freezer jam involved several cups of sugar for every cup of fruit. This definitely wasn’t the case with the pectins I was able to find in my local Canadian Tire.

I smushed up three cups of blueberries and one cup of raspberries – all awesome local Ontario fruit from the farmer’s market – mixed in the pectin, and put the concoction into jars. The whole process took maybe an hour and a half, and I’d totally do it again, because the jam is delicious. I’ve gone through half a jar already.

I think, after a few days, I’m finally starting to get the hang of relaxing. But the projects are definitely helping.