Desert Critters Around Me

Harris Hawk

Mexican Gray Wolf

Javelina

Bighorn Sheep

Our resident Bobcat kitten

We are blessed to have plentiful wildlife in and around our state, including this little bobcat kitten posing in my front yard. (Mom is around somewhere close.) Bobcats seem to be having a banner season here this year. The javelina run in herds, smell a lot like skunks and its fun to see them, but not run into them! The Mexican wolf is far up in the mountains towards New Mexico, so we don't see them except at the Desert Museum. The Bighorn Sheep seem not to be that plentiful, but you might see one while you're hiking. We ran into a herd of them while in the Grand Canyon a few years ago. Harris Hawks hang out in families, hunting rodents together, perching on the tops of saguaros to get a good look. Not pictured are the many coyotes, foxes and the occasional mountain lion we see closeby. I hope I never see a mountain lion right in my neighborhood however. Some of my friends have, though. Yeeesh! We also have a multitude of lizards, snakes, toads, insects, hummingbirds, the roadrunner and more.

I love living here because I have to pay attention to my environment. Keeps you on your toes. Arizona is a beautiful place to live.

Not Too Old

So last weekend at the end of my nice long vacation, my husband and I met his daughter Jamie and their family at Lake Tahoe. Tahoe is beautiful no matter when you go there, but winter is especially so. Jamie's family was planning to ski the whole time and Les and I were going to sightsee mostly and just relax. I had toyed with the idea of skiing a little but I didn't have any equipment or clothes.

But the first full day we were there we drove up to Squaw Valley, the site of the 1960 Winter Olympics to check it out, take the gondola up to the restaurant, share lunch with the fam. I hadn't really planned to ski, but I was shooting pictures outside there and watching everyone having a great time skiing and snowboarding and snowboarding caught my eye.


Jamie is just learning how to snowboard and Gary and Ramon were also snowboarding that day. So that little tickle of interest started growing.

Jamie getting ready.

So many of my friends who knew I was going to Lake Tahoe and had only skied years ago said that they would personally never attempt skiing "at this age" because what if they broke a bone? Some of these women were in their forties! I love them all , but wow! One of my best friends ski races and she's in her mid fifties. I may be 59 but I just don't believe I should start limiting myself like that - I mean maybe when I'm 80 or 90. But common sense does rule. Would I start out on a black diamond hill with a snowboard I've never been on before? Of course not. Deciding I had to snowboard before I left Tahoe was a well calculated risk. But I knew that if I didn't do it, I would regret it for a long time.

Was I physically fit? Yes.
Am I fairly coordinated? Yes.
Did I want to learn how to do this? Yes!
Was there an opportunity to do it where I could minimize my risk? Yes, a class.
Did I have access to the right equipment? Yes. Thanks, Gary for the pants and to heavenly for the rented stuff.
Bingo!

So Jamie and I took a beginner's class at the Heavenly ski resort for three hours the next day while the boys went fishing. The snow was great. Our instructor gave us good instruction although I could have used more time on the beginner slope (like weeks). It was fun and it was scary, but scary really only because after I landed on every possible impact point multiple times, it was starting to hurt falling down. So I was motivated to stay upright as much as possible. But in the last hour we went up the regular ski lift on a green run and I made it down the last half of the hill only falling a few times. Yea! I snowboarded! I didn't break anything. And to prove I did it I have pictures. There's me in the blue, Jamie in the pink helmet. Do I look like a cool snowboarder? LOL


I don't care if I was 20 years older that the next oldest person in the class - I did it and it was worth it and I so appreciated my stepdaughter Jamie for doing it with me. She did great. It was fun sharing the experience with her. Now that the soreness has worn off, I would do it again in a heartbeat! : )

Try new things; don't limit yourself by using someone else's limit. Personal best - remember? Allow yourself the freedom of continuing to LIVE and EXPERIENCE life. Do you have a bucket list? Get on with it.

Personal Best - Time to Take Flight!

If you have ever been involved in competitive sports, you know that a personal best (PB) is the next best thing to a record. It's the best you've ever done whether it is a time achieved, distance, weight lifted, runs batted in ...anything like that. While it is really neat to actually hold a record in something, achieving personal bests are VERY satisfying and move the carrot out a little farther each time for your next PB.

I am suggesting that beginning January 1 and ending December 31, 2010 we all work on achieving our own personal best in our health status this year. Let's look at PBs a little deeper first.

Typically personal bests are recorded with a beginning and an end point. You start and at the end, you look to see if you have achieved it. But frankly, you often know - barring unforeseen circumstances, when you are on track for it while you're in the middle of it. And that feeling of potential achievement helps you push a little harder. When I was running for many years, I had certain routes I would take so I had visual milestones all along the way. So if I got to the grocery store on a certain corner at a certain time, I could tell if I was on target for or behind a personal best time. Either way, I would push a little harder at the milestone point. Those little points kept me on track and made me better. If I was always running in a new place with no milestones to compare my time to, it would have been really hard to push myself. Where am I?

