Zen Life Kit

There’s a lot of talk about Zen these days, but not much understanding about what it is, or how to be Zen. This kit will introduce you to Zen and how you can awaken to it in your life. The kit contains:

• $50 gift card to East-West Bookstore in Mountain View, CA
• Two books, signed by author Karen Maezen Miller

  Karen Maezen Miller calls herself an errant wife, delinquent mother, reluctant dog walker, expert laundress and stationmaster of the full catastrophe. In real life, she is a Zen Buddhist priest at the Hazy Moon Zen Center in Los Angeles. She and her family live in Sierra Madre, California, with a century-old Japanese garden in their backyard.

  Momma Zen: Walking the Crooked Path of Motherhood
  

  Combining humor, honesty, and plainspoken advice, Momma Zen distills the doubts and frustrations of parenting into vignettes of Zen wisdom. Drawing on her experience as a first-time mother, and on her years of Zen meditation and study, Miller explores how the daily challenges of parenthood can become the most profound spiritual journey of our lives. This compelling and wise memoir follows the timeline of early motherhood from pregnancy through toddlerhood. Momma Zen takes readers on a transformative journey, charting a mother’s growth beyond naive expectations and disorientation to finding fulfillment in ordinary tasks, developing greater self-awareness and acceptance—to the gradual discovery of “maternal bliss,” a state of abiding happiness and ease that is available to us all. In her gentle and reassuring voice, Karen Miller convinces us that ancient and authentic spiritual lessons can be as familiar as a lullaby, as ordinary as pureed peas, and as frequent as a sleepless night. She offers encouragement for the hard days, consolation for the long haul, and the lightheartedness every new mom needs to face the crooked path of motherhood straight on.

  –Amazon description

  Hand Wash Cold: Care Instructions for an Ordinary Life
  

  It’s easy to think that meaning, fulfillment, and bliss are “out there,” somewhere outside of our daily routine. But in this playful yet profound reflection on awareness, the compelling voice of a contemporary woman reveals the happiness at the bottom of the laundry basket, the love in the kitchen sink, and the peace possible in one’s own backyard. Follow Karen Maezen Miller through youthful ambition and self-absorption, beyond a broken marriage, and into the steady calm of a so-called ordinary life. In her hands, household chores and caregiving tasks become opportunities for self-examination, lessons in relationship, and liberating moments of selflessness. With attention, it’s the little things — even the unexpected, unpleasant, and unwanted things — that count.

  –Amazon description

• A handmade bookmark
• A small statue of goddess Quan Yin, one of the most universally beloved of deities in the Buddhist tradition. She is the embodiment of compassionate loving kindness.
• A Jacob’s Musical Car Charms to soothe and relax as you navigate the busy highways of life. Chime maker Jacob Sokoloff hand tunes these car chimes to produce a musical sound guaranteed to make you smile.
• A box of Morningstar Incense

Donated by the Harper Family
Value $100

Yet I struggle. When I think back over my childhood and school experiences, I don’t wax nostalgic. The first memories that come to mind are not happy ones. In a perfect storm combining my personality, family milieu, and the outside world, I entered kindergarten absolutely not ready for school or the world.

I was a timid, docile child, perceptive and agonizingly sensitive. I had older sisters who were in school full-time when I was pre-school age, so I had no experience playing with peers and navigating the conflict that arises from this. My first day of kindergarten I was so scared I refused to eat snack and cried. Throughout elementary school I seemed to attract unkind treatment. By the time I entered middle school, my way of dealing with peers was to bury my nose in a book and remain detached. I didn’t socialize much with people in or out of school. My self-confidence measured near zero.

One evening I talked with Hub about a school memory that still causes tears (and if I get started, I recall others that do too). My husband asked, “What would you have wished for?” The six-year-old me had a ready answer: to feel safe.

I have since written in a private post at least 20 events at or near school through my youth that generated a lot of pain then and have the power to still. Now, I know that many people experienced bullying or hurtful incidents in school. My husband has even described memories. However, he (and others) don’t carry the pain as I do, and don’t project it all onto their child’s life. Re-reading my list, I have to remind myself that these incidents occurred over thousands of days of school. I’m certain that many of those days were at least neutral, and just as many were happy days, or contained happy moments. My life wasn’t a torment every single day. My list of injuries strikes me as banal.

