How connected my diet is to loving and appreciating myself. How being a vegan makes me much more in tune with myself, the world, and my purpose. How much clearer my eyes and heart and mind and spirit are. When I prepare and eat my food now, I'm delighted to have the feeling again of nourishing and nurturing myself through food. It's a great gift I'm giving to myself.

(I tossed this question over to my husband and partner since I knew he'd have a good response. He has become a vegan again after a few years of a standard vegetarian diet.)

Add me to the list of birthday junkies. I enjoy aging. I love my birthday so much (September 18) I've extended it into my "birthday month." My husband teases me that soon I will be celebrating my "birthday season!"

Aside from all the art and music already covered, humans are responsible for incredibly beautiful roses. Normally I'm no fan of monkeying with nature, but I am in awe of how people have been able to breed specific plants and flowers, and of these, roses top the scale on beauty for me.

Chasing tumbleweeds. I went to several different elementary schools and one was particularly awful. I hated that school, but during the windy season (SoCal's famed Santa Anas) we would somehow have giant tumbleweeds on the playground.

We used to drag these tumbleweeds against the wind, all the way across the field, and line up along the fence at one end. Some tumbleweeds were as tall as the sixth graders, and it would take a dozen kids or more to move them, perhaps just three or four people for the smaller ones.

Then we would let them all go at the same time and run after them.

It was always incredible, and probably the only time students would play together happily as a large group. Seemingly the entire school got involved in this game. Clothes and hands were always ripped up, little kids were crushed occasionally. We loved it.

Strangely, telling the truth has always been more likely to get me into trouble - with my parents and teachers when I was young, with my employers or clients, friends, neighbors. People are usually happier and more comfortable hearing a lie.