Sweet and Sour Pickled Beets Recipe- Refined Sugar Free

I wanted to apologize for not being so on top of posting on the blog lately. Life has been a little crazy. Last week a few members of my family were sick with a stomach bug, and I ended up bringing Anneliese to the ER, only to be able to avoid getting an IV last minute... and then more craziness with some other stuff, and then for the past few days, we've been sick again. We as in me and one kid...
When Mama is sick, no one is happy. I am exhausted, cranky, lightheaded, without a voice, and with absolutely no energy to do ANYTHING. And on top of that, Ike is super clingy because he's sick and not letting me sleep at night...
It got so bad, Ike so miserable at night and keeping us all awake all night, and none of the natural treatments seemed to be helping, that I finally took him to the doctor today, willing to give him antibiotics, even though antibiotics cause lots of gut issues and Ike is my kid with the most gut issues... anything, so long as he feels better and I have my happy, healthy Ike back instead of miserable crankypants who is making me feel even more cranky because on top of not feeling well, he's depriving me of sleep. But bad news/good news- what Ike has isn't bacterial, and antibiotics won't help him feel better... just more of what we've been doing unsuccessfully until now... and waiting it out...
So we're back to that, and when Ike cries to me that he's in pain, I just have to comfort him, but not much I can actually do for him that will really help him... And that makes me feel really guilty as a mama...


So yes, beyond exhausted, and housework is piling up and I have no energy to take care of it... and my washing machine is leaking but I don't have any energy to get around to figuring out what is wrong with it so we can fix it... so laundry is piling up... and I have to make supper soon and I have absolutely no clue what to serve....

Just needed to vent a little bit, my way of explaining why I've been slacking in the blog front.

But the least I can do is leave you with a yummy pickled beets recipe that I made a few days ago and was a hit... I made mine with no refined sugar, but to keep down the costs, feel free to switch to cheaper sweeteners...

Sweet and Sour Pickled Beets Recipe- Refined Sugar Free

Ingredients:
3 cups water
1 cup apple cider vinegar (or white vinegar)
3/4-1 cup honey, jaggery, sucanat, coconut sugar or sugar
20 cloves
1 teaspoon salt
8 large beets

Instructions:
1. Wash beets, then boil them, unpeeled, until fully soft.

2. Mix the water, vinegar, sweetener, cloves, and salt, and bring to a boil.

3. Peel the beets, slice them, and put them in the hot liquid.

4. Cool, and let marinate for 24 hours.

Enjoy!

P.S. If you do water bath canning, this recipe works perfectly for canning.

How has your last week or two been? How do you handle crazy hectic busy weeks without going crazy?

Are you a fan of beets, pickled or not? Does this look like a recipe you'd try?