Tis the season for reminiscing

Let me tell you about an experience I had a long, long time ago...so long ago that I was still in the somewhat strange state of considering myself happily married, but I digress.

In order to tell this tale properly, lets go back a wee bit further:

When I was little pipsqueak, my mother would have us make homemade butter in a 1 gallon mason jar every Saturday morning. Whoever was sloshing the cream back and forth for that particular half-hour got to pick what cartoons we watched, then the jar was passed to the other sibling and it was their turn to choose and slosh the cream around.

Fast forward a few years ago to a grown-up me. I had an assignment in my college lit class to write about life in Medieval Europe and I decided to make some unleavened bread and homemade butter to share with the class.

I borrowed a gallon mason jar from a neighbor and sat in my living room for several hours just sloshing the cream back and forth. When I was done I called my mother because I wasn't sure what amount of salt to add to the mix. It was then that she asked what method did I use.

Method? I wondered. I explained I had sat there with the jar and sloshed until my arms about fell off.

There was a small silence before she quietly explained I could have made it in about 15 minutes using my blender!

My mother had decided that her kids were going to get at least some form of exercise instead of vegetating in front of the television! Hours and hours of wasted time just sloshing, sloshing, sloshing while my brain turned to mush!

Needless to say, I got an A on the report...and I garnered a skill that still is a conversation stopper in any conversation. "Hey, I know how to milk a cow and churn fresh butter by hand...wanna see?"

...oh yeah, you know you want to!