As you know I recently returned from the lovely green, hilly garden-filled cities of London and Paris. It was hard for me to land in the desert of what I call Phoenix’s moonscape. We have approximately two days of spring in AZ anymore.

We move from 95 to 40 each year on Nov. 1, one day after the little trick-or-treaters have sweated out their costumes and moms and dads have fainted at the curb waiting for them to fill their plastic pumpkins. Then in March we somehow move from down filled blankets to 95 overnight as we’ve done this week. 

I have no idea where 75 and 80 went on the temperature gauges here, but they disappeared some time ago. Now for those of you who love it here, I’m sure I’ll get a clipping or two from the Republic with 78 degrees highlighted, and that’s ok. I’m still not believing it happened on my back patio.

So, today, it will be 95, record high.  I’ve heard record lows for months now, especially when the heat went out in my house in late November. So this phrase has ceased amazing me. Record anything makes me gag.

But a friend of mine posted her blog about Thankfulness, a list I too have been making for a few years now since studying Pema Chodron, a famale buddhist author I’ve added to my Bible and Book of Devotions.  For I believe it completely. We create our moods with our thoughts, not the other way around.

Today I’m going to call one of my best friends who recently had a double mastectomy and I’m going to take her to look at wildflowers in the Superstition foothills.  I’ve chosen to concentrate on her beautiful face among those delicate purple and yellow blooms, and I am going to sit in thankfulness on a blanket with her and ignore the temperature and let the spirit of thankfulness fill my soul!