So what the hell is the problem?

The pain is not something I nurture; I don’t ruminate anymore over my past injuries. It comes unbidden, rising and engulfing me like a rapid tide whenever I observe my child encountering difficulty (e.g., rejection — whether perceived by her or real). I am transported instantly to childhood and respond accordingly, but this is overlaid with the protectiveness of a mother, and so all my energy goes awry. I personalize Claire’s experiences as my own. It interferes with my ability to be present for her.

Part of this pain is just a parent’s burden. We worry about our children. We ache for them. We want to protect them. Yet I feel that somehow I respond internally in a way that many (most?) other parents don’t. I feel raw and unable to maintain composure. Claire detects and absorbs my anxiety.

Observing Claire deal with her hurt feelings brings a mixture of pain on her behalf, irritation that she’s not tougher, and fear for her well-being in the world. I cannot control what she encounters out there when she starts school full-time this fall. However, I can provide a loving, peaceful, supportive home environment; home can be safe haven. But only if I manage to separate my angst-ridden ego from its Herculean attachment to my past.

So here is my question (italicized below), arising from a Mary Oliver poem, “Wild Geese”:

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Tell me your despair. Tell me your childhood school memories. Are they happy or harsh, or a mix? Tell me if they still rule you, and if not, how did you win freedom?

The child is made of one hundred.

The child has a hundred languages,
a hundred hands,
a hundred thoughts,
a hundred ways of thinking, of playing, of speaking.

A hundred, always a hundred,
ways of listening,
of marveling,
of loving,
a hundred joys for singing and understanding,
a hundred worlds to discover,
a hundred worlds to invent,
a hundred worlds to dream.
The child has a hundred languages (and a hundred hundred hundred more),
but they steal ninety nine.
The school and the culture separate the head from the body.
They tell the child:
to think without hands,
do without heads,
to listen and not to speak,
to understand without joy,
to love and to marvel… only at Easter and Christmas.
They tell the child:
to discover the world already there and of the hundred they steal ninety nine.
They tell the child:
that work and play,
reality and fantasy,
science and imagination,
sky and earth,
reason and dream,
are things that do not belong together.
And thus they tell the child that the hundred is not there.
The child says no way. The hundred is there.

–Loris Malaguzzi, Italian Early Childhood Education Specialist, 1994

Come, cuddle your head on my shoulder, dear,
Your head like the golden-rod,
And we will go sailing away from here
To the beautiful land of Nod.

–Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Our nighttime routine is sweet, though not exactly simple. When Claire protests bedtime (she’s in bed no later than 7:45 p.m.), we go to the routine written in words and pictures on the bathroom door. It removes the power struggle, to some degree, when we say, “Well, what does the routine say?” These are the steps: Read a story. Brush teeth. Potty. Bath. Put on jammies. Rock. Tuck-in. Next to these words are pictures I’ve drawn so she can “read” the routine for herself.

Daddy rocks Claire down four nights, and I get three nights. It’s a challenge, because she would rather I do every night. There came a time, too, when what I do with Claire became so integral to her relaxation that she began having trouble falling asleep the way Daddy did it. (That’s always been an issue — certain interactions between Claire and me become so ritualized for her that no one else can do it the “right way.” That happened feeding her bottle when she was about six months old.) So he has had to adapt and incorporate what she wants; it’s the rocking and tuck-in that is so important to her.

Before we begin we review the Sleep Rules if she needs reminding (i.e., if she’s been getting up out of bed “just because”):

• Stay in bed.
• Close your eyes.
• Stay very quiet.
• Go to sleep.

Then the non-rocking parent says “Good night, sweet dreams, don’t have bad dreams, I love you and I love you.” And Claire says it too.

