What a Peach of a Day!

Today was one of those totally unplanned, totally spontaneous days that give you and your children great memories of growing up. I was cutting up some peaches for breakfast and was less than thrilled with them, and I mentioned to my cute husband, "You know, we should go up to Peach Days in Brigham City and get some real peaches." To my surprise, he said "Sure. Let's go." We had such a great day. I think I was born about 60 years to late, because I love the small town, know everyone around you, real sense of community that we seem to have lost in our bigger cities. I mean, I almost teared up when I saw the Rotary Club selling raffle tickets to raise money to buy new dictionaries for the 3rd grade at the local elementary school. None of the buildings in town were over three stories tall, there was a statue of the city's founder in front of city hall, where, by the way, the high school orchestra was performing for the crowd. I was truly in my element.

After we ate some lunch -- the peach cobbler and peach fritters were absolutely sinful -- and rode the rides for a while, we started to notice something a little strange: there were no actual peaches at Peach Days. Thinking we must be not looking in the right place, we asked one of the festival staff (probably the Peach Days queen or the mayor). Turns out, Peach Days is kind of a misnomer: it really should be called "we used to have peaches at Peach Days but our town has grown and a lot of the peach groves have been cut down and now most of the peaches we do grow we sell to large grocery chains and they ship them out to the bigger cities" days. The closest we came to peaches was our cobbler and the fritters Kara had with her pulled pork sandwich. Good thing I didn't pass them up, right? Still, totally fun, still dying to go again next year (I'm planning on going early to see the parade, buy my kids cotton candy, wave flags, and possibly run for city council). But I won't plan on coming home with any peaches.

I think the best part of today was it wasn't really planned. We didn't worry about if the guy would get his afternoon nap or if my list of Saturday chores would get done as I had planned or if that church flyer would be completely prepared and ready to give out tomorrow. The best thing about today was being totally happy with my family and totally in the moment. So often we are so busy planning our next great move that we forget how wonderful right now is. So as I stood between my daughters, laughing as they rode the carousel, and watched my son perched on his dad's shoulders, I was happy, right now.

So, next time you have a chance to do something unplanned, worry a little less about crossing off tasks on a to-do list and enjoy the fabulous life you've been given -- right now.