Page 38 November 2 0 1 4 A heaping spoonful of gratitude By Kindra Hall I felt a little out of balance. You know that feeling? The one where when someone asks you how it’s going, and you have to physically restrain yourself from releasing a deluge of information including – but not limited to – the health of your children, the location of your spouse, and your crazybusy (yes, one word) schedule in the days to come and those just passed. I hate that feeling. For several weeks I just couldn’t shake that unbalanced sensation. So, one morning while the kids were eating breakfast and Michael was messing around with the hole in our screen door that was letting entire colonies of mosquitoes into our home, I decided to attack that feeling. I snuck into the other room and onto the Internet to search for solutions to “feeling out of balance.” Google had several suggestions: Yoga. But I’ve never been very flexible. Meditation. But I’ve never been very good at sitting still. Tightrope walking. But I’m not crazy. I was just about to give up – my family was getting suspicious of my 3-minute absence – when something caught my eye. It was a headline that said something to the effect of “Gratitude, Nature’s Cure All.” Apparently, a heaping spoonful of gratitude is all an unbalanced soul needs. Though I could hear the noise level in the kitchen rising, I anxiously kept searching. I wanted gratitude strategies. Something I could implement in just a few seconds at the beginning or end of each crazybusy day. I scrolled swiftly and found a link claiming Oprah attributed her massive success to a gratitude journal. Jackpot! Just then I heard the unmistakable sound of a cup of milk crashing to the floor and the cry of a toddler and I knew I had just seconds to spare. “For 16 years, every night before bed Oprah writes down five things she is grateful for that day,” the article said. Practical and quick, I thought. Totally doable. I’m feeling better already. “Kindra,” my husband appeared in the doorway having given up on the mosquito war. “What are you doing?” “I’m trying to be more grateful!” I exclaimed frantically. Michael merely raised an eyebrow. Off to a great start, I thought. However, I spent the rest of the day on a gratitude roll, making mental notes of things to record. That night I ceremoniously pulled an untouched journal from a stack of journals I have collected, and numbered five lines. I am grateful for: 1. My adoring husband. 2. My precious son. 3. My feisty daughter. 4. My work. 5. My friends. Fifty-six seconds later, I closed the journal. Done! And while I didn’t necessarily sense an increase in balance, as I lay my head on the pillow, I started planning my very own Favorite Things episode. For three whole days I lived an efficiently gratuitous life; spending 56 effortless seconds before bed jotting down my five items. Then came the fourth day. The fourth day was a crazybusy imbalanced blur. I’ll restrain from sharing the details. I crawled into bed that fourth night crabby and exhausted. Just before I passed out, I thought to myself, oh shoot. I forgot to be grateful. I sat back up, hastily pulled my journal off my nightstand and numbered the lines. I am grateful for… 1. Spanx. 2. Iced coffee. 3. Nutella. I stopped at three. I didn’t have time for this. It was dumb. I immediately abandoned my gratitude strategy – it just wasn’t working. And I was pretty sure if I sat down with Oprah and asked for the truth about her gratitude journal she would lean forward and in a throaty whisper say, “Oh honey, I only made it three days. Nobody got time for that.” These thoughts and others raced through my mind that Thursday morning while I drove my 3-year-old to preschool. Per the usual, he talked the whole way – the only person on the planet who can outtalk me. On that particular Thursday, the one-way conversation centered entirely on the color turquoise. “Oh! Look Mama! I just saw a turquoise car! Did you see that turquoise car? Mama! Did you see that sign? That sign was turquoise. Oh! Mama! Look at the sky. The sky is kind of turquoise. The ocean is turquoise too. Oh! Mama! Look at that gate! It’s - it’s - TURQUOISE! “Mama!” he crescendoed from the confines of his car seat. “Mama! There is just so much turquoise in the WORLD!” He paused. Then slowly, quietly, thoughtfully said, “This is my world. My beautiful, turquoise world.” There was breathless wonder in his voice. He was completely overwhelmed – with gratitude. I pulled into the parking lot and sat for a moment. I was doing gratitude all wrong. I was