Give me all your Mason Jars!

For Christmas this past year, even though he doesn't technically celebrate it, Jimi bought us a Food Saver.  You know, that nifty little invention that allows you to air-seal all of your leftovers and bulk-purchased foods in awesome bags that form to the food inside it as you suck all the air out?  Yeah, one of those.

Jimi loves to shop.  LOVES to shop.  He loves to go to the stores and browse for hours.  He loves to pick out dozens of outfits and make me try them on.  He loves to search on the internet for days, looking for that PERFECT canoe/kayak/Food Saver/subwoofer/TV/drill/computer/pair of shoes.  He's a dream boat for any girl who loves to shop.

I don't like to shop.  Wait.  Let me clarify that:  I like to grocery shop.  Shopping for toiletries or housewares, at a store such as Target, is easily tolerable, as are most other shopping trips that consist of a simple in and out.  I can enjoy/handle shoe shopping if I have plenty of money or if someone else is buying.  Shopping for electronics makes my eyes glaze over.  Shopping for clothes causes me to become nearly homicidal.

My point is, Jimi does most of the "we want this but we could totally live without it" shopping, because if it was left to me, we'd totally live without it.  So when we decided a Food Saver was a good idea (now that we have a house, and a place to store foods and such that are purchased in bulk), Jimi hopped on the trusty ol' Internets and after a few hours/days of comparison shopping, found us one heck of a deal.  We got the unit itself, plus various marinaters and jars and canisters, a selection of bags and rolls of make-it-yourself bags, some wine bottle stoppers (all the better to save your sinful beverage), and...(drum roll please)...an attachment that seals wide mouth Mason jars.

Now, maybe you're saying, "Natalie, if you got this contraption for Christmas, why are you blogging about it now like it's something new and exciting?"

Well, that's easy to answer.  The Food Saver broke about a week after we got it, and we only just now got a replacement unit back from the manufacturer.  (Completely our fault, as we waited about 6 months before finally sending the broken unit back to them.)  So it's all Christmas in July up in here.  (Except today's the first day of August.  Damn.)

Last night, Jimi sealed a 5 lb. bag of cornmeal into three jars.  I've got 20 lbs. of red kidney and pinto beans I'm going to seal today.  I'm going through my pantry to see what else can be sealed into jars and kept dry and good forever.

There's a little room in the basement where the juices and jars of pickles and cans of green beans and cans of corn and 15 lbs. of honey all live.  Steve calls it my Mormon Food Bank.  He ain't seen nothin' yet.

I'm gonna need more jars.