Remember that old sixties television show "Queen For A Day"? Women competed to win the title along with roses and a grand prize such as a washer and dryer. Those grand prizes would be downright insulting to us daughters of the women’s lib movement. Give me a spa weekend or a fabulous dinner out, but DO NOT give me an appliance or housework aid. Sheesh.

I do know now what it is like to truly be "Queen For A Day". I went camping for a week in the High Sierra with my hubby Dewitt and dear friends, Don and Theresa Souers. On my birthday, we climbed up to this incredible lake.

Stunned into breathlessness by equal parts vista and oxygen molecule deprivation, I stood there just enjoying being Queen for the Day. I reveled in the best life has to offer: natural beauty, clear air, clean water (okay,we filtered it just in case, but you get the drift), good friends who know when to talk and when to be silent, and TIME.

Time. That glorious commodity that we were rich in as children. Days when we whined that there was nothing to do. And here we were revisiting such a day. A day without plans, agenda, or focus. It lasted soooooooooooo long. Hiking, photographing, junk food snacking, napping, reading, writing, more photographing, and spaghetti for dinner. Mmmmmmmm.

"What shall we do now?" we asked at intervals throughout the day. So many possibilities permeating that question. Such bounty and perfection. We sent ourselves outside to play, as if parenting ourselves.

Like kids, we barely combed our hair before throwing on mismatched clothes and jumping into playtime. We got scraped, muddy, and mosquito bit. We played in the water and sunned on the rocks. We lay down in a meadow, discovering shooting stars and Indian paintbrush as if for the first time.

We saw lynx tracks, marveled at the jewel toned flank of a golden trout, daydreamed as clouds drifted across a cerulean sky. This is what we most want: Time. Unstructured. Open. Free.

We’re all royalty when we take the time to look and enjoy our earthly "castles" – whether we are in the High Sierra, a local park or conservatory, or our own back yard. All we need is to STOP and enjoy. And if it is hard to find the time? If one actually feels they need to absent themselves as we just did to find that time? Well, on Wednesday (two days from now) one of our very own Venuses will share tips right here on Menopause Goddess Blog from her new book on time management. So we can all be "Queen For A Day."