trying to manufacture it, or simply retrace or recall it – but that’s not how gratitude works. Gratitude takes us by surprise. It overwhelms us and fills us with wonder. In its truest form gratitude can’t be captured on a list or strategically felt in less than a minute. If I wanted to shake my imbalanced life, tallying good things at the end of an otherwise disconnected day wasn’t enough. I had to engage in my own turquoise world and from the confines of my crazybusy days, be aware of its beauty. That night I pulled out my mostly untouched journal from the nightstand and instead of writing five things, I wrote about the one time I drove my son and all his gratitude to school. It took me 30 minutes. And for the first time in a long time, I felt my balance return. In this month, when we take time to be with the ones we love and give thanks... In this month where things start to get crazybusy and completely off kilter... It is my hope for you, and me, that our tables are filled with laughter, food and heaping spoonfuls of real, overwhelming gratitude. artisanmarketsaz.com ScottSdale Waterfront 7134 E. Stetson Dr. Scottsdale, AZ 85251 602.314.0323 Live Music, Works of Art, Local Shopping & More! FREE Attendance | FREE Parking

Page 39 November 2 0 1 4 Couple enjoys island living on Hawaiian honeymoon By Kaley Kalil Peter and Caitlyn Noel, Arcadia newlyweds, recently returned from their 10-day Hawaiian honeymoon on the islands of Oahu and Kauai. After being wed in Carefree, Arizona on September 13, the new husband-and- wife team kicked off the rest of their life together with a four-day stay at Oahu’s Turtle Bay Resort. They found the resort staff to be extremely helpful while planning their activities. “We had dinner at The Surfer, a restaurant in the lobby of Turtle Bay the first night. Just so happened to be an open mic night [and] local live music. It was awesome,” Peter said. The second half of their trip was spent at the Prince Kuhio Condos at Poipu Beach on the South Shore of Kauai. “It was the perfect location – not too far away from the airport and close to many attractions on the South Shore,” Caitlyn said. “We were able to go to Shipwreck Beach in Poipu and do some diving under the waves for about an hour, which was a lot of fun,” she added. The Noels fully embraced island living in the paradise of the Pacific, partaking in horseback riding, snorkeling, hiking, surfing, kayaking, golfing, attending a luau and enjoying all of the sea turtles. “Our hike along the Na Pali Coast was the best hike of our trip,” Caitlyn said. “The views were so beautiful! At the end of the hike was a secluded beach, where we hung out for about an hour before heading back.” The Noels enjoyed taking a surf lesson from a local surfer who had lived in Hawaii his whole life. salon SANDOVAL 3703 east indian school l phoenix, az 85018 602.957.9910 l www.salonsandoval.com CUSTOMER APPRECIATION DAY Saturday, November 22 ❙ 9 am to 5 pm Make an appointment, or stop in the salon to receive: ■ Double Aveda Pure PriviledgeSM Points ■ Complimentary chair, hand or foot massage ■ Any purchase during the day enters you in our Aveda product giveaway ©Aveda Corp. “Besides the regular ‘aloha’ and ‘mahalo,’ we learned ‘aloha kakahiaka’ from our surf instructor, which means, ‘Good morning to you,’” Caitlyn said. The Aloha state had no shortage of fancy cocktails and fresh seafood to offer the couple. “My hands-down favorite drinks were the piña coladas. I was obsessed with them,” Caitlyn said. Not only did these two enjoy “long walks on the beach,” but they enjoyed sitting on the grass and watching the sunsets from the Beach House Restaurant in Kauai as well. “The weather was great until the last two days in Kauai. It was raining all day and all night, which kind of ruined some beach plans,” Caitlyn said. Peter, a lifelong Arcadia resident, works part time for Southwest Ground- water Consultants and is the part owner of Smarty Pants Consignment. Caitlyn, originally from Iowa Falls, Iowa, is a physical therapist assistant at an outpatient clinic and teaches dance at various locations across the Valley. The Noels thoroughly enjoyed the 85-90 degree weather and warm ocean water, and their Hawaiian honeymoon was full of memories they’ll cherish forever. “It was both adventurous and relaxing. There were days when we would go hiking, and then there were days where we would just relax on the beach and snorkel. It was a perfect place because we could do both,” Caitlyn said. Traveled lately? Tell Kaley via email: kaley@arcadianews.com.