JAM!!!!!

It's that time of the year....raspberry jam!  I LOVE homemade raspberry jam :]  Every year when i put up these little bottles of deliciousness, i think of my mom.  Growing up my family would go to Bear Lake every year over either the 4th of July or the 24th of July.  And since Bear Lake has THE best raspberries, we would buy a couple of crates and bring them home to make some jam.  Some years we would just walk down the street to my Aunt Karens backyard and pick some berries from her bushes. No matter how we got our berries.....each year, right before school started my mom was putting up jam :]  I absolutely loved to sit on the counter, next to the stove and watch my mom through the whole process.  The process is soooooo much easier now than it used to be!  My mom used to have to boil the jars, then smash, boil and strain the raspberries.  Then we would pour the berry perserves into the boiled jars only to boil the jars again with the jam inside.  It was a work of art!  Everything is so instant now, you can eat a jar of jam 30 minutes after it's in the bottle!  Awesome!  Every bottle of jam i open remindes me of my mom...the smell, the taste, the toast and the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (which happens to be my MOST favorite food in the WIDE WORLD!).  So, all i can say is "THANKS MOM!"  I am so very happy that i sat on that yellow kitchen counter top all those years of making jam.  I will always appreciate every single bottle of jam i make & eat...thanks to my mom :]