If I’m rocking, I first ask Claire what her favorite part of the day was, and then I tell her mine. Claire then snuggles into me (or Hub), and several songs are sung, the same ones always in the same order: Husha My Baby (from our first Music Together class), Go To Sleep Little Claire (sung twice to Brahm’s Lullaby), My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean (first stanza sung twice), and the chorus to To Ra Loo. (And if she is sick or having a really tough time, the song lineup is much longer: Husha My Baby; Gaelic Lullaby; Su La Li; Go To Sleep Little Claire; You Are My Sunshine; Daisy Bell (without the second stanza); Home On the Range; My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean; Do Re Mi; To Ra Loo.) Then a few extra minutes of rocking and snuggling.

Then Claire gets into bed for tuck-in. I pull up the covers around her and say, “Claire, I love you. You are funny, smart, brave, strong, creative, beautiful, and fun to be with.” Then she’ll say, “Do Safe In Love.” So then I ask her (rhetorically): Do you feel safe in my love? Do you feel safe in Daddy’s love? Do you feel safe in Stella’s love? And so on for each grandparent, aunt, uncle, and her teachers. She also insists on Do you feel safe in your germs’ love? Do you feel safe in the love of all the wild animals? After all that she gets a kiss, and a promise from me: “I’ll check on you when I go to bed.” At which point she says “Good night, sweet dreams, etc.” and I say it to her. Then I quietly leave, and on most nights that’s all we hear of her until 6:00 a.m.

In December 2010 there was a time when she began getting out of bed and rocking at all hours in her chair because she had “thoughts to think.” We responded by removing the chair and ottoman from her room one night, and the wailing which ensued was loud, long, and almost insufferable. We returned it in the morning. It happened another night, and the chair went away. More crying. Finally we said, “We know you love the chair. We’ll return it. But if it’s too much temptation and keeps you from sleeping, it will have to leave your room forever.” She stopped doing it.

In December 2011 she began to get up and come wake us whenever she was awake, just because. For several nights this happened 8-9 times each night, starting as soon as we put her down, and often every half hour in the wee hours. We employed the gate (attached to her doorframe); we put the potty in her room and shut the gate. That generated a lot of tantrums at first. We told her if she stayed in bed, the gate would stay open. So now what happens is if she gets out of bed once, I’ll tuck her back in, and then I remind her if she does it again, I’ll tuck her in, put the potty in her room, and shut the gate. Sometimes she says she needs extra love, and that one extra tuck-in helps. Then I tell her, “You are loved, you are cozy, you are safe.” (Sometimes she gets out of bed five minutes after tuck-in saying, “I had a nightmare.” It’s pretty clear she hasn’t!) It works so far.

My daddy calls me sweetie pie.
He calls me honey bunny.
He also calls me poopsie,
which I think is kind of funny.

My daddy calls me sugarplum,
and also sleepyhead.
My silly dad forgets my name
when he tucks me into bed.

–Bruce Lansky

There are two different types of time. Chronos time is what we live in. It’s regular time, it’s one minute at a time, it’s staring down the clock till bedtime time, it’s ten excruciating minutes in the Target line time, it’s four screaming minutes in time out time, it’s two hours till daddy gets home time. Chronos is the hard, slow passing time we parents often live in.

Then there’s Kairos time. Kairos is God’s time. It’s time outside of time. It’s metaphysical time. It’s those magical moments in which time stands still. I have a few of those moments each day. And I cherish them.

Like when I actually stop what I’m doing and really look at Tish. I notice how perfectly smooth and brownish her skin is. I notice the perfect curves of her teeny elf mouth and her asianish brown eyes, and I breathe in her soft Tishy smell. In these moments, I see that her mouth is moving but I can’t hear her because all I can think is — This is the first time I’ve really seen Tish all day, and my God — she is so beautiful. Kairos.

Like when I’m stuck in chronos time in the grocery line and I’m haggard and annoyed and angry at the slow check-out clerk. And then I look at my cart and I’m transported out of chronos. And suddenly I notice the piles and piles of healthy food I’ll feed my children to grow their bodies and minds and I remember that most of the world’s mamas would kill for this opportunity. This chance to stand in a grocery line with enough money to pay. And I just stare at my cart. At the abundance. The bounty. Thank you, God. Kairos.

Or when I curl up in my cozy bed with Theo asleep at my feet and Craig asleep by my side and I listen to them both breathing. And for a moment, I think- how did a girl like me get so lucky? To go to bed each night surrounded by this breath, this love, this peace, this warmth? Kairos.