How can we relate this practice to our own health in general? For one thing, most athletes don't decide they are going to be the world's best athletes in general. They pick their sport and often a specialty even within that sport.

So I am suggesting that you DON'T make a new year's resolution to "lose weight," "eat better" or "exercise more." These goals are way too general and can be overwhelming as you throw yourself into a lifestyle change that is vastly different than the way you've been living. So you set a big goal of being healthier, defining what that means to you personally and then set much smaller goals you can actually achieve over the course of 2010.

Being able to achieve small goals sets you up psychologically to feel successful enough to work on the next goal and the next goal. For instance, if you don't exercise at all and you know you need to, don't start the new year deciding you're going to exercise 5 days a week for an hour a day. From nothing to five is huge. But if you break that goal down to "I'm going to start by working out one day a week for an hour and keep it up for a month," then by the end of the month two days may be in the realm of possibility. If not yet, keep at it for another month and try again. Then maybe the next small goal would be to stick to two days a week for two months, gradually working up to your five days as you ease into it over the year, making it work for your schedule.

Keep a "visual milestone" like crossing off days on the calendar that you've exercised. If you post a full-year wall calendar somewhere where you see it all the time, it can keep you motivated. Buddying up with a friend who has similar goals AND motivation to achieve can help you go to the gym or to your class when you sometimes feel like being lazy. Push each other - you have goals! And, BTW, if you don't get to exercise that one or two days one week, don't throw up your hands and say "Well, see, I blew it, I can't do this." You just get back on the horse. Never, ever give up.

You can apply this same principal to healthy eating, getting more sleep, taking more time for yourself and more.

Set a big goal and then break it down into little goals so you get there. Your personal best is waiting for you to hit it in 2010. You don't need to be the best anybody ever was; you just need to work on being the best you ever were. Start by being better than you were this year next year. Start planning for long-term health by achieving a PB this year and then setting the bar a little higher for yourself next year and just keep going. Health is best when you plan for the future, not just for today or this week, but for a lifetime.

But you know that...... You read this blog. Take off!!!

Aging Lite - Gifting Idea!

I know this may seem like a shameless attempt to promote my book, but I guess that is exactly what it is! When I originally wrote Aging Lite: A Baby Boomer's Health Planner for Women, it was for my master's project for my degree in gerontology. I was passionate about it then as I am now and was determined to get it out to women everywhere. My advisor laughed when I told him I was going to publish it. He didn't know me very well.

Planning for health in the long term is just not in the conversation yet today. Of course we try to take care of ourselves so we can live as long as possible, but most people don't approach their health like they approach retirement planning, investing, accomplishing projects at work or even going on vacation! Aging Lite is all about "the plan" and sticking to it. Very few of us would have any savings set aside at all if we approached our financials like we do our health. What a difference if we did!!!

Aging Lite is kind of like a thump on the head by your mom saying "where do you want to be, here are the basic rules for getting there, now take them and plan out how you personally will make it." Lots of food for thought in the book. Lots of exercises to get you thinking - long term. Easy read for us busy women.

So I know I will never get rich on this little publication, but if I can make a difference for women out in the world, wherever they are, that is my dream for this book. That's why I wrote it. It's very inexpensive and priced right for a great gift for any women you care about in your life. If you click on the book to the right, it'll take you to my publisher's website where you can purchase it or multiple copies. Enjoy!!!

Green Bean Casserole: De-lite-ful Recipe

Thought all of you calorie counters might want this delicious Weight Watchers recipe for green bean casserole that is not only very tasty, but is very low cal. Fewer casserole calories - more pie! : )

Green Bean Casserole
Makes 12 1/2 cup servings @1 point per serving

30 ounces green beans
10 3/4 ounces reduced fat cream of mushroom soup
1/2 C nonfat sour cream
1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
1 1/2 medium onion - thinly sliced, separated into rings
4 T grated nonfat Parmesan cheese
2 T Italian bread crumbs

In a large bowl, combine beans, soup, sour cream and pepper.
Coat a 2-qt. casserole dish with nonstick cooking spray. Place the green bean mixture in the dish, and arrange the onion rings over the top. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese and bread crumbs over the onions.
Bake 350 degrees for 50 minutes, or until bubbly and lightly browned. Serve hot.

Have a very happy Thanksgiving!

NASCAR!

I HAD to show you some pictures from my first ever NASCAR race in Phoenix. I had no idea. We've watched tons of races on TV but have only seen the inside of the track - never what goes on outside. OMGosh! There were sooo many people out there before the race starts - many for days at a time in motorhomes. Take a look at this sea of RVs! I think there was over 100,000 people there.



