Gold Canyon, Arizona

Cloud — a visible mass of liquid droplets or frozen crystals made of water or various chemicals suspended in the atmosphere above the surface of a planetary body. (Wikipedia)

Yesterday was ever so lovely. Clouds, lots of them! All. Day. Long. And the next few days look very promising. Color me HaPpY!

As I was skipping and singing throughout the day, I was surrounded by gloomy and cold sun birds.

• “Oh, I can’t believe it’s so cloudy!”
• “We didn’t come here for this!”
• “I’m freezing to death!”

It was 75 degrees, and it was the first completely cloudy day in 32 days. Yep, I’m counting. 🙂

Phoenix has an average of 211 sunny days and 85 days of partly sunny days per year for a total of nearly 300 days with significant sunshine.

In November, 83% of days are sunny. In December and January, 77%.

So by my calculation, I have a 23% chance of more cloudy days in each of the next two months. That should translate into 13+ days of heavenly clouds.

Nice. I am looking forward to them…

Gold Canyon, Arizona

While Carol was visiting last week, she commented several times at how living in an RV park/resort is very similar to attending Burning Man. (Learn more about Burning Man. )

Let’s take a look…

From the air, they look very similar, very structured with lots of streets.

Art cars are similar to golf carts, providing colorful transportation.

Everyone decorates their place with their own personal flair.

There is lots of personal and colorful creativity and expression.

And there is at least one happy hour each day although the ingredients creating the happiness are different…

Gold Canyon, Arizona

Yes, I know it’s Week 12 of the NFL. But between traveling, NHRA, NASCAR, and life, I haven’t been able to watch all that much football until today.

Woohoo! Today I was in pigskin heaven.

I don’t really care who wins or who loses. I just like to watch the strategy, the drama, and the athleticism of the game including a catch last night that might be the best catch ever...

I even watch the pre-game shows, and there was a fabulous piece about “My Best Day” on ESPN NFL Sunday Countdown. It involved Mark Keys, a man who was severely disabled by an accident at work over 20 years ago. He has had over 35 surgeries since that accident.

He started writing celebrities in 1994 asking them to describe their best day. After a while he started writing athletes. He has written over 10,000 letters, and he has received thousands of responses to his requests which have been compiled into a series of books.

In the piece, WalterPayton’s son, Jarrett, read a letter that his dad had written about how his best day was when his son introduced him into the NFL Hall of Fame in 1993. (Paytyon died in 1999 when his son was just 19 years.) Jarrett had never known about his father’s thoughts until he read the letter.

I’m still looking for a copy of that video and will post it if and when I find it. It brought tears to my eyes…

In the meantime, here’s a link to an article written about Keys in 1997: Newport Man Makes…

That got me thinking: What was my best day?

Aside from the births of our two kids, I would say that my best day was running The Avenue of the Giants Marathon in 1999.

I believed in myself enough to think I could do it, loved myself enough to set aside massive amounts of time to train for it, and pushed myself to complete my goal.

Running that marathon in a little over five hours gave me time to process the life changing event it was…

What was your best day?

Gold Canyon, Arizona

Carol and I played in a pickleball tournament on Tuesday.

We had fun, but we didn’t play particularly well. While neither of us mind losing at all, we get pretty frustrated when we don’t play well.

And the bad thing was that we each struggled during different matches. That allowed our opponents to constantly hit to the struggling twin…

No, we didn’t pull a Serena and smash our paddles, but we did talk a lot about things we could have, should have, and would have done differently.

So yesterday we played some more games at our RV park. And as we played we realized what we had done wrong on Tuesday.

Even better we were able to put our advice to ourselves into practice…

Hindsight is always 20/20. 🙂

Gold Canyon, Arizona

Carol came down yesterday for a visit and some pickleball play. We are signed up for a tournament and will play on Tuesday.

I am also playing with Bill, a man I met at Flathead Lake in Montana. When Bill heard that I would be staying in Phoenix near his winter home, he asked me to play with him at a couple of tourneys.

