I was sitting on the patio enjoying rain this morning. You would think living in Arizona that I would hate the rain, but really it makes for a welcome change when it is day after day of blue skies and sunshine. My Oregon friends are laughing right now, I can hear them! Nine years of living in the rain still didn’t ruin my love of rain. If anything it fine tuned it a bit. The rain to me means luscious green  grass and flowers in bloom – especially roses. What is not to like about that?

You mean you don’t want to have to wear a raincoat and rubber boots all day? Or carry an umbrella? What about the soggy feeling from just being outside in the rain? I guess I am lucky sitting outside in the rain protected from the roof covering the patio. Many writers and film-makers use rain to symbolize sadness or the feeling of doom in a story. I like to think that rain means life. Nourishing life. And not just plants. Rain made us “take a break’ today as a family and feed ourselves…with meatballs. We watched ‘Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs’. Pretty fitting for today, huh? It was probably the funniest movie we ever watched as a family and we never left our house, you know, because it was raining!

I recall numerous days in Oregon where my son Tucker (about 2 at the time) would slog around in his rubber boots stomping in every muddy puddle he could find on our pot-hole-filled unpaved street. We would return to the house and have to pour the water out of his boots that had accumulated from his frolic in the rain. Now when he sees it raining, I think he remembers that time too. He looks outside at the rain with longing. I think he wants to stomp around and get really wet and dirty like he used to. (Not that he doesn’t do a fine job of that already in the Arizona desert.)

Not every day in Arizona (or elsewhere) can be sunny, but hopefully it doesn’t have to be like ‘art’ and you can make it fun anyway. Snuggle under a blanket, watch a movie, or even eat real spaghetti and meatballs. It is like when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, if life gives you rain, make it shine anyway – make a happy memory.