While working with a client yesterday, we talked about baking chocolate chip cookies, flying kites and kayaking as simple pleasures that mean so much. One of the things that we both also agreed upon is that it can be hard to create a simple life in North America. Both of us have spent plenty of time in other countries and we agreed that simple is good but also easier outside of North America.

However, it doesn´t mean that it can´t be accomplished. It can! This past weekend, my girlfriend´s Dad, Alfred came to Sedona for part of the weekend. We went up to Jerome, the ghost town about 30 minutes from here. Alfred and I had a fabulous dinner including drinks, entrees, dessert and the bill was $54 for the 2 of us. We left with leftovers for lunch on Sunday as a bonus.

Sunday morning we got up and hiked for four hours through Boynton Canyon. Alfred had joked with me on the phone about the forest fires in the desert – “impossible” he said. However, when he was standing in a forest of oak and pine trees on a blanket of pine cones and needles, he was saying something entirely different! We even saw a Western Diamondback Rattler and two deer “in the forest in the desert”.

After a great lunch, Alfred headed back to Phoenix. We had a wonderful time together, laughed, played, got some great exercise in, had an amazing dinner, hiked and even some Yahtzee games. It was simple but it was good.

Creating an amazing life does not mean you have to have hundreds or thousands of dollars to spend. I keep on stressing this because my client was feeling a bit guilty that she loved baking cookies for the new man in her life as if there was something “wrong” with finding such joy in a simple thing that Grandma used to do. Really, who bakes cookies anymore? I´m sure most kids today think that cookies come out of a box or bag, NOT an oven! However, by the time we had finished her session, she was more than comfortable with finding joy in the simple things of life…including baking cookies.

What about you? Can you pick a simple thing to do like reading a novel, going for a walk, flying a kite, going to the lake to swim, packing a picnic lunch or laying in the bathtub with a glass of wine and candles and do it this week…guilt-free of course?

Enjoy and let me know what you decide to do!

At the end of the trail.

This morning Brenda and I hiked the Boynton Canyon trail. A four hour round trip hike, we actually hiked through beautiful forest, full of ponderosa pines. We had squirrels, magnificent butterflies and lizards along with some incredible birds along the path. It was the most amazing trip as we literally left the red rock desert floor with cactus and already hot sun despite it being only 7:30 and headed into the cool shade of the forest.

Red rocks surrounded us until we reached the end of the canyon. It was a most remarkable trip to experience the paradoxes of desert and forest dancing side by side with each other. As we looked around and basked in a very powerful vortex and the beautiful varying shades of green, we once again had our breath taken away at the magnificence of it all. Pictures just don´t do this place justice.

We´re off to Jerome this afternoon, the restored ghost town which will be fun to show Brenda. Last night we ate Chinese food and sushi at a Martini Bar, drinking Mexican beer, sitting outdoors listening to a live blues band. Now that´s another feast of paradoxes. But that´s the nature of Sedona.

What have you done this week to create your amazing life? It´s worth it as Brenda and I are both reminded again so vividly this week!