Half of the fans had some NASCAR something on and the other half were carrying logo stuff they just bought in clear plastic bags. I think they ask for clear for security reasons. I felt severly underdressed. I had no NASCAR anything on except a lanyard that held my ticket and stuff.


Every driver had a their own trailer selling their logo'd stuff. Had to get a shot of Dale Jr., my husband's favorite and mine, Carl Edwards. Dear Carl, he's usually great, but Sunday he was just out for a Sunday drive. Dale crashed early, so I found myself rooting for the guy who had a picture of a dog on his car. Turns out he's the driver everybody boo's. How do you boo a guy with a dog on his car?











The SPEED Channel was there of course and was doing their commentary right outside the track. They'd goof around with the audience in during breaks and commercials.


The food was about as unhealthy as it could be. Huge BBQ turkey legs. Giant sausages in buns that would feed a family of four. Aaaargh! I managed to find a marginal grilled chicken breast sandwich and that was about it. I did break down and get a bag of kettle corn.

We had great seats thanks to one of my husband's friends in his company and he even lent us his two sets of head phones - a must otherwise you'll go deaf - and a scanner that hooked up to both sets where you could hear the drivers talking all through the race. How cool was that?

Four Air Force jets flew over the track as they played the Star Spangled Banner and I got all choked up. A NASCAR race is so about what America is at its heart. America loves racing.




Jimmy Johnson in the Lowes car won that day. Great driver, great car. Fabulous job. I want to go again. Next time I'll have my clear plastic bag and my Carl Edwards t-shirt. But I won't have a hat on like this! Gotta be kidding me!!!!

Immunity Impunity

Wikipedia definition of impunity: "Impunity arises from a failure by States to meet their obligations to investigate violations; to take appropriate measures in respect of the perpetrators..." Oh, Anne. What are we talking about here?

OK. For the sake of this discussion, I see ourselves as our own little states. While states don't have 100 percent control over what happens within the state, they do have a lot of control. And so do we. We don't have complete control over what happens to us and our bodies, but we have a lot of it. So when it comes to our bodies, how much control do we have over our immune systems? Again - a lot.

A great immune system is ALWAYS important, but we especially depend on it now during the flu season (seasonal and H1N1) to get us through without catching anything. We also depend on it to keep us from suffering diseases of many other kinds including cancer. So are we meeting our obligations to our bodies to keep our immune systems as strong as we can or are we failing to pay attention and take appropriate measures to correct?

You read so often that exercise and good nutrition help your immune system, but I always wondered exactly how they did that! It wasn't until I went through one of Andrew Weil's online courses on Nutrition and Cancer that I finally found an explanation that filled out the picture. It was an excellent course BTW. Here is the gist of it.

Our bodies have many millions of cells that naturally age at different rates depending on where they are in the body. Additionally cells are damaged by various things - oxidants, etc. We have a wonderful system called apoptosis that's in place to get rid of old or damaged cells that if otherwise left alone can cause illness. So we need those killer cells to be plentiful enough to handle the day-to-day workload of old, damaged, out of control cells, etc. When we're in balance, the bad cells aren't too plentiful and we have enough killer cells to take them out.

But here's where impunity comes in. A poor diet that is loaded with unhealthy fats and sugar, being sedentary and not exercising regularly, drinking too much and smoking can really amp up the damage to otherwise healthy cells and diminish the number and ability of the killer cells to do their jobs. So you wind up with an overload of nasty cells and a weak army to deal with them. Double whammy. That's when we become more open to disease. It's like a little creek that becomes a river and the walls that held the water back from the city and were never taken care of fell when overwhelmed. Are we allowing that to happen unchecked?

This is a very simplistic explanation and there are certainly other factors that cause illness, but this is a biggie. THIS we have much control over in our little state of self. Are we paying attention and turning bad habits around? It's a good question to ask ourselves everyday. Are we meeting our obligations to ourselves or are we failing?

So many of us are juggling many responsibilities - maybe more than ever before. Women especially seem to put themselves last on their list of priorities. Just keep our heads down and plow on. Well, I'm here to ask you to figure out how you are going to be a priority in your life. You're like the family car (I love analogies). You carry everyone around every day, day after day, but you need regular maintenance to keep the wheels turning! Maintenance for you is exercise, healthy diet, minimal alcohol intake and no smoking for starters. That is Basic Human Maintenance 101. No maintenance - you're up on blocks sooner or later. Kind of an interesting visual and not at all fun if it happens.

I don't want to be up on blocks and of course you don't. Wherever you are in your life today, think about where you might be living with impunity and reverse gears. You are so worth it. There has never been anyone exactly like you since the world began. That is precious and worth paying attention to my friends.