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Each month, Estrella Publishing delivers 60,000 beautifully curated community magazines to more than 150,000 residents throughout nine distinguished communities in Arizona’s affluent West Valley, celebrating the people, families, businesses, and lifestyles that make each community exceptional.
From Your Neighbors, For Your Neighbors.
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Up The Hill magazine (Estrella & CantaMia, Goodyear AZ), Viva magazine (PebbleCreek, Goodyear AZ), The Hamlet magazine (Palm Valley, Goodyear AZ), The Park magazine (Litchfield Park AZ), Main Street magazine (Verrado & Victory, Buckeye AZ), Mountain View magazine (Vistancia, Trilogy & Blackstone, Peoria AZ), The Front Porch magazine (Marley Park, Surprise AZ), The Grove magazine (Sterling Grove, Surprise AZ),
and CB Living magazine (Corte Bella, Sun City West AZ).
From Me To You . . . September 2026
I have been spending a lot of time with my dad this year, which is both a privilege and a trial, as anyone with an 85-year-old parent will agree. There are days of fun reminiscing, interspersed with days of frustrating technical support. Then there is the art.
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He has taken up painting in retirement, and as a result, I have garnered a large collection of John Ross originals, proudly displayed around my house. If you ever go there you will be greeted by a 7 foot view of an English field covered in snow, populated with sheep.
Trust me, it’s great.
Another side-effect of this hobby is that we go to a lot of art museums. Our usual trip includes wandering around, gazing at work that someone spent time and talent creating, while my dad critiques their choice of color, technique and subject. Sometimes even the size of the canvas. Who knew that was a factor?
He has reached a point in his life where he is, shall I say, blunt. And he is loud, mostly due to his need for hearing aids, which he refuses to wear. This combination, paired with a confidence built on his own years at the easel, leads me to quietly sidle away from him and go find my own pictures to look at, partly for the art and partly for my hearing.
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During these solo wanderings, I noticed a pattern. I kept drifting toward paintings that had yellow in them somewhere. A sunflower field. A slice of lemon on a table. A truly aggressive sunset. And it hit me that I might have gotten my favorite color wrong for my entire life. I have always said my favorite color is blue. Confidently. Repeatedly. But standing in front of yet another yellow painting, I started to wonder if blue was ever really my favorite, or if it was just something I inherited from a lifetime of people complimenting my blue eyes. You know how it goes. Someone tells you your eyes are a nice color enough times, and eventually you just adopt it as your whole personality.
Meanwhile, my dad has never once wondered this about himself. He knows exactly what he likes and he paints it in whatever colors he pleases. So maybe that’s the real lesson here, buried under all that yellow. Pick your colors on purpose. Or, in my dad’s case, pick
them loudly, and let everyone else adjust.
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Catherine Uretsky
Editor in Chief, Estrella Publishing