When we moved back to my hometown, I had a lot of idyllic visions of how things would be, much like my friend Kate.

Some things came true.
We take strolls around our neighborhood and nature walks or alphabet walks.
(Well, we do when it’s cooler outside.)
We swim and have lazy dinners with some of my oldest family friends.
We do fun stuff with friends, old and new.
We often have Sunday lunch with my parents.

So in a lot of ways, life here is idyllic.

But there are also things that aren’t exactly what I anticipated.
Carter’s school, for example.

He will be starting Kindergarten this year.
I don’t know who’s more excited: me or him!

He’ll be going to a *Brand*New*School*, which is awesome and beautiful and well-planned.
But I have to admit that when we picked our house, we assumed we’d be zoned for what was my old elementary school.
When I went to register him for school back in May, I went to my old school…the school I thought he’d be going to…
and I was floored by how many memories surfaced just by walking through the front door.

The time in Ms. Golson’s class when we donned black plastic trash bags, dressed up like California Raisins and did the dance.
The first day I wore glasses to school.
The time I was disappointed that one 5th grade class learned the word “antidisestablishmentarianism” and our class didn’t.
(I’ve always been a dork.)
The time we made paper with Ms. Rivers.
Sitting in my 1st grade class and watching the snow fall through those tiny little slits of window.
I even remember one day from Kindergarten…when Chan asked me to sit at his table.
I remember lunches and PTA meetings and talent shows in the lunchroom.

A few days ago, I had another reason to go up to my old school.
I asked if it was ok if I just walked around and looked, and the secretary said that was fine.
I walked to the play ground.
There was a lot of new equipment, but the swings were still there.
And I remembered kicking a boy because he tried to kiss me,
Being too much of a scared-y cat to jump of the swings while I was swinging,
Standing in the shade of the building with Ms. Blizzard and some of the students from her class.

I know it sounds a bit crazy,
but I thought it would be cool if my kids and I had memories from the same place, different times.
And I know it sounds crazy, but there are parts of me that wish we were zoned
for the old, slightly-run-down-but-obviously-loved school and not the *Big*Fancy*New school.

At the old school, there are lots of playscapes.
The new school has no playground at all(yet).
At the old school, I know the principal and a lot of the staff.
I’ve never met the principal at the new school, but I’ve heard that she’s really nice.
At the old school, I have lots of memories.
The new school has new memories to be made for the kids and me!

He is excited!
I am excited!

I’m happy about the teacher to whom he’s been assigned.
I’ve known her for years, and she’s super-duper sweet.
She taught him in Sunday School a few years back, so she knows what she’s getting into!

A few days at the beach with my family.

A week at the beach with the teenagers from church.

A few days back at home, trying to recuperate.

And now…school is a mind-numbing 3 weeks away.

I am simultaneously thrilled and saddened that it’s so close.

I’m taking Carter school shopping today.

Just the two of us.

I have so much to say, but my mind can’t really process it all right now.

I will be so glad when this first trimester is over.

Pregnancy brain + pregnancy hormones = flighty, crazy Bridget

Someone remind me that it gets better.

The smell of peaches awakens my mind, brings to surface things forgotten.  Oh, the sweet, sweet smell of peaches.

*****

When I was growing up there was only one big business in our tiny town:  Cherokee Canning Company.  In the spring and summer they canned O’sage peaches.  And as summer led into fall, they canned pimentos.  (To be honest, I have no clue what they did the rest of the year.)  For many years, everyone that grew up in my small town worked at the cannery.  A rite of passage, so to speak.  The perfect summer job(if you don’t mind wearing a hair net).  But by the time I came along, this was no longer the case.  I think it was just too dangerous for teenagers and they proved a higher liability than they were worth.

When it was peach time, the sorters would go through and pull out the blemished peaches.  Crate after crate of peaches, dumped out to be sorted.  Some peaches, obviously rotten, were simply tossed.  But those with slight blemishes were put aside for the locals.  Some small imperfection that wouldn’t fare well in the canning process didn’t deter us from snapping up the ones that were cast aside.

****

After my grandmother retired from her work at the bank, she was our primary babysitter.  She drove the afternoon carpool during the school year and kept my brother and I at her house in the summer.

While we had to endure countless episodes of Young & the Restless, we also went swimming and on adventures of all kinds.  Short day trips to the Uncle Remus museum and the Whistle Stop Cafe were not uncommon.  (And…why, yes…we are reeeeally S’uthern.)

We knew not to ask about going anywhere on Wednesdays, though.  We had church on Wednesday night and had to make sure there was plenty of time to make the Peach Pie for family night supper at church. (If you haven’t tried this recipe, you’re really missing out!)

Mr. Albert(one of the cannery owners) and my Mama Jo had an agreement of sorts.  He’d provide the peaches and she’d make the peach pie.

***

I miss the days when a box of slightly bruised fresh peaches would show up on the doorstep.

***

Canned Peaches.
Fresh Peaches.
Peach Ice Cream.
Peaches and milk with a little sprinkle of sugar.
Peach Pie.

I love ’em all.
Just don’t dare try to give me pickled peaches.  Bleh!
(My brother will happily take those!)