1. Your new most prized possessions—after the kids of course—are the antique Mason jars (the ones that once belonged to your grandma) that you appropriated in a late-night raid of your mother's basement.
   by Priya | December 17, 2008 at 11:18am. | add comment

   13 up, 6 down
2. * You wake up in the morning thinking about blanching peaches.
   by Priya | December 17, 2008 at 11:18am. | add comment

   13 up, 7 down
3. * You hang out with friends who say things like, "there's no sound in the world more satisfying than the pop of a hot jar of jam sucking in its lid"
   by Priya | December 17, 2008 at 11:18am. | add comment

   11 up, 6 down
4. * Since mid-July you've had boxes of empty Mason jars and bushels of fruit all over your back porch.
   by Priya | December 17, 2008 at 11:18am. | add comment

   9 up, 7 down
5. * You begin envying your neighbor's pressure canner and consider breaking into her kitchen just to "try it out."
   by Priya | December 17, 2008 at 11:18am. | add comment

   9 up, 7 down
6. * You think of every batch of dishes as another chance to heat up some jars.
   by Priya | December 17, 2008 at 11:18am. | add comment

   8 up, 7 down
7. You deny the obvious reality that, given the proper case-lot sale, you could buy all of this food for less money than it's costing you to bottle it yourself. Instead, you insist that it's good for the environment, better tasting, and makes you really real
   by Priya | December 17, 2008 at 11:18am. | add comment

   9 up, 8 down
8. * You have a tell-tale track of tiny scars running up your arms from stirring spitting-hot jam.
   by Priya | December 17, 2008 at 11:18am. | add comment

   8 up, 8 down
9. * You believe the words blanching, de-seeding, and rolling boil have a musical quality to them.
   by Priya | December 17, 2008 at 11:18am. | add comment

   7 up, 8 down
10. * One Saturday you spend the entire afternoon making spaghetti sauce—a process that begins with a truckload of tomatoes and 15 other ingredients like "one cup of dried basil" and after several hours of slicing and mixing and simmering and submer
    by Priya | December 17, 2008 at 11:18am. | add comment

    8 up, 9 down

More reasons You know you are addicted to Canning

11. You know that all Mason jars are not alike and you find yourself caressing the ones from the 1970s with stars on the front.
    by Priya | December 17, 2008 at 11:18am. | add comment

    9 up, 10 down
12. * And you totally agree.
    by Priya | December 17, 2008 at 11:18am. | add comment

    7 up, 9 down
13. * In your parents' new beautiful 4,000 square food home, the thing you covet most is the cold storage room under their porch.
    by Priya | December 17, 2008 at 11:18am. | add comment

    7 up, 9 down
14. * You are still buying more boxes of empty Mason jars and bushels of fruit.
    by Priya | December 17, 2008 at 11:18am. | add comment

    5 up, 10 down