​ESTRELLA PUBLISHING produces Arizona West Valley's premier and preferred

hyper-local community magazines.  From Your Neighbors, For Your Neighbors. 

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We have a variety of publications that are available FREE of charge to affluent communities including; Estrella Mountain Ranch & CantaMia (Up The Hill magazine), PebbleCreek (Viva magazine), Palm Valley (The Hamlet magazine), Litchfield Park (The Park magazine), Verrado & Victory (Main Street magazine), Vistancia & Trilogy (Mountain View magazine), and Marley Park (The Front Porch magazine).

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From Me To You

 

I found myself standing at the kitchen counter yesterday, contemplating a cinnamon roll. I had with a simple question in my head.

 

“Should I eat a sensible breakfast that will provide the nutrients for the start of my day? Or should I grab the last cinnamon roll before one of the children realizes they left this delicious pastry sitting on the plate?”

 

Now because my coffee had already started zapping my synapses into life, I couldn’t simply take the cinnamon roll and enjoy it, oh no. This was the beginning of my thoughts for the rest of the morning. The rabbit hole widened as I tripped my way down.

 

Why do we have to make a choice based on what is right for us instead of what we want? Do others make those choices or just grab the cinnamon roll of life and get on with their day? What cinnamon rolls have I missed out on, and would it have made a difference if I had just eaten them without a care in the world?

 

One of the biggest pastries I have chosen in life is the choice to have a large family. We have 4 children and I really would have had more if the stars had aligned. When we began our family we fit neatly into the mold of young parents. This was true for our first and second child.

 

Once I became pregnant with child number 3 some eyebrows began to raise. Straying from ‘the house with a white picket fence, 2 kids and a dog’ scenario was not for everyone. But it wasn’t too unusual. Plenty of others had done the same. Sure it meant that we had to get help to cover all the soccer games at weekends, because the little league insisted on scheduling all the games at the same time in different locations around town; and maybe our vacations were not as exotic or expensive as they had been in order to pay for that extra traveller. But these were minor issues that we cruised though, delighted to have our 3rd on board.

 

That all changed with pregnancy number four. We were either irresponsible, careless, immature, or just plain nuts to think that four kids was OK.

 

I, however, had an ace up my sleeve. My good friend, who happens to be a staunch Catholic, had just entered her fifth pregnancy. So whenever anyone raised an eyebrow at me I would smoothly introduce them to Karen.

 

I don’t regret that decision for a second. Four was a wonderful number of children. Someone was always available to play with, scheme with, and yes fight with. The noise level in our house is usually high but it is happy noise, full of love and respect for others.

 

I hear you ask, “But what about the cinnamon roll? Did you go for oatmeal in the end?”

 

Absolutely not! The other lesson I have learned in a large household is grab your pastries while you see them, because if you wait too long someone else will take it - and that just leads down the rabbit hole of lost opportunities.

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Catherine Uretsky

Editor in Chief, Estrella Publishing