cans

Eight days and counting.  We've been pecking away at the to-do list, but it seems like something in a Greek myth that grows two new heads for every one that you bravely hack away.  A Hydra.  The to-do list is a Hydra.

Today was a trip to my grandparents' house.  This trip, like every other I've made in recent years, culminated in loading piles of things in the car, things that my grandmother has been "saving" for me.  Some days it's just fresh dill and green beans.  Once, it was a pair of mittens that belonged to my mother.  Today, along with some long-lost stuffed animals and an heirloom piece of embroidery, there were jars.

My grandmother calls them "cans," not jars, and while I understand why, it still sounds funny when I say it.  She says these jars are "green," too, to distinguish them from the clear ones.  

I'll call them blue, instead, but on every other point and detail of home canning, I defer to my grandmother, who has been canning everything from peaches to beets for the past seven decades.  Even today, a trip to her cellar will reveal shelves and shelves full of canned goods from last season--more than she and my grandfather could ever eat.  My grandmother grew up during the Great Depression and to this day, she cannot abide waste.  Of anything.  Including a perfectly good cucumber.

My grandmother obviously hails from an earlier time, and I've made plenty of choices in my life that she disagrees with.  If she thought there was anything strange, though, about our wanting to borrow a boxful of "cans" to stick flowers and candles in at our wedding next weekend, she never showed it.  She just asked how many we'd need, and whether we'd rather have pints or quarts.

We didn't really have solid answers for either question--we are still making some of this up as we go along.  We just took the box that was closest to the door, and we'll be scrubbing them tonight, along with the rest of the thrift store dishes.

I've said this before, but we won't be the first couple in the world to have thrift store china and vintage mason jars at our wedding.  And I've said this before, too:  I don't care.  We're surrounding ourselves with the people we love and the things we like to look at, and I don't think there's a darn thing wrong with any of that.

I told my partner-in-crime that even if we don't end up with flowers to put in them, I still think the jars will look nice on our reception tables. My man laughed a little bit at that, but I'm hoping you'll agree with me...