These kairos moments leave as fast as they come- but I mark them. I say the word kairos in my head each time I leave chronos. And at the end of the day, I don’t remember exactly what my kairos moments were, but I remember I had them. And that makes the pain of the daily parenting climb worth it.

–Glennon Melton, Don’t Carpe Diem

The greatest poem ever known
Is one all poets have outgrown:
The poetry, innate, untold,
Of being only four years old.

–Christopher Morley, To a Child

“Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.”

–A.A. Milne

What do you do on a restless Monday afternoon? You drive to Chesbro Reservoir to throw sticks and leaves in the water and watch them float away, pushed by the breeze. You gather more driftwood to expand your fairy land. You stand at the edge of the road and say hello to a few cows. (If the embedded video doesn’t show/work, here is a link to the movie.)

You make a silly face to try to get them to moo.

On the way home, you stop at Spina Farms produce stand to buy fresh green beans and corn on the cob for dinner. You tell the lady at the counter all about the cows and how they were having quiet time. Then you head home, unload all the treasures, and make a fairy meeting room. (If the embedded video doesn’t show/work, here is a link to the movie.)

And you situate your gathered wood, ferns, and grasses just so.

After all this, you eat five slices of whole wheat bread slathered heavily with real butter and a few green beans for dinner, followed by a brownie for dessert. Then you take a bath, listen to a story, and say farewell to the day.

Yesterday we went for a hike at Uvas Canyon County Park. Her empathy is blooming, and it’s heartwarming to observe. We saw a sign pointing out poison sumac, and as we walked away Claire blew it a kiss. I asked her why, and she said she was going to blow kisses to all poisonous trees to be friendly. And later we saw a sign explaining that rattlesnakes live in the area, that they are an important part of the community, and to be cautious. Claire thought the drawing of the snake looked sad, and she wanted him not to be lonely. Nevertheless, I assured her, the snake likes to have alone time, and we need to respect the woods by not wandering off the path or putting our hands into places we can’t see into.

When we started our hike, first we explored the bark of a madrone tree:

We passed a tree with an interesting sign. We were unable to see the bees, but we saw a spot on the trunk high up where a large limb had broken and left a big gap, and we guessed the bees might be there.

Daddy pointed out the roots on this tree. How often to you get to see what a tree looks like underground? Claire found the roots a little scary and also said they look like a maze.

The stream burbled as we walked, and we enjoyed the variation of rock. The water flowing over the black rock was eyecatching.

The trail was uphill, and Claire was getting hungry and tired. We stopped often. Our explorer made herself at home in the dirt. She found acorn caps, a feather, and interesting leaves. She took a dirt bath — handfuls of dirt thrown up in the air over herself!

When she wasn’t taking a rest, she was doing this!

The watched the dance of sun and shade.

We looked closely at how nature had arranged her designs.

We noticed how the sky was reflected by the water, and how leaves made a dent on the surface.

It was idyllic to sit on the bank and listen. I accidentally dislodged a moderately sized rock. At first I tried to place it back. It had been sitting there for many years, I’m sure. I pondered how all the rocks had probably been where they were for hundreds of years or more. If I threw the rock into the stream, I would change the way things had been for centuries. Do you ever ponder that when you’re in nature? I decided to plunk the rock into the water, where it will likely stay for another era.

Not all rocks were arranged by happenstance. To support the trail, park employees long ago built a wall. What captured our attention is how thoroughly moss had made a home of it.

We reached Upper Falls, but Claire for some reason was scared. There was a small ledge and wood fence, and perhaps this made her nervous.

So we continued up to Basin Falls. It was possible to climb up close to the basin, although Claire decided to wash rocks instead.

They needed a thorough scrubbing!

We looked closely at the water, and how droplets made rings. The stream was clear as glass.

We spent many, many minutes at the edge. She threw small stones, leaves, and dust into the water. She tried to hit a larger rock with a small one and cheered when she succeeded!

On the last leg of our hike, Claire wanted to really get into her exploration. Since I carry spare shoes, undies, and leggings in the car, this was not a problem. She pretended she was a gazelle at the water’s edge.

It was a beautiful day; being in nature made us all mellow and happy. We drove on to see Uvas Reservoir.

