Mama Marmalade....

I have been making orange marmalade.
Then eating orange marmalade.
Then rapidly realizing my eating orange marmalade to making orange marmalade ratio is way off.
The appalling facts are that if I continue at the same rate of chowing down on sweet, citrusy goodness with just the right amount of bitter and NOT producing more of this sunshine in bottle, at the current rate of speed...it means....KABOOOOOOMMMYYYYYY
Marmalade melt down.
This is allllwaaaays the problem with making something yourself that's waaaay better then what you get at the store. Once you have mastered (I can be called a master after 2 batches...right?) some new and secret technique that house wives and gourmet cooks and jam makers have already been doing for years, breaking open the barrier of silence around something as exotic as ORANGE Marmalade....you can't go back. But....unfortunately you're too lazy to get off yer ass and make some more.
Damn it, why did I have to be so awesome at making orange marmalade? Why does a recipe for it only make a pitiful few bottles that some of us, in a haze of orangey goodness, already promised out for their Mother. Damn Mom for being so good to me, for sharing homemade wild strawberry jam, if she'd been more of a bee-otch then I could hoard my precious stash of orangey delight all to myself.
But no, my Mother has to be all sweet and caring and sharing with her only daughter....damn it.
So here I sit, orange tree loaded, mocking me with it's silent but fruit filled presence. My orange Marmalade supply rapidly depleting, feeling secure in trying my hands at a new technique but oddly guilty over casting a lustful eye on the promised out bottle.
I'll crack. Oh it's no secret, I'd eat me own dear mother's orange marmalade before giving up this goodness for good.
*sigh*
It shall not come to this though as I have a plan. One that involves launching my self physically from this trap that is my computer chair and in to a frenzy of jam making that shall provide me with at LEAST a few bottles more of what is quite possibly elixir of the Gods.
You think I'm exaggerating? No jam could be that good? HA! Ha, I say! My sweetie pie says it's the BEST orange marmalade he's ever had and confirms that it is indeed elixir of the Gods, would both of us say that if it were not true? If I was going to lie I can guarantee you it would be about something a hell of a lot more useful like an alibi for when the last scrapings of homemade birthday ice cream disappeared completely with out so much as a "would you like some?" for any one...muaahhh ahhh ahhh (by the way I was out picking oranges when that happened....I swear)
I'm not looking for an excuse to keep the bottle of jam that's ear marked for my Mother though. I mean if I did need one the obvious would be that orange marmalade is the longest jam making process I have ever participated in. I mean no offense mom but what did you do? Go out and pick a few handfuls of wild strawberries that are so itsy bitsy you have to practically crawl through the grass to find them and risk getting bit by mosquitos and God knows what else and risk swelling up the way you do when you do get bit by God knows what else...ummmmm.........this isn't heading the direction I had intended which was a comparison of my extremely labor intensive marmalade making process to my Mother's easy squeezy strawberry jam making process.
On a completely unrelated note my Mother once beaned me in the head with a soup ladle, it was by accident but I think now I deserve it.
*sigh again*
O.k., O.k., you'll get your Marmalade, that you never even asked for and I'll make some more for me so I can have some too and we'll all be satisfied in a very sticky sweet way.

(please note that the spoon in the photo is one I stole from my Mom so I think I might have to send her two jars of m-m-m-y Marmalade. Damn it.)