It's summer time and getting hot here in Southern California. Instead of posting about how miserable I am in my last few weeks of pregnancy, I think today perhaps I'll write about a good summer memory and try to focus on that instead of my discomfort.
We've been eating a lot of simple meals lately -- avocado on bread, fruit and cheese. You know, the kind of meal you can only enjoy in the summer because the produce is so luscious and perfectly ripe. Today I had a peach and as I was enjoying it's sweetness, I was reminded of my childhood when my mom used to buy peaches by the bushel. She would get boxes and boxes of peaches from a local farm and most of them weren't quite ripe yet. So she would cover the floor of our garage with newspaper and lay out the peaches in a single layer to allow them to ripen to soft perfection. Then she would spend days canning fruit and making jam.
She would also preserve pears, apples, berries, corn, tomatoes, cherries, grapes and anything else she could get her hands on. But peach time was always my favorite. I would sneak into the garage, steal the best looking peach and sit on a fruit box, biting into the soft yellow flesh while leaning over so that the sweet peach juice would drip off my chin onto the garage floor and not down the front of my shirt.
Summertime as a kid seemed so simple and perfect. I loved playing outside until dinner time, eating popsicles in the shade, running through the sprinkler, going to the county fair, shucking corn on the cob for dinner, picking berries and making jam, going camping with the family and so much more. I am looking forward to enjoying summers with our children and making memories of our own. Hurry and come little one so we can start enjoying summer together!
