Make jam

 The end of last week, I was feeling that I was at the end of my rope. I just did not want to get out of bed or do anything anymore. Some of that was the usual Friday tiredness, and some was the six-month crisis fatigue, and the rest was just ... I'm done with all this.

Of course, I did get out of bed on Saturday morning (albeit later than normal) and I had breakfast and went for a chilly but sunny walk in the park. I felt somewhat better after that, but still not really happy. After all, I had piles of lab reports and other assignments to grade and it takes all weekend and then I just go back to class on Monday and do the same thing again next week.

For lunch, I thought I'd try one of the weird green fruits that came with our Imperfect Foods box last week. We didn't order them, but I had a suspicion they were stowaway guava because I remembered seeing guava in the offerings online. I didn't photograph them but they looked like this (from Google image search):

They were firm when they first arrived, but starting to get squishy and bruised by Saturday. I cut one open but it didn't really say "eat me!" I thought I might get out the dehydrator and dry them in slices, but I also thought those wouldn't be eaten. Then I thought of jam (who can say why?) and found a video recipe on YouTube that looked approachable. It was this one, for what it's worth: 

So I made the fruits into jam. It took about two hours and there was a lot of cooking time where I could be working across the room and just check on things now and then. The fruit smelled really nice while cooking. The most intense part was cooking the fruit puree with sugar because it has to be stirred constantly so it doesn't burn. While I was doing that, I thought I remembered having bought some canning jars a few summers ago when I thought I might learn to can vegetables and never did. I went down to the closet in the basement and found those. And then I did the thing where you put the filled jars in a hot water bath to seal them up, and miraculously it worked! My first jam and my first canning experience.

I'm not saying it cured all my malaise, but it helped a bit. I felt a little accomplishment. A little lessening of the hopelessness. And now I have jam that I can eat, or give away as gifts. Better yet, I know how to do it again.