Strawberry Jam without extra sugar

This weekend the kids and I made no-sugar-added Strawberry Freezer Jam. Oh. my. goodness, it is good! We made a special loaf of Honey Oatmeal Wheat bread and the combo is our go-to food for breakfast, lunch and snacks. Fresh strawberries smeared on toasted perfection... what's not to love?

Strawberry Freezer Jam

2 lbs strawberries

1 tube frozen white grape juice concentrate or apple juice concentrate

1 package no-sugar added pectin

2 envelopes plain gelatin

2 T-1/4 c. lemon juice

stevia

Heat juice concentrate to boiling and allow to simmer until reduced to approximately 1/2 cup. Set aside.

Hull and cut the strawberries (we cut ours in 1/2 inch pieces). Crush the strawberries to desired smoothness (we left big chunks). Allow the strawberries to sit for a while, or until a lot of juice has come out of them.

Put strawberries in large pan, then mix in juice concentrate and 2 T of lemon juice. Next add pectin and gelatin and mix until both are dissolved. Heat the pan over medium high heat, stirring frequently. The jam should boil hard and thicken (if it seems too thick, add a teeny bit of water or more lemon juice -- it is better to have it too thick than too runny). It will eventually begin to foam. When this happens, turn off the heat, skim the foam and continue to stir occasionally for a minute or two. Taste the jam (carefully!) and add stevia to taste (Start with 5-10 drops and mix well before re-tasting. Don't add so much that it is bitter. Stevia is not good when it is the first thing one tastes.).

Ladle warm jam into freezer containers and allow to cool before covering and putting in fridge or freezer. It should keep in the fridge for several weeks and the freezer for several months, though, trust me, you'll use it long before that.

Before eating, stir it a little to make it less jello-like. Ours is exactly like regular sugar-filled jam when stirred.

Enjoy (in copious amounts)!

And let me know if you try it!

Edited to add: I forgot the lemon juice! It's fixed now.

Breathtaking

Mommas... I entreat you. Read Ann's words here today.

The fruitful year

This year, at the beginning of May, I turn 35. I have decided to make it my "fruitful year" by embracing the gardening gene long latent within me and plant the bejeebers out of the yard of our new house.

Dennis gave me the go-ahead and so, for a pre-birthday gift, I ordered a significant load of fruits, including:

5 apple trees -- Honeycrisp, Goldrush, Pixie Crunch, Sundance, and Pristine.

2 cherry trees -- Montmorency and Sweet Stella

1 peach tree -- Contender

1 pear tree -- Honeysweet

10 raspberries -- Heritage (above)

3 Currants -- Red Lake

3 Cherry Bushes -- Nanking

2 Native Plums

2 Gooseberries -- Pixwell

2 Grape vines - Cayuga

...and a partridge for the pear tree. :)

Our yard is very large, and the trees are all semi-dwarfs, so they won't get too unmanageable. We cut down some inherited trees -- two pears and an apple -- that were unruly, old, and non-productive, so now we can have the fruit we want.

This weekend was spent digging holes. The raspberries, grape, pear and peach are in. Pristine is waiting in a trench against the garage for her sisters to be delivered. I expect to get an email notifying me of impending delivery soon. I'm eager to meet these ladies.

I'm excited. I think it's going to be a fruitful year. :)

What we've been doing lately

Collecting pebbles/ fish from side of the cellar door/ river


Doing Very Important Tasks with Daddy's hand truck

Building castles in the sky...and the sand

Watching the goings-on patiently...

...Or not so patiently

High-fashion digging

Helping Daddy...

... pants optional.

My new BFF

Keeping eyes open for the risen Christ

Post-Easter has always been a bit of a challenge for me. In pastoral ministry, the focused intention of Lent, Holy Week, and Easter was a gift, especially for a congregation that was, generally, rather purpose-less. After Easter, we had a "now what?" feeling, I think.

This is now my second Easter as a layperson and both Easters, I've been surprised to find that, come Monday morning, the same feeling settled upon our family. Dennis and I talked about how it almost seemed as though we had spent Lent, and especially Holy Week and Easter morning, really carefully shaping our family's devotional experiences only to have Easter pass away with the dawn of Monday morning and a 5 a.m. alarm clock call. The question remains -- now what?

This year, in the face of a bit of malaise, I was smart enough to go back to the Scriptures and read about what the disciples did post-Resurrection. It looks like they had returned to a "normal" pattern of life, to a certain extent. They went to work, ate and slept. But they also shared stories of Jesus. They met together, presumably to remember and perhaps, re-enact what they did with Jesus. And, most instructive to me, they were receptive to meeting the risen Christ wherever they were, even in the most seemingly mundane of settings.

So, this post-Easter, Dennis and I have decided we should do the same. We're back to the day-to-day activities, as per usual. But as we work, eat, sleep, etc., we're going to be intentional about remembering what Jesus did and we'll be trying hard to re-enact what he did, especially how he sacrificed himself. But most of all, we'll be trying to keep our eyes open, ready to meet with the risen Christ wherever we are.

