They Say it Never Rains in Southern... Arizona

Our little tin burro is wondering where all this rain is coming from!

Wow, it is raining cats and dogs here on Sunday morning; another long shower in a month of downpours. While it isn't that very unusual to get some rain in January and February in Arizona, this much rain is almost unheard of. In fact, we are now officially out of our drought according to "authorities." Yea! no more bricks in the toilet tank.

Our driveway under water

It even snows here!

The saguaro cacti are just as fat as little butterballs and trees are already starting to bloom. My flowers are lovin' it. My dogs and horses aren't. I walked out in the rain to feed Smokey and Hershey this morning and clean up all the doodoo in their stalls (since they don't want to ruin their lovely long coats out in that cold, nasty rain), and my umbrella was something they'd never seen before apparently. They weren't that thrilled with it, so I got wet feeding them and that was fine and dandy with them. Even my dogs barked at my umbrella - even though it has DOGS on it!

The Cockers are hoping they can go outside soon

The rodeo finals are supposed to be today and I wonder if they'll be bucking around in the slop or what they'll do. I don't think the little mini cowboys and cowgirls will be out there mutton bustin' or roping goats though. They might be lost in the mud!

If you have read bestseller "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollan (and you'll want to if you haven't), you might have been left with the feeling like "Wow, there is so much to remember here about how we need to eat! I need to go back to the book and make a list as I reread the chapters!" Well, he has saved you from having to do that with his new book "Food Rules." It might take you a whole half hour to get through it, and you will still want to read "In Defense of Food" to get the whole picture. But "Food Rules" is a perfect tool to remind yourself often how you should eat and help you stay on track. It's a small book and easy to keep with you or keep on the desk, nailed to the refrigerator, etc. One of his rules is "Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food." I was trying to read it to my husband and laughing so hard trying to read his example, Les couldn't understand what I was saying. Funny example but true!! Check it out!

I am also currently listening to Crowley and Lodge's "Younger Next Year" audiobook for the third time. It's another fact-filled, entertaining book that will definitely take way longer than a half hour to get through, but it very worth it. It was originally written for men over 50, but frankly the content is appropriate for women about 95% of the time. The did write one for women, but having read that one, too, I thought they should stick to the gender they know best. Your call. It has helped me change my behavior mainly because I need to know why I should change and I typically won't change just because someone says to. This book gives all the foundational information you need and makes you laugh on top of it. Great book. It's one you will want to read or listen to over and over again just to get all the content.

Hope you are staying warm and dry wherever you are today! Last night I made low-fat cream of mushroom and wild rice soup from scratch. Mmmmm. I think we'll curl up and have some more of that today and maybe make something with the fresh blueberries I bought yesterday! Have a great week.

A Lot to be Grateful for!

Grateful for my girlfriends!

First, I want to say I'm sorry for being away from my blog for so long. I've just had so much going on between my career, my family and everything else, I have hardly been able to sit down in front of my computer, much less visit your blogs or write my own. And I've really missed seeing what is going on in your lives. It's been like I have been carrying around this empty space inside for a month at least!

Well, so I wanted to write about gratitude today. I like to relate whatever I write on in some way to the point of this blog - Aging Lite. Lots of components to being able to do that, age lite, and one of them is having a sense of gratitude in one's life: the ability to see the silver lining in difficult situations, the sense of "wow" about all that you do have no matter how bad things are.

Dr. Martin Seligman, the founder of Positive Psychology and the man who brought to light the influence that optimism and pessimism play in our lives, has a great website that offers a number of self-tests. One of them is on gratitude - your gratitude quotient! It's a great test and well worth taking to see where you are in this area.

Mr. Les

I have numerous super reasons to talk about this topic today. First, my husband, Les and I celebrated our 7th anniversary this January. That may not seem like any great shakes, but two months after we were married, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. Down the road we found out it was stage 4. He lost his left lung and three years later his left adrenal gland and two years after that, his left kidney. We joke with him that if he gets much lighter on the left side, he's going to start folding over that way!! Lots of chemo, biologics, radiation and even experimental drugs that almost killed him were thrown into the mix, but he just kept on truckin'. We have been fortunate that he has had all the things that doctors point to as giving him the best chance for survival and they were definitely all contributors. But he continues to look to the future, is grateful for every day he has and that has been huge. We call him the energizer bunny. Today he is cancer-free and we are praying he stays that way. I'm grateful that God put him in my life and that we have been able to do this journey together. Not easy, but we've grown from it without a doubt.

During a particularly difficult therapy time in Les's life, he made this cross for our new church building. It hangs right in front over the main entrance. Amazing.

On March 6, a company team that my best friend and I are co-captaining will be walking 100+ strong in the Climb to Conquer Cancer. And Les will be there to help get us started in the morning. We've already raised about $7,000 and still have two weeks to go. How fun is that? I am sooo grateful he will be here to celebrate it and for the many people on our team who committed to raising money and walking for this cause. His story has been up on the Climb homepage for several weeks and that's been kind of fun, too.

Besides being grateful every day for God watching over me, a great job, health insurance, my wonderful extended family and friends, my sweet dogs and horses and so much more, I have one very new thing to be grateful for. Yesterday, we found out we're going to be grandparents again!!! Gina and Andrew are going to have their second child late this year - sister or brother to Layla who was born in June of '08. Layla is a little corker and just loves our "neighs." Not one bit afraid of them, already loves to ride and cries when she has to say goodbye to them. She's an angel and now we're looking forward to another!

Making sure Layla gets her ride in for the day and one of my Cockers,
Dizzy hoping for a belly rub.

I have to say that personally, I don't think a day goes by that I don't thank God for even simple things like making a green light or walking my dogs on a beautiful day or laying my head on my pillow at night knowing that there are many who don't have a pillow to lay their heads on that night.

A beautiful end to the day!

Recognizing your own gratitude is one of the first steps to another checkbox on the road to health and that is deciding to do something about it. When you feel so much grace in your life, it's natural to want to give back, have something to live for besides your own needs. It another area/component I cover in my book. But that's a discussion for another day...

My dog Lucy and I visiting a local nursing home. Lots of mutual love goes on there!

I'm grateful for you and the rich life tapestry you weave into my life. Thank you!