Afraid to Move!

Just sittin' on the couch, afraid to stand up or move even for fear of what might happen next! Let me give you the story:

It all started yesterday when my husband worked so hard over a bucket of tomatoes. He blanched and processed them to remove all the skins and seeds. Then, that huge pot of tomatoes went into the 'fridge overnight to be made into soup today for canning.

Well, today has been quite the day from costly repairs to the car and chimney (I'm praying that the furnace guy tomorrow only comes to do the yearly tune-up with no news of something else needing fixed!) to me making quite the mess of the tomatoes. I burned the batch! I placed the pot on the stove to bring to a simmer knowing that we needed hot liquid to place in the canning jars. While I did stir the pot at regular intervals, I neglected to think that the pot was of poor quality and that I should have been way more attentive.

Since we had so much juice last night, we just used our enamel canning pot to store the lot until today. Nevermore! From now on we'll continue to use our stainless (smaller) stockpots. The juice stuck to the bottom and burned just enough to flavor the batch.

After a desperate facebook plea for help and a phone call or two to my parents as well as some internet searching I decided to salvage the liquid from the top two-thirds of the pot that did not have the black flecks. While the tomato broth has definite "smoky" flavor, I thought that I could freeze it and use in some smoked sausage stews or something.

I put the liquid in 4, one-gallon ziplocs (about 12 cups in each). Then, I carried 3 of the bags down to the freezer in the basement.

And then......then......I proceeded to drop one the bags of tomato broth, and it burst all over the floor (tile thankfully), my leg and flip-flops. I give up! I surrender. Fast forward through the cleaning and mopping; I'm now sitting on the couch thanking God for some good news we heard today but just admittedly a little nervous about giving the 4-month-old her bath in the sink :)

Good news today: friends that have been wanting to have a baby are expecting! Another friend had her gall bladder removed because of gall stones, and it was discovered there were some cancerous cells which would not have been detected w/o the stones! I keep thinking of my sons list of farm animals that he wants to have on his future farm; he included horses, cows, sheep, chickens, and unicorns!

I hope you all have a restful sleep and a brand new day tomorrow full of blessings!