Like Some Kind Of Science Fair Cliche

So today was pretty uneventful.
I got up, did some ab exercises, ate breakfast, threw a load of laundry in, finished that, set the dishwasher going, and started on some “spring cleaning.”
That was stopped short by the realization that I was completely out of garbage bags and paper towels.
So I took a shower and walked over to Safeway to at least pick up some garbage bags so that I could get rid of some of the junk mail cluttering up the place.
Finishing that, I ate lunch, then moved some files off my hard drive and onto a DVD.
Because I seem to be incapable of motivating myself to engage in a full-fledged workout during the week, and since spring is now upon us, I’ve resolved to get myself back into walking.
Long-time Threshold readers may recall that I used to walk upwards of ten miles every day. Somewhere along the line the excess nervous energy I’d developed after I quit smoking, which had been the driving force behind my walking, wore off, and as the weather cooled the walking stopped.
In contrast to yesterday’s dreariness, today was a gorgeous spring day, and so I managed to force myself to take advantage of the weather and take my first few halting steps towards getting back into the walking habit.
I’d say I put in about three miles, which isn’t too bad.
Not long after that it was time for cooking class, where, as mentioned earlier, we made strawberry jam.
The point was to cover the principles of canning in general. We were also going to make pickles, but the teacher had forgotten that in order to pickle them the cucumbers needed to soak in brine for twelve hours, so we had to call that a miss.
Making the jam was pretty straightforward, and as there were only enough of us there to split into two groups, and the teacher had brought in enough supplies for a full class, Kathleen and I ended up making six jars of jam.
Everything was going pretty well, and we were simply waiting for the mashed strawberries to reach the correct temperature.
We all sat down and waited, getting up periodically to stir the strawberries and check the temperature.
At one point the teacher actually checked on our strawberries and said it wouldn’t be much longer.
A minute later we all turned to look as we hear the sound of the spoon flying out of the pot of strawberries, and we went into a panic as, inexplicably, the strawberries started boiling over.
This was pretty unexpected, obviously, as just a minute before the strawberries were well below the boiling point.
In any case, the boiling over strawberries looked rather like something you might see on some sitcom with a kid making a volcano for the school science fair.
In any case, as you can imagine, this made a huge mess.
Still, after cleaning things up and moving the remaining strawberries to a different stove top to achieve the correct temperate, we proceeded to fill our jars, and, after some additional clean up, were on our way.
Next week is the last class. Apparently instead of actually cooking something there we’re going to just have a sort of pot luck consisting of our favorite recipes (or of recipes, at any rate).
I’m not sure what I’m going to make, or even when I’m going to make it, as I have to work most of the weekend (as you may recall, I took Friday off for Sin City), Monday I have to make the Oreo cheesecake, per the terms of the deal I made last week, and I’ll be in a class all day on Tuesday.
Ah well, we’ll see, I guess.
Tomorrow is likely to be pretty uneventful. I’ll most likely head out to do some grocery shopping, then come home and finish the cleaning that I started.
In any case, that does it for this entry.