Aww Peaches!

Did you ever have a summer that you wanted to "Do Over?" A summer that came and went and nothing really good came out of it but a series of unwanted events? Maybe it was a work thing that made it impossible for you to enjoy summer's offerings. Maybe it was someone close to you that went through a real emotional roller coaster. Maybe it was almost everyone around you that went through a real emotional roller coaster.

And no one could barely hang on.

No one.

That was us, last summer. And we are declaring a D-O- O-V-E-R! On January 1, my husband and I chanted "2008 will be great, 2008 will be great, 2008 will be great!"

So far, so good, it's been a year of fun.
And we want it to stay that way, forever and ever.

So deep into that promise, I saw our peaches blooming not too long ago and all of us, our little peach included, stopped to smell the peaches. In just those three seconds of trying to breathe in the faint scent of the blooms and it is very faint, like 2 day old citrus perfume, I remembered one day last summer when all heck seemed like it was falling on top of us, shovels of it one day, truckloads, the next:

My dear husband (who dug holes and nurtured our fruit trees with his own dad) came in with a plate of bite sized peaches. Annoyed and just plain tired of all the stuff that was happening around us that summer, I acknowledged them, but wasn't jumping up off of the couch to grab a bite.

Husband: You gotta try this.
Me: Yeah, Ok.
Husband: No. Really, you gotta try this.
Me: Alright. (Could I get more excited?)

Husband coming closer with plate of bite sized pieces, me not even having to get up off of the couch. OK, this might work.

I took a bite.

And I was a bit confused. He could see it in my face.
I took another bite and my eyes lit up --- so did his.
I devoured another and another, but not much more because it was all three of us sharing one peach.

That was the sweetest, juiciest, tastiest peach I have ever had in my entire life, and this year is a big birthday year, so I have had my share. It was even sweeter knowing that it came from one of our trees. It is April now, and it will be three months until we can taste another peach, but it will sure be worth the wait.