Channeling My Grandmother's Talent

I had an adventure this week. I was a little nervous in the beginning, and somewhere in the middle I was wondering if everything was going to work out, but it did (as it always does) and I have have a new skill to show for my effort.

JAM!

My lovely sister Robyn has a HUGE apricot tree whose fruit has been calling to her for the past week. Since she's heading to Europe, she wanted to do something with the apricots (or at least some of them) before she left. Neither of us had ever made jam before, but we grew up enjoying the delectable sticky stuff my mother and grandmother made for us. So, we decided to try.

We spent the majority of the afternoon Wednesday buying supplies, picking fruit (hard work without a ladder), and making a complete mess of Robyn's kitchen.
Four hours, two tired girls, and three phone calls to Mom later (thanks for answering the phone repeatedly, Mom), we had sixteen successfully sealed jars of jam!
As we were stirring the sugary goo, trying to decide if it was at a "rolling boil" yet, we started talking about Grandma's blackberry jam that was always a special treat growing up. I like to think that Grandma was watching us in that moment, cheering us on as we stirred. We both took a moment to channel our inner Grandma Wright, and I guess it worked, because the jam turned out quite tasty!
P.S. - I got so excited about the jam that I made homemade wheat bread yesterday to go with it. Mmmm. Love fresh food. :)