It's time to admit defeat.

'08-'09 is not going to be The Year of Enough Jam.

I tried, people. I bought two whole flats of fresh strawberries last June and turned them into sweet homemade jammy goodness. My grandmother supplemented my stash with a few containers of her homemade raspberry jam. I looked at those jars and jars of jam and thought that maybe, just maybe, we'd make it through the year without having to resort to store-bought jam.



It is now January.

This is all that is left of my once-mighty Stack O'Jam.



Clearly, I have once again underestimated my daughters' jam-devouring capabilities. I can barely put into words how much these girls love jam.

Here are two actual conversations from this morning:

Me: Lucy, what do you want for breakfast?

Lucy: I want jam.

Me: You mean you want some toast? With jam on it?

Lucy: OK, toast. With JAM.

*****

Beth, while eating her toast with jam: For my next birthday, I'm going to have a JAM birthday. And we can all eat jam! And we can play a game called pin the lid on the jam jar!

Lucy: Oh, sounds good to me.

I'm thinking next year I'll try to can three or four flats of strawberries. Even that might not be enough to sate their jam appetites. Will there ever be a Year of Enough Jam for these kids? Stay tuned for '09-'10 and we'll find out.