get your can on

Grandma Hicks and Grandma Westhafer got together last week for Canning 2009. Don't laugh, I'm serious. Just because you have you face planted on your iphone and your hand on the remote bouncing between TMZ and Kendra, doesn't mean that we've all forgotten about the simple and bountiful joys of yesteryear.

I have an apricot tree and Allison has a peach and apricot tree. Kevin's dad brought over about 25 pounds of apples from their tree. Together Allison and I made 37 jars of apricot preserves, peach preserves, apricot honey (like preserves but w/o the pectin which makes it thick) and apple butter. Allison's peach preserves are always my favorite. I canned another nine jars of apple butter over the weekend and two jars of apple sauce for Casey. This was my first year making apple butter and I really like how it turned out. I went easy on the sugar so it tastes more like spiced apple sauce, but it's pretty good. When my new crop of lemons come in and if it's before Casey's arrival I think I might make lemon curd and can that too. You never know when you need a spare jar of curd for lemon bars and lemon meringue pie. You just never know. Especially if you're mother-in-law salivates over anything lemon. Now if I can master pie crust I'll be in business.

By the way, if you do ever take a break from reality TV and your fancy iphone apps, OSH is the best place to buy canning jars and tools. Great prices and selection!

30 weeks seems like so long ago

When you're on the home stretch of pregnancy, this photo/update seems rather delayed. Here's a photo of me at 30 weeks...that was three weeks ago but seems like eternity. This pregnancy gig is going really well, not a job I intend to keep full time, but it's definitely tolerable. I still feel great and am full of energy. All the know-it-alls in the world shake their heads at me and say just wait, to which I put on my smile face and say, well all the more reason to enjoy it now. My chief complaint right now is heartburn and especially worse now that I had to buy another bottle of Tums over the weekend and they didn't have the tropical flavor. So I'm stuck with the disgusting regular flavors. My heartburn has to be an 8 on a scale of 1-10 before I pop the regular Tums. Regular refers to orange, lemon, cherry and some other flavor. The tropicals are pineapple, banana, some other pink flavor and maybe mango. Banana's the best. I do have one complaint to add to the list, it kind of just started. I think Casey spent the weekend locking and loading...aka gettin' vertical, aka head down. I spent more time today in the SVB bathroom than at my desk and there's some fun pressure down south. Oh boy!

Moving on to non-medical subjects. This weekend, Kev, Lucy and I (Casey too if you want to get technical) are driving down to San Diego for my baby shower extravaganza. Kate's hosting and she's been working her tail off to make it amazing, not to mention making Casey's bedding, window valance, my hooter hider and I'm sure other things that I know nothing about yet. Strep throat hasn't even slowed her down. Such a MacAllister. To be honest, I'm a little nervous that it's going to be too perfect. How the heck am I'm going to top this when it's my turn to shower her, not that I'm trying to top anything, I just don't want her to be disappointed when I don't hand blow all the glass cups and vases, create a pattern and sew all the table linens, spend 6 months at culinary school in France to learn how to make the finest cuisine, and become proficient in calligraphy to hand write every invitation. That's the caliber of detail I'm talking about people and I don't think it's an exaggeration. Regardless of my own personal insecurities, I'm so thrilled to be spending the weekend with my family. I miss them more than peanut butter misses chocolate.