when life gives you lemons...

The changing of the clocks is always difficult for me (not the extra hour of sleep part).  When it gets dark at 4:30, I find it really depressing, and the days very long.  One of my friends likes to say, "I'm solar powered and I only work when the sun is shining" and that seems about right to me.  Oh, and I also hate the cold.

So for the last few weeks I've been plotting my plan for these long winter months.  What will I do with those precious moments of sunlight of every day?  Winter pruning, definitely, but not until February and March when the trees are dormant, but not that far from bud break.  Writing, hopefully, but will I have enough ideas to keep going through the whole winter?  Baking, probably, I could easily do that every day. But then I might not be able to move around the garden by the time spring comes along.

So I was in Whole Foods the other day, and organic lemons were on sale.  I'd had the idea to make my own limoncello for at least a year now, and hadn't done it.  So it seemed like karma, life gives you lemons, make limoncello...

It's feeling more summery in here already!

There's not much work required, lemons, alcohol a jar, and some simple syrup about a month from now, after all the flavor has been infused into the vodka.  Oh, and when I say vodka, I don't mean Grey Goose or Absolut or whatever you have around the house.  Every limoncello recipe I found calls for 100 proof vodka, which honestly I did not know existed.

Formerly one of my grandmother's pickling jars (you'll have to wait for next summer for a post on my family's famous pickles) it even has lemons imprinted in the glass, so maybe it was another sign that I was on the right path.

Wow, the smell of that vodka cleared my sinus for sure.  Who actually drinks that stuff?

I'm now starting to 100 proof wonder if this was a good idea.  I'm a notorious light weight when it comes to drinking, (2 glasses of wine and I'm toast) so I'm thinking that when this is done (about 30-45 days from now) it will need to be given away to others.  Maybe I should've made lemon cake instead?