Time to Make Marmalade

 I made a big mistake many years ago. Long before this homesteading adventure, on one sunny winter day, I got an urge to make jam. I didn't have a canner so I looked through my old recipe book and found a way to seal it using paraffin. Cool! So what kind of jam was I going to attempt? Well, we were living in Texas at the time and it was the right time of year to get citrus really cheap. So orange marmalade it was. It turns out that I don't really like orange marmalade. But my DH discovered that he REALLY likes it. A lot. So the die was cast. Yep, I will forever hear the request for homemade marmalade.

Eventually I got a canner and learned how to make it the new-fangled way. But It had been about 5 years since I'd made it.  I had some leftover oranges from Christmas baking that needed to be used and DH had been working extra long, hard hours lately, so I wanted to do something nice just for him. Ok, no excuses, I'm making marmalade. But Dag Nabbit! I don't like to make marmalade. As soon as I made up my mind to do it, I immediately set out to find ways to put off marmalading. What? marmalading isn't a word? It is now, Dag Nabbit!

 First I logged on to Facebook to see if anybody else was doing something more exciting than marmalading. Nope. There was nothing to draw me away, all was quiet in the book of many faces. So to kick myself in the pants  motivate myself to actually get busy, I posted it as my status: "Today's project- orange marmalade." Yep I put it on there all official and everything. Then I went to the kitchen and assembled all the necessary equipment. And much to my dismay, I realized I was short on sugar. Oops. I guess I'll have to got to town to get sugar. I mean I have to marmalade. It's on Facebook.

 One thing about a country girl going to town: she can't just run a simple errand. No, town is an event. She has to put on decent clothes and plan all her stops. Who knows how long it will be before she goes back to town? This trip went like this-- since I normally get sugar at Rural King, I might as well take back the overalls my DH got for Christmas. He needed a different size so I could exchange them while I was there. Plus I'm almost out of chicken feed so I'd better get some of that, too. And I could drop off DS#3's mail that had been delivered to my house (how long after they move out til their mail figures it out??) And since I'm going into town in that direction, I can stop by the health food store and check out the essential oil selections. (I need to scent my homemade hand cream for all that post-marmalading dish washing I'm going to be doing!) Of course I had to wait on a train before I could get into town. (My town is notorious for train traffic. Elections have been decided on train issues.) And while I was at the health food store DS#3 called and said, "Mom, since you're in town, let's grab lunch."

 After lunch I finally got headed for Rural King. But I got stopped at an extra long red light. So I decided to take the short cut through the parking lot that runs in front of JoAnn's. But wait. Did that sign in the window say 25% off all yarn? Well, hey, I must check that out. It would have been nice if the sign had also stated that today was their "one day a year only" inventory with 25 -give or take- extra employees blocking every aisle and getting in the way. But heck, I wasn't in a hurry anyway...

Eventually, I did make it home in time to make some marmalade! Shew! That's done for another few years!