This week I was once again totally overwhelmed.  Can you imagine what arrived by FedEx?

Peaches.  A dozen peaches.  From the Peach Man.

A dozen miraculous, beautiful peaches carefully wrapped in a box from the lake.

I cried.  Banjo Man was totally choked up.  We both ate a peach and laughed at ourselves for the tears.  It was such an unexpected gift.  The neighbors above us at the lake had gone to a great deal of trouble to send such a treat.

So of course I had to make a pie.  A little 7″ pie.  With homemade crust.  I won’t tell you how long it took me to do this (hint: all freakin’ day!), and I had to wear my compression sleeve (when rolling out the crust), hand gauntlet, disposable gloves (to keep the gauntlet and sleeve clean) and rubber gloves (for the dishes).  Banjo Man had to haul the pie in and out of the oven every time I needed to check it (I haven’t found the perfect oven gloves yet).  Sigh.   It was definitely a labor of love.  I’m sure I’ll get used to this new, ultra-careful routine eventually, but yesterday?  Everything took a lot more time to do, plus my brain works very, very slowly these days and I am prone to making lots of stupid mistakes.

And I haven’t been in the kitchen for almost two months.  

Here’s the pretty result:

A rustic peach pie.

Despite the epic failure of the crust–I am clearly out of practice–we ate it with gusto.

And despite how awful this breast cancer experience has been, the kindness and love and caring from family and friends has been overwhelming and wonderful.

I’m going to go eat a peach now…