Bernie Siegel, M.D., is one of my favourite health writers. Siegel, who prefers to be called “Bernie” instead of Dr. Siegel, is the author of “Love, Medicine and Miracles.” When it was published in 1986, I read the book very carefully. And what a book it was!
Obviously, Ann Landers felt the same way. Landers said, “Run, don’t walk, to the nearest bookstore and get this amazing book. . . . Every family should have a copy. It can be a life-saver.”
And eminent psychiatrist Karl Menninger said, “One of the most wonderful books I have ever read.”

My early experience of mountains was the gently ascending roads of the Adirondacks in New York state. Even the hairpin turns as we gradually climbed the 5,000-foot Whiteface Mountain weren’t scary.
But it was a different story when I first visited the Canadian Rockies with its 12,000-foot peaks—especially as we travelled above the tree line on sometimes treacherous roads.
A year before we moved to Kansas, we took a weekend winter jaunt to Jasper with our good friends, Karl and Winnie. We stayed in a nice hotel, hiked, and roasted wieners in the snow.

My daughter finally has fulfilled my dreams of gardening in her beautiful “wild garden” next door.
As long as I can remember, I have dreamed of creating beautiful flower gardens—both in my waking hours and in my nighttime dreams.
As a little girl, I had a dream one night of the most beautiful “giant” pansies! For years, I have been searching for beautiful pansies and the perfect flower garden!

Last Friday, I was thinking of the time-sickness our society has and I personally have.
Every day there’s more on my plate than I can possibly do—baking bread, answering e-mails, cleaning the bathroom, going to water aerobics, filing . . . and more filing, putting my feet up for health reasons, calling a good friend, hanging a painting, writing a column, and organizing a messy closet.
All good things to do, but there are always too many tasks to complete in one day.

Spring cleaning. What memories those words conjure up!
Carrying out the heavy parlour rug and beating it until the carpet was completely dust-free. Brushing all the cobwebs from every corner in the whole house.
Taking everything out of the china closet—dusting the shelves and washing every dish that hadn’t been used for a while.
Washing the bedroom spread and the curtains. And hauling the mattress outside to air.
And in our house, spring cleaning meant washing down every closet and the floors of our six bedrooms upstairs, although only one was used.

There are so many reasons to be happy in the spring!
Sunny yellow daffodils and forsythia. The nostalgic fragrance of old-fashioned purple lilacs. Long evenings before dark comes. Open doors and windows. A rainbow after a spring storm.
And most of all, the greening of the world. The newness and rebirth of everything around us.
Yes, there are so many reasons to be happy in the spring. Yet my mother, in her later years, said she always felt a little depressed in the spring.

There are lots of good reasons to exercise, especially as we age.
Exercise improves circulation, lowers blood pressure, and reduces the risk of developing osteoporosis. It strengthens muscles, reduces obesity, improves mobility, and lessens the risk of depression.
And according to recent studies, exercise even can improve brain function.
But just as there are good reasons to exercise, there are plenty of excuses that keep us doing so.

My weekday mornings always begin with water exercise. But before class, I leisurely sip a cup of coffee.
In a way, that coffee klatch is my favourite time of the day. Our daughter usually joins us.
Everyone is busy, so it’s interesting to hear about plans for the day, to figure out when meals should be served and who will cook. And especially, whether we can look forward to a movie night—my favourite recreation.

Last Saturday, we had a very special guest. She stayed four hours and we had little conversation, but still it was a lot of fun.
I didn’t make coffee or tea. Instead, I served delicious dog cookies because our guest, “Paris,” was a dog.
My daughter, who lives next door, had a coffee with three of her high school friends—Elizabeth, Rhonda, and Kris. Elizabeth adopted Paris from the local humane society at the same time we adopted our dogs.

“One evening at his office, cardiologist Frederic Vagnini was reading through lab results of a patient. ‘Oh my,’ he thought. ‘This patient is in serious trouble.’
“Wondering who it was, he looked up the name, and was shocked. He was reading his own test results.”
Thus begins a press release announcing the book “Count Down Your Age: Look, Feel, and Live Better than You Ever Have Before,” co-authored by Vagnini.