The past week, cacti bloomed. The beauty is fleeting, because the flowers only last a day or two. This beauty is next to our driveway. Leaving for a walk, my husband and I stopped to admire it. He said, “I feel so much pride in this cactus, which is funny, because I had nothing to do with it.” I felt the same way, proud of our blooming plant. This was our cactus two days after the photo taken above. I believe in God, only I spell it Nature. —Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright made his home in our desert. He appreciated the beauty surrounding us. I’ve visited Frank Lloyd Wright’s desert ..read more

My beautiful boy in his Nutcracker bunny suit at age three. I’ll never forget being in a community production of Nutcracker with my son. He was the infamous bunny (it’s a Balanchine thing.) I had two roles: party guest and rodent. I would take my son to my ballet class and he would play with another three-year-old named Katherine Bottoms. Her father is actor Joseph Bottoms and her mother was an amazing dancer who had danced with New York City Ballet. While we moms took class, the children played together. One day, I spotted my son lying on the floor in the dance studio. Katherine had tackled ..read more

This past weekend, I was fascinated watching two mourning doves flying in and out of a bush in our backyard. They would fly up to the bush, sit on a branch and then disappear inside. They were carrying twigs and grass in their beaks. I got the photo above before scaring the birds to the top of our pergola. One of the doves kept guard from the top of the pergola before continuing the chore of building their nest. I wanted to get a picture of the nest, but this is what I saw when I got up close: Do you see the dove roosting in her nest? Her eye is to the left of the vertical branch. I backed ..read more

I wrote this post on April 7, 2020. We were living in Palm Springs and on shutdown. It was such an odd time. I’m not sure I really managed to get over it. I have more anxiety now than I did prior to COVID. I need more time to myself and less engagement with people outside our family. Those are just few things that linger. One of my favorite streets on my morning walk. 21 Days. Isn’t that something? My daughter came home a few days before we got the order. I’m so glad she made it here. She’s been a joy to have around along with her fur baby Waffles. We have plenty of room to have my husband, me ..read more

A bit of beauty in my neighborhood. I have a work in progress and felt my plot had some gaping holes in it. So in January, I took a writing class on plots. One of the assignments was outlining along a very constructive plot point path. I used my WIP and found that the assignment helped. Then I got feedback from the instructor with further suggestions. It took me until late March to mull over the suggestions and get to work on rewriting and revising. After spending countless hours sitting at my laptop, I decided to mix in some simple exercises. (My former writing mentor Gerald Petievich once t ..read more

Looking out our front door. Everything is so green after rainy days. Today is the day of the total eclipse of the sun. It will be a partial eclipse in the Phoenix area. I found this nifty chart so I know when to look outside. I don’t have the “special” sun glasses, so I won’t look up at the sun. I’m just curious if it’s going to get dark outside. We had house guests in October during the last eclipse and we all noticed it got dark for a few minutes. Very eery feeling. I have neighbors who traveled to Katy, Texas for the eclipse. The husband is an astronomer, has worked for NASA and gives lec ..read more

A skinny bobcat on our patio. Yesterday on our walk, we saw a huge coyote walking down the wash. He stopped and we stared at each other for a minute. Then he sauntered away. He was too far away for a close photo, thank goodness! I also captured a bobcat on my outside camera. This guy paid us a visit at 4:30 a.m. and stopped by last week around 10 p.m. one night. (Video below). I found my favorite photos of wildlife to share: Javelina on the sidewalk enjoying prickly pears. Mule deer in the side yard. Coyote on the wall behind our house on a snowy day. Outside our bedroom sliding glass doo ..read more

Walking around our yard yesterday, I noticed that flowers are peeking out around me. We’ve had a super wet winter with thundershowers most evenings. I haven’t been outside to appreciate that the rain has brought us tiny blooms. Spring is in the air! Beautiful colors add to my daily joy. I need to learn the names of my plants. I think these are aloes? Sometimes it’s just a single blossom, but it still adds a pop of color. Another favorite of mine is the beautiful Cardinal couple who hang out daily in our yard. I think they like my Birdbuddy bird feeder. I’ve learned to appreciate their chi ..read more

Olive hanging out on the guest bed. The bedding was my daughter’s growing up. Yesterday was my son’s birthday. I was going to repost my son’s birthday story, where he asked to have 50 kids for his second grade birthday party. We had adopted Angus, our yellow lab, from Guide Dogs of the Desert the year before. I wrote about his birthday party in honor of Angus where our son asked for donations to Guide Dogs instead of presents. He raised $1,600. You can read the story HERE. I remember our family driving to Guide Dogs to meet Angus. I was nervous about the dog and after we had him in the car, I ..read more

Do you remember when phones looked like this? You might not be old enough, but I do. I should file this under Public Service Announcement: An article in the Wall Street Journal caught my attention. It was about iphones and a setting default that is “on.” It’s something I didn’t even know was on my phone. And I looked. Yes, it was on. I turned it off. Here’s an excerpt: Apple Turned On a Buried iPhone Setting. You Might Want It Off. The ‘Discoverable by Others’ switch is on by default. Here’s what it does—and why it isn’t as scary as it sounds. By Joanna Stern This creepy-sounding setting ..read more