He came to our resort so we could practice a bit together. I played with Bill, and Carol played with Jimmy–one of the better players here.

We had a blast! So much fun, great competition, and hundreds of calories expended.

Carol said that our cheek muscles got the most sore from all the smiling and laughing we did while playing!

Bill is by far the best player among the four of us, and he gave us all great tips and hints. By the time we were done, I felt like I had had a lesson.

And I can’t wait to practice all the things I learned next time I play!

Gold Canyon, Arizona

Yesterday, during our street’s nightly “let’s watch the sun set on the Superstition Mountains” session, we all got to talking about fabulous places we have been.

Several of us mentioned the beauty, magnitude, and diversity of Yellowstone National Park.

One couple, Jan and Wayne, went just about a year ago. While Wayne had been there multiple times, primarily to fly fish, this was Jan’s first visit. Talking about her visit to the park brought tears to her eyes.

During their visit they stayed a couple of nights at the Lake Yellowstone Hotel.

Jan, who is Italian, talked about La Dolce Far Niente–the sweetness of doing nothing.

She sat in the sun room at the hotel and did exactly that for several hours.

With a beautiful view of Lake Yellowstone and the stunning ambiance of the room, who wouldn’t enjoy just sitting and embracing La Dolce Far Niente?

That got me thinking about how we rush so much that we forget to just enjoy moments.

So . . .

to honor Sunday, I wish you all at least part of the day enjoying . . .

The Sweetness of Doing Nothing!

Gold Canyon, Arizona

Rich and I each had a bit of customized therapy yesterday.

He washed Homer from top to bottom and had washed the Jeep the day before. He loves washing vehicles almost as much as he loves having washed vehicles. 🙂

And Sophie and I went for an extra long walk at the base of the Superstition Mountains.

Here’s a view what the foothills look like. I’m continually surprised at how green the Phoenix area is.

And the diversity of the cacti is mind boggling. As soon as we get Internet at Homer, I’m going to take some pictures around the park and label what each kind is.

There’s a bird that I can’t figure out building a nest in this cactus. Ouch! I’m hoping to see the bird while Carol’s here for a pickleball visit next week so she can tell me what it is. In our RV park, I’ve seen lots of gila woodpeckers and bazillions of broad tailed hummingbirds. The woodpeckers are quite vocal and make amazing sounds.  (Bird photos are not mine.)I love to look at lichen on rocks. This lime green shows up bright here in the desert heat but in the Boise area it needs water to make it ‘bloom’. And once we get Internet and Google, I’m hoping to find some horticultural pages so that I can figure out some of the flora…

This tree has the most amazing green colored bark I’ve ever seen. Stunning!

Gold Canyon, Arizona

First gentle blog reader, I must apologize for yesterday’s rant. I was so cranky that I would have found fault with Mother Theresa…

I woke up to clouds yesterday morning, and thankfully I woke up in a much better mood.

So that got me thinking about why it is that the presence (and absence) of clouds affects my cerebral, emotional, spiritual, and physical state so much.

And here’s what I came up with…

Clouds make me feel sheltered and self-contained and whole. Sunshine makes me feel exposed and bombarded and disjointed.

So I’m thinking that clouds help me achieve a zen-like state.

Here’s part of the definition of zen from urban dictionary:

One way to think of zen is this: a total state of focus that incorporates a total togetherness of body and mind.

When I go for a trail run in full cloud cover, I run faster and father than in full sunshine. My energy level at least doubles and sometimes triples in clouds. And that “total togetherness of body and mind” is achieved. (Well, at least as much of it as can be in a nearly 60 year old woman…)

So given the absence of clouds while we are living in The Valley of the Sun for the next two months, I need to figure out a way to achieve zen other than waiting for clouds to magically appear.

I thought about ways to come closer to zen, and here’s my daily to do list starting tomorrow:

• Listen to music at least 30 minutes a day.
• Meditate at least fifteen minutes per day.

I can combine the meditating and the music sometimes, but I don’t want to do it all the time because each activity will generate unique benefits.