The county allows fishing (catch and release), and Claire wants to learn. So do I! I never did try it out as a kid. We made reservations to camp at Uvas Canyon later in the fall, our first camping excursion. Now we just need to gather our supplies. We’re all very excited about this! It’s such a blessing to live this close to wild spaces.

Then on Sunday, some new friends came over to visit and help Claire make a fairy house! We met at a special event they had on their block a month ago, and a friendship sprouted. Emily and Maddie and their mom came over with lots of supplies, which they combined with ours, to construct a special home.

Here Emily and Claire discuss what color glitter glue to use on the little chairs, while Maddie enjoys the hammock.

Then of course Claire had to take a break after all the decision-making and join Maddie.

Now Maddie is digging a hole for the pool…

Here’s the home (the shoebox) along with a sidewalk leading to a pool, fire pit, and fairy tent.

A close-up of the tent:

And Claire, deciding where to put a hibiscus bloom. The fairy garden/home is a work in progress. More will be added later, I’m sure!

Claire spent the entire day outside, in the wading pool, the sandbox, the fairy garden! We spent this morning making Christmas gifts for family — Claire has lots of aunts, uncles, and of course her grandparents. We typically get an early start so they are done when the crazy season begins. I’ve got a photo but will not reveal what they are until after the holiday. But to satisfy curiosity, below are the gifts she made for family when she was two (ornaments) and three (bookmarks):

Last year we made streamers for our tree, and then got the idea to make another batch as bookmarks with pretty tassles. I forgot to take a photo of them!

What is so neat is watching how she works. This year she carefully chose the pieces to use and went with a theme and a pattern. And her attention span lasted long enough to do all 11 gifts!

Kids are cute, babies are cute, puppies are cute. The little things are cute. See, nature did this on purpose so that we would want to take care of our young. Made them cute. Tricked us. Then gradually they get older and older, until one day your mother sits you down and says, “You know, I think you’re ugly enough to get your own apartment.”

–Cathy Ladman

Me: “Night night honey, I love you, you’re my favorite girl in the world.”

Claire: “Night Mommy, you’re my favorite Mommy. I think I’ll keep you, and even if you’re mad at me I’ll love you and take care of you when you get sick. And I’ll give you milk or juice or water, but you have to choose which one.”

Then, out of the blue at lunch today, she said, “I want better parents. Ones who don’t hit. I’ll go live with PJ’s parents.”

Now before you call CPS on me, I confess: in the past nearly four years, I can count on one hand the instances I have, in a moment of heated reaction, smacked a hand or a leg. I even wrote about the first time. We do not discipline with physical force in our family, and yet there have been those few occasions when I have lost myself and my control. It’s usually after we’ve had a build-up of tensions and disagreements over many many days, which peak in her swatting or shoving me. I feel very sad on those occasions, and disappointed in myself.

As she gets older, her memory is growing indelible. After last week’s blowout she said, “It’s not nice for big people to hit little people, because they’re stronger.” And of course how does a child process the family rule of We Do Not Hit if her parent does? We talked about how important it is to use other ways to express anger, and I need to be more diligent about putting my bottom on the zafu. I’m a pretty good parent, but Claire teaches me all the time how to be the adult in our relationship.

Parenting is not for the faint of heart or those of thin endurance.

The odd bit is that we’d been having a lovely day so far, so I’m not sure what prompted this. I replied to her statement that she could look for other people to be her parents but that Daddy and I will always love her and be her parents and she will always be our girl.

Soon she moved on to asking me, “What’s in your imagination, Mommy?” And I replied I was thinking about hummingbirds, since we have a feeder right outside our dining room window and they often feed and fight over it. I asked what was in her imagination, and she replied:

“I imagine being a kangaroo and bouncing and having a joey. I imagine being a mermaid! I wish to be a dog and be a friend and live with each others [sic] and have puppies and live with you and you could own me forever.” And I told her we belonged to each other forever.

Then she moved on to talking about dinosaurs, and Sid the Science Kid, and announced, “Fruit sometimes gets dead. It decays and breaks down, But then nature starts all over again! Then the fruits and vegetables grow all again!”

