Yesterday was my Mom's birthday, but it turned out not to be as hard as I was afraid it would be. It was also the first day of classes for UGA's spring semester, so Ray had to spend most of it teaching. He headed off pretty early, about 8:30. I worked on preparing for the workshop at the end of the month. I am really excited about it.

My Dad arrived at 10:30 to work on the mincemeat. Let me tell you the saga of the mincemeat. He likes mincemeat pie, especially at Thanksgiving and Christmas. He and my Mom used to make this special mincement and can it, 7 jars at a time, which would make 7 pies. So they only had to do it every few years. We were all out, however, so talked about making some this holiday season. My kids don't like it all, so there was less motivation. I like it, but would probably let it go. It seemed important to my Dad, so I tried to make it happen. There were some green tomatoes at the farmers' market we talked about buying. But it requires citron, a specialized kind of candied fruit (like they use in fruit cakes). We couldn't find that in the stores. Then we found and bought that, but there weren't any more green tomatoes. Then my Dad bought some suet, which is basically beef fat and used to be given away and put out for the birds. He had to explain what it was and they said they would save him some at Earth Fare. Then we found green tomatoes at Kroger, right before Christmas. He was sick and I was sick and we had lots of people and lots going on, so we didn't get around to it. Yesterday when he went to get the green tomatoes from the basement, lots of them were rotten and all of them were red. What a complicated thing (and expensive). We decided even though they were red, they were still firm like the green tomatoes and he went ahead and cut them up. He suggested we use a few more apples to balance it out. We only had about 6 or 7 pounds of apples, though, so we used them all. I cored them.

Then I headed out to have lunch with Becky. We had a good lunch and then went to talk to Plain Jane Designs about invitations. That was pretty fun and successful. We had to leave a deposit and she will send a proof. I hope we like it--the designing is $50/hr. One of the challenges is making it bilingual.

During lunch, my Dad called and asked about the suet. I told him where it was in the fridge. He said, "I was afraid of that. It doesn't say suet on it, it says soup bones. And it's rotten." I think real suet would keep, but now I had to stop at Earth Fare and get some more. The butcher showed me the pieces of fat that he had trimmed from some beef (steaks?) and I said "yes, that's great." He only charged us 99 cents a pound, and, sure enough, it said soup bones on the label. The computer system must not have "suet" in it. I was going to attend a lecture at 2, but I went by Kroger first to get a couple things I needed. I called my Dad to tell him I had the suet. I said I was going to Kroger. He suggested I get him some bread and eggs so he didn't have to go by there. He urged me to go to the lecture, but I knew he couldn't finish making the mincemeat until I got there with the suet (and more oranges and lemons and brown sugar and cider vinegar that I bought for the mincemeat). It was 20 after 2, anyway, by the time I got out of the grocery store. The first day of classes at UGA is not a good time to go shopping, especially after lunch. So I went home instead and helped my Dad finish making and canning the mincemeat. By the time Ray got home, the jars were boiling in the kettle. And there were a lot of dishes to do and a sticky mess on all the counters. But my Dad was pretty pleased and we look forward to mince pie soon. I have a little that didn't fit in the jars. Maybe I'll make mincemeat cookies like my Mom used to do.

Ray and I went to feed the pigs. Captain left when we came back, after we took the jars out. They popped nicely as they sealed. Ray and I got a pizza out of the freezer and ate that for supper. We watched TV, knitted, and went to bed.