New Year Juice

I keep hearing a familiar rhetoric about the start of a new year bringing with it feelings of renewal and yearnings to purge and cleanse and rejuvenate one’s home and life.  I gotta say, while I’m in good spirits, I don’t feel any yearnings to wipe slates clean and start making my bed every morning.  This year, January 1 feels like um… maybe October – like where in the world has the year gone?  Did I sleep through it?  I have never felt time passing so swiftly before!  I would like some more days in my weeks, hours in my days, and moments – yes, moments in this life.

We’ve been kind of homebody like, which I’m loving.  Getting out of the house these days usually means going for a stroll or running an errand with four out of the five of us staying in the parked car.  On New Years Day, we took the kids for a walk to the corner store to get some “juice”.  It was meant to be a special treat, because we rarely walk that far, and when we do, they usually have to bring their drinks from home.  Store juice is much more delicious and refreshing than home juice, you know.  And as we’re walking, I’m taking my first few snaps with my brand new zoom lens.  I’m a little unsteady on these new legs, because I’m used to my prime lenses and the sharpness that come with those.  But I’m learning as I go, which is why the shots get better the farther we walk.

When we finally get to Circle K, all of my three kids were desperate for their juice, which ended up being Vitamin Water.  So desperate was Bella that she refused to share or drink from the bottle while someone else was holding it for her.  She wanted to hold it, gosh darn it, and she let everyone in the store know it too!  This may have been the most monumental fit that Bella has ever thrown; complete with hair raising screeches and throwing herself on the floor.  What made it special was that it started about holding the bottle of juice and morphed into a variety of topics including wanting to go swimming, wanting to go to the mall, not wanting to go to the mall, wanting to ride the train, wanting to see Santa, wanting to go down the slide, wanting to go swimming again, and finally… wanting a big stick.  Which she got.  Poor little chickadee had a nice nap after that. ;)

Despite all the juice drama we had on New Years Day, the real New Years Juice was still to come.  Ever since we built this house over four years ago, we have had a January ritual of harvesting the grapefruits off our little tree in the backyard and making juice from them.  Those grapefruits take the whole year to grow, and I just find it so symbolic to reap the literal fruits of our labors.  What makes it even more special is that every year we’ve been in the house, the grapefruits get more and more plentiful and the juice gets sweeter and sweeter.  Just reminds me of life.  Our first harvest was only a dozen or so.  We thought they were white grapefruit because they were so tart and colorless even when fully ripened.  We used to make grapefruitade, because we added almost as much sugar and water as we did juice.  This year, they are ruby red and sweeter than any I’ve ever bought in the stores.  Like liquid candy that runs down your face and forearms.  The first two years, we juiced by squeezing.  The third year we bought a hand juicer.  And this year (the fourth), we needed an electric juicer in addition to our hand juicer to get the job done.  About 180 grapefruits and five hours later, we had over five gallons of fresh squeezed organic grapefruit juice.  Oh, and lots of sleepy-eyed, laughter-filled moments to hoard in my memory bank.  And those will last long after we’ve finished the juice to its last drop.