Photo: Dan-o and Annalivia with our Easter cross

Easter photo attempt

We've yet to get a good photo on Easter. I don't think I ever made it into a photo this year. Oh well. Everyone knows what I look like.

This photo was taken outside church. It was incredibly windy, as you may be able to tell. Annalivia and Emmeliese are wearing dresses that Dennis' mom made. They were lovely and are large enough that they should be able to wear them for a good year.

Daniel was supposed to wear a little black Eton suit that I had him try on about a week before Easter. On Easter morning, he put it on and, I kid you not, it was a good 1/4-1/2 inch too short on the sleeves. He looked like he was wearing last year's suit (which it was). Luckily, I stockpile dress clothes for boys several sizes ahead when I find them in thrift stores or on clearance and we were able to put together an entirely different outfit in about 10 minutes. His shorts were a little long for his knee socks, but he looked very handsome and he was SO proud of his tie! ("Just like Daddy's!" he said.)

Since this is our first year at our new church, we left our traditional hats at home. Next year, perhaps.

My Lenten "sacrifice"

I gave up facebook for Lent. It was a fairly easy sacrifice, though I expected it to be more difficult than it actually was. I found that I really enjoyed the silence in my life and that, when I wasn't being filled with online interactions, I actually sought out real humans friendship. Amazing how that happens... :)

One of the best side effects of giving up facebook was that I tended to not think very negatively about a lot of people. I've realized that there really is virtue in our grandmothers' teaching, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." I realized as I thought about this during Lent that there are some key people in my life whom I really, greatly admire and one of the things I have always loved about these individuals is that they didn't share all of their opinions with all people. I don't know why the internet gives humans the permission to share things that normal, well-adjusted people wouldn't share in polite society, but it does. I don't need to share what I think about every subject all the time. I realized that it's a good practice to guard speech, in real life, and online, and that there are many subjects that really require relationship with others before most people are able to breech said subjects. Peggy Noonan, Eugene Peterson, and some others get a pass. Most of the rest of us should probably still our fingers when something pithy comes to mind.

During my facebook-fast, I also found that, honestly, I just didn't think about a lot of people I "saw" all the time on facebook. And what I discovered was that I didn't miss them. I don't mean that in a spiteful way. It's just that those people are not in my everyday thoughts. And I realized during Lent -- I don't think they're supposed to be. I think relationships are supposed to be at different levels of knowledge and intimacy.

So, I logged in to facebook again in the evening on Easter. I was on it for about 7 minutes. I read about some friends I hadn't thought about for 6 weeks or so. I looked at some pictures. Then I deactivated my account again. I just don't think it's a wise thing for me. And leaving it behind is not much of a sacrifice.

Love

Dennis by the garage at the house we rent

Christ is risen!

Where, O death, is now thy sting?

Alleluia!

He is risen, indeed!!

Photo: First light of Easter dawn on our resurrection cross

Pruning and being pruned

At our new house, we inherited a very old (30-40 years old), very large, VERY overgrown grape vine.

After watching about a thousand (more or less) YouTube videos on pruning, I attacked the vine today. First, I started by taking out the very obvious dead growth, then I started cutting back on those vines with questionable vitality. I cut until I found live wood, then cut back per my instructional videos.

We ended up with a fairly scraggly vine. I would not be surprised if it does not bear fruit this year, though my mother tells me it is entirely possible that it will. But, hopefully, in a few years, we will have a good crop of grapes.

The entire time I was cutting, I was thinking about the vine illustrations in the New Testament. I know regular gardeners are well aware of this, but pruning is sometimes a fairly drastic action. A whole lot of our vine had to be cut away to reveal life. I find that so often in my spiritual life, I balk at taking the drastic steps that cut away death to reveal a place where new life can occur. But, obviously, that is what is necessary sometimes.

The other thing that occurred to me is that growth is not necessarily a gauge of health. Last summer and early fall, our grape vine was full of green, hard fruit. But the sun couldn't reach much of it, and a lot of the grapes did not develop well because so many vines were pulling energy away from the fruit. Further, the growth on some vines, covered up dead wood and, from a bit of a distance, made everything look quite lush. I thought about the many churches where numerical growth is held up as an indicator of health, while energy-sapping offshoots flourish, death/disease goes unchecked, and individuals are not challenged to grow fully.

I guess I have always known that being pruned is a rather painful process. But until I was cutting away the excess myself, I didn't understand just how much of myself really needs to be pruned.

Hosagna

On Palm Sunday morning, we were in the car and I was telling the kids the Palm Sunday Story again. Annalivia asked from the very back of the car,"What did the people say again when Jesus was riding into town?"
"Hosanna!" I replied, pronouncing it "ho-ZAHN-ah".
"Oh" she said and paused for a minute.
Then she said, "We should have Lozanna for lunch!"
:)

In the car

When we are in the car we listen to three Fernando Ortega cd's and two Glory Revealed cd's. We listen to them over and over and over and over... and over and over and over... and over and over and over again... and over...

