The Beginning...

Once in a while someone will ask me why I use "The Mad Canner" as my alter ego. It's rather simple. I can food and I am insane. I never intended to fall into this persona, a hybrid of earth mama nurturer and rabid dog. Three years ago, I had a comfortable urban existence complete with funky apartment, hip job in a pet store, and a membership at the local health food co-op. Then we decided to move back home to upstate New York, to help take care of my mother. My now ex-husband and I picked up the pieces of a breaking marriage, our two kids, and way too many pets and dropped them all in a trailer park in Theresa, New York.

The culture shock was overwhelming at first. I still remember the night my oldest son, Fox, asked me if we could get takeout Japanese food delivered for dinner. His eyes brimmed with tears as I explained that not only would there be no more delivery, there were no Japanese restaurants in the entire county. The look said one thing. "Where the HELL did you bring me?"

With only one car, my career was the first casualty of the move. So to make ends meet I had this delusion that I was going to have a huge garden and preserve the harvest to eat year round. There is one thing I did not take into account. I do not have a green thumb. In three years and countless tomato plants, I have harvested exactly one tomato. Thank goodness for the Amish produce stand half way between my house and my parents' house. Cheap, organic produce that I don't have to try to grow. I picked up a Ball Blue Book, dug my mother's canning supplies out of the attic, and went to town.

Eventually my marriage went the same way as my career. So now it's just me and the boys. Fox is almost twelve. Stone is almost four. We have two dogs, Stella the pug and Sofie the puggle. Our two cats are Fionna and Chairman Meow. We also have two rats, Oz and Xander, a bearded dragon named Karma, and a goldfish named Squiggy. I'm currently trying to start over in the world. Learning how to balance work and home, rebuilding my career, finding way my way in the dating world. This is our story....welcome in.