Strawberry jam in the making

I think the part of housekeeping that I hate the most is the continual messes I'm faced with--clutter messes like toys don't really count, those are easy to pick up--I'm talking about the spilled milk all over the floor, the peanut butter smeared all over the chairs, the root beer sprayed on the ceiling, the cat puke or diaper leak on the carpet. You know, the really sticky or nasty things. I swear, my kids are slobs, and if they weren't bad enough, I've got a cat with some kind of puking problem. I keep telling myself that the kids will eventually grow out of it, but when I'm dead tired, and all I want to do is go collapse somewhere, and I find something like that, I just want to quit.

The Mess for today wasn't so bad, I guess. I've had worse anyway. I was in the kitchen making strawberry jam when I heard noises from my bedroom. Meagan loves to play with lots of stuff in there, so I went to investigate. She was opening my jewelry box, but before she got there, she'd gotten some perfume and spilled the whole bottle all over the carpet. A little spritz here and there is plenty, but the whole bottle at once is really overpowering. I'm going to have to get the carpet cleaner out for this one. Sigh. It'll have to wait until I'm done with the jam, though, which is a sticky mess in and of itself. I like making jam, but crushing all those strawberries makes my arm tired. I bought sixteen pounds of strawberries. I was partly afraid that I'd go into labor and not get it done, and come home to sixteen pounds of rotten strawberries, but I managed to get it all done. I kept asking myself why I even wanted to take on this project right now, but there was a really good sale on the strawberries at Meijer, and I wanted to take advantage of it while I could. Nate loves strawberry jam, and we ran out last year and I had to buy strawberry jam. Storebought jam just isn't the same, especially since I discovered no-cook freezer jam. It tastes so fresh, and is actually quicker to make than the cooked kind. The last batch doesn't seem to be setting, so I may have a few jars of strawberry syrup. I'm pretty sure I added too much fruit--I lost count of the cups as I was adding. It's good to have it all done, though.

I had a primary presidency meeting this morning. Usually, I turn on a movie for Bethany and Meagan, and they just watch while we get the meeting done, but the last couple of times, they seem to have gotten a little bored with just watching TV. There's another little boy, there, Ryan, that Meagan knows from nursery, and they had great fun today chasing each other around, pushing their little chairs in front of them. Of course, they were crashing into each other all the time on purpose--it looked like bumper chairs. If ever I take Bethany to an amusement park with bumper cars, that will probably be one of her favorite rides. She thinks things that crash are funny. The way she likes to play in her room right now is to take each drawer from her toy chest and dump it out. I think she just likes the noise. The drawer of toy dishes and the drawer of bracelets and toy jewelry make the best noise. Yeah. I can't wait until her little brother is big enough for her to teach all these lovely tricks to. She's going to love having a brother, I think.

Bethany's also been really interested in my camera lately. Any time she sees it, she begs to take some pictures, too. Some are not half bad. Here's one she took of Meagan today. I got the camera out to take a picture of Meagan. She apparently wasn't done getting into my room yet. I had just finished cooking dinner, and I went to bring them to the kitchen, and found Meagan in my room once again. She had gotten into my jewelry, and then found a box of snacks I'd packed in my bag to take with me to the hospital. For some reason known only to her, she climbed into the baby bassinet set up in my room and emptied out the snacks and was having a grand little party. I guess I took too long to make dinner tonight.