(I love Fernando Ortega. And the Glory Revealed discs are pretty good, too. They're scripture set to folksy roots-rock sort of music. If given a choice, Annalivia and I choose Fernando. Daniel likes Glory Revealed II. )

Annalivia is at the age where she is remembering a lot of lyrics. That which we hear in the car, ad infinitum, comes out elsewhere. Today she put on a concert at the piano. The selections ranged from "There's Power in the Blood" to "The Lord is My Shepherd" to "All Creatures of Our God and King."

Her favorite song right now is Fernando's "I Will Praise Him Still". I love hearing her sing,

"When the morning falls on the farthest hill,
I will sing His name,
I will praise Him still.
When dark trials come
and my heart is filled with the weight of doubt,
I will praise Him still."

And she always sings this part, her favorite, really loud.

"For the Lord Our God, He is strong to save
from the
arms of death
from the deepest grave!"

And then I always join her on the end...

"For He gave us life in His perfect will
And by His good grace,
I will praise Him still."

I don't think it's necessary to have kids listen to "children's songs" in order for them to learn lyrics. Personally, I think it's more important for kids to hear good music, preferably beautiful music, and see that their parents are enjoying it, too.

At least, I hope that's how it works. I like singing such songs with my girl. It's s special sort of praise... in and out of the car.

For Monica's lovely ideas on car time, click here.

Connecting

We were without internet for the last five days.
I was twitchy... itchy?...scratchy? :)... for the first 12 hours. After that, it was good. We haven't had a tv for the last few weeks, so we didn't have much to artifically entertain us.
I read to the kids a lot more. Dennis, after smashing his finger in a log-splitter and getting the requisite stitches necessary, spent a lot of time reading. I read. We chatted a lot. I started a journal again. The house didn't, unfortunately, get any cleaner, until this morning.
After that, I called the internet company, whom I detest, and got the problem solved. Finally. I asked about just cancelling the service and it will cost two-months' worth of internet to terminate early, an arrangement they reserve for folks without land-lines.
Dennis and I were wondering -- is it worth it? We are becoming neo-Luddites, of sorts, I think, enjoying the inter-personal connections that come when we disconnect from electronics. We had a nice time this weekend. Save for a thankfully-not-severed finger, it was downright delightful. Why does that not seem possible when there are electronics to offer an escape from reality? Something to ponder...

On truth and the search for it

In my previous life as student-of-the-liberal-church, I spent a lot of my time figuring out what I didn't have to believe about the Bible. Historical, social, or economic contexts, textual errors, authorship disputes, interpretive lenses and so on and so forth, blah blah blah.

I have mentioned before that when I was in seminary, I won an award for a very tight, well-constructed theology project. It was incredible, if I do say so myself. Everything in that paper fit together like puzzle pieces in a well-crafted frame.

It was crap.

Really.

When it came down to it, that which I had constructed was just...me. There wasn't any real depth or substance, wonder, mystery, etc. There was a small box and I filled all of it. No room for Jesus. No room for the Spirit. No room for the Creator-of-all-things.

Just. me.

I am at the point now where I no longer want to think about what may or may not be believable. I just believe that the Word is True. All of it.

I know some will think that is feeble-minded or that it is the "easy" way out. I would have thought that.

But I hadn't actually read the words then. And I hadn't had a real glimpse of the power of Jesus.

It's True. I don't know how, but it is.

That's all.

That's enough.

"If you believe in the Gospel what you like, and reject what you don't like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself." ~Augustine (a pretty smart guy)
Thanks, Roo, for the quote.

Boys and girls

The DHM has a fascinating round-up/ summary of some links exploring learning differences between genders over at The Common Room.

When Daniel was born, I felt sort of as though I didn't really know him at all. I think much of that was because he is a boy. As the eldest of four sisters, with no male cousins around while growing up, getting acquainted with a boy-brain has been fascinating.

I have been amazed, intrigued and enthralled lately with watching Daniel (3) process life, especially in comparison with his older sister (5). It is incredibly interesting to study how he learns/ acts/ feels, etc. As we begin to teach them, it has been clear to us that the differences are deeper than simple personality traits. Reading this article was fun -- there's something going on in that little blond-haired blue-eyed boy that is completely, totally unique! :)

Oh, Lord, this is a long day...

That dern time change. I detest them.

In process

I have learned, in whatsoever state I am,

therewith to be content. ~Philippians 4:11

What a year!

My youngest child is a whole year old today. Emmeliese Elizabeth entered the world at 12:25 a.m. via c-section. I waited too long to make the decision to have the section and was unable to give her the birthdate she probably deserved (Annalivia and Daniel's birthdays are numerically blessed -- 2/25/2005 and 2/7/2007. Emmeliese could have been 3/9/09.) Oh, well. It will always serve to remind me of God's great mercy in keeping her from serious harm while I waited.

What a gift she is to our family! She's our sweet baby girl and growing up so fast! Happy birthday, little love!

Trust as love

Today, I was listening to Midday Connection on Moody Radio. Sheila Walsh was the guest, speaking about a new book. Something she said caught my ear. It went something like this...

"I used to think that our gift to God is our Love. Now I think it is our Trust. Trust is our Love lived out. Trust is Love with flesh on."