Monthly Archives: April 2016

How To Be Really Rich

Watercolor painting of the Rosson House (above) by Jerry Wilson.
(l-r) Phyllis, me, Julie, and Murphy

(l-r) Phyllis, me, Julie, and Sherlyn. 

Α week ago, my girlfriends and I took a trip back in time, to the year 1895.

Our morning started off in 2016 but when we stepped inside the Rosson House, a Queen Anne Victorian home in Phoenix built for Dr. and Mrs. Roland Rosson in 1895, time whisked backward.

The Rosson home, fully restored to its original grandeur and open today for public tours, features 10 rooms, five fireplaces, and a creaky, oak staircase.

The staircase can make you dizzy if you look down or try to ride the bannister down.

The staircase can make you dizzy if you look down or try to slide down the banister.

Before entering the home, our tour guide introduced herself. “Hello, I’m Debbie. I’ll be your guide,” she said with a cheerful air swinging her dark, wavy hair as she took our admission tickets. Eight of us stood on the beautiful porch with ornate railing waiting for her to open the front door and begin the tour. read more

SHUSH! QUIET!

My quiet patio view.

My quiet patio view.

This past week I realized my life is too noisy. Maybe yours is too?

Here are some suggestions for correcting this “issue.”

To escape the noise:

Take a visit to Tucson and stay at the Hacienda del Sol resort. There, you can get a room with a patio that overlooks the Santa Catalina Mountains framing the Sonoran desert lit up in colorful wildflowers and scrub brush. Enjoy the quiet. Of course, you may still have the noise rattling around in your head and that could be a problem. But the desert in all its cactus glory utters nothing except for the occasional chatter of a bird. No political campaigns, no commercials talking about erectile dysfunction or how to lose 50 pounds on Nutrisystem. No whoosh of traffic, no trucks blowing their horn because you were reading a text message on your phone when traffic stopped and you didn’t notice it had started moving again, no landscapers shaping hedges with sputtering trimmers that sound like rocks in a blender. Just you and a peaceful desert breeze with the scenic view of creosote bush, teddy-bear cholla, and the deep pink blooms of the hedgehog cactus. read more