Love this girl.

You make me sneeze
because I’m allergic to you
the library’s a mess
I’m the best of the rest

Oh me-oh my-oh
You get the funnest job to do
Abe Lincoln brushed his teeth
But now he’s got ahold of you

You need a lot of things to do
You can do all the best things
But now you know what
Edwin knows the caden(?)

Now a ball a bust
Now it’s time to go read
Now you know what
I am not so sleepy
But now you gotta but

Now listen to me
Now the world be gone
Run run run run
Not so tired at all

We all ate the pizza
we wish we are ballerina
And now you got to be quiet
Because of the oldest day

You kept a lot of things
I wish I could do that
Now I really moan
Now I can’t really do that

I painted on the wall
Wubba wubba wub-ba
Now it’s time to take your bath
Now a time out floor
I was thinking of my dinner
Now it’s time for more

Now there’s only a few things
Just until your more
These are my books
These are my books

Here is Claire playing:

This is a close-up of her hand (to show scale) setting the table:

And a close-up of the teeny tiny cups:

Another party from this morning (notice the buttons — they make handy plates):

The other day, Claire created an ocean with a blue scarf and proceeded to have a huge party on the beach next to it. Then baby got in the water and floated away, and then there was a shark attack! She needed saving, so everyone came to her aid:

She also has numerous (100+) plastic animals she plays with. Today the barn became a home for the tigers and a lion, plus a cat or two. The hand-knit hat that my Gramma Leola knit for me as a child was their bed, and the mittens were sleeping bags for other friends:

One little tiger wandered out and got lost:

And when Claire is not busy playing with teeny tiny toys, she practices her back float…

…and spends time reading (mostly looking at pictures and telling herself the story):

…and jumping into the instructor’s arms.

We’ve also been playing with our food:

One day Claire asked for a knife and began slicing up pepper slices I’d given her. Once she cut them all, she ate them. Never before had she asked to do this, and she demonstrated real dexterity at cutting. That brain of hers is always growing!

Yesterday we took a day trip to Mount Madonna County Park. It’s a gorgeous park, and they also have campgrounds, which we may reserve for later. Here’s the scenic view of the valley:

And up-close views of beautiful mosses and lichen:

We saw California banana slugs:

And a Santa Cruz Gartersnake basking in a spot of sun:

The redwoods are amazing:

These were the Twin Giants:

We had fun hiking the trails:

We visited the Henry Miller Summer Home ruins, and Claire hopped around:

A view from within the former house:

Claire had many questions about the former house and why no one took care of it anymore:

We walked and walked, and later she had a nap on the way home:

We’ve played with paint and paper plates:

And we’ve started collecting our spare change in a jar which we decorated. We’ll empty it periodically and use it to donate to the food bank, or the Family Giving Tree, or some other worthy organization.

And so our summer continues!

But aren’t we all nothing? Everything changes. Human endeavor fades and is forgotten. Eventually we all end up the same place. And there is freedom in knowing and accepting this. Freedom to pay attention to what matters right now, and to enjoy this moment. That’s my bit of insight for today, because it’s late, and I’ve just finished sweeping, mopping, folding, washing, changing sheets, and pilling the cat. Meanwhile, take a peek at what’s been happening.

Claire earned her princess bike because she graduated to being a big girl and uses the potty. Pedaling and steering take concentration!

She also had her first session of swim lessons and loved it, especially her teacher. She’ll have one more week, and then we’ll see.

I did a lot of cutting, gluing, and tying, but Claire decorated with glitter glue and stickers. It moves beautifully in the slightest breeze.

We did this craft awhile back, right after 4th of July!

Claire had me draw the rainbow and face, and she colored the rainbow and decided to use beads for flowers.

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me),
It’s always our self we find in the sea.
– e.e. cummings

Headed out to the beach:

Getting cozy in the sand (she also made sand angels):

Barely able to stay still for a photo-op with Mommy:

Racing the waves:

The sky was gray but her heart was not:

Lounging later:

Encountering immensity:

We picked nine pounds of strawberries!

And proceed to this and this:

A sticky, boiling mess!

Ending in this and this!

My first time canning, ever. I ended up with 11 pints of strawberry jam!