Main Street

Main Street is a free, monthly magazine produced by Estrella Publishing for the residents of Verrado & Victory.

From Your Neighbors, For Your Neighbors ™ Main Street A magazine for Verrado & Victory residents

May 2026

Estrella Publishing - Main Street magazine

May 2026 1

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May 2026 lyonsroofing.com

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May 2026 3

Published by Estrella Publishing LLC, PO Box 6962, Goodyear AZ 85338. Catherine Uretsky, Publisher and Editor Talia Ebert, Assistant Editor

Al Uretsky, Publisher and Sales Executive 623.398.5541 info@EstrellaPublishing.com

All contents © 2010-present Estrella Publishing LLC. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in any form, in whole or part, without written permission from Estrella Publishing LLC is prohibited. Estrella Publishing accepts freelance contributions, there is no guarantee that materials will be used or returned. Estrella Publishing is not responsible for the content of contributing writers and advertisers and assumes no responsibility for errors appearing within. Opinions expressed are those of the writers and not necessarily those of the Publisher or Advertisers. Estrella Publishing reserves the right to restrict all advertisement to their proper classification and to edit or reject any copy at its sole discretion. Neither this publication nor Estrella Publishing is an agent of or in any way affiliated with the associated Developer nor Homeowners Association, or any of their respective affiliates. This publication has not been approved by, sponsored by, or endorsed by the associated Developer nor Homeowners Association in any way.

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May 2026

From Me To You...

There are things your mother tells you that you nod along to, fully confident she is wrong, only to arrive at fifty and realize she was right about every single one of them. Handwritten cards are on that list. After my wedding, while my new husband and I were packed and ready to leave for the airport, my mother sat herself down in the armchair by the front door and simply refused to move. She was not leaving, she informed us cheerfully, until every last thank you card was written, addressed, and sealed. Not started. Not mostly done. Finished. She had stamps. She had time. She had her knitting and a cup of tea. She had absolutely no intention of budging. I thought she was being ridiculous. We had a flight to catch and a honeymoon to get to. What possible difference could it make if the cards went out next week? Or the week after? People didn’t really expect them, did they? They did. And more than that, they remembered them. What I didn’t understand then, and what I have only come to appreciate as I’ve become older, is that

a handwritten card is one of the last truly personal things we send each other. It takes actual effort. You have to find a card, locate a pen that works, think of something to say, write it legibly, and then physically put it in a mailbox. Nobody does all of that by accident. They did it for you, on purpose. The other point is this - mail these days is mostly bills, takeout menus, junk, and your favorite magazine ;) So when something arrives with your name written by an actual human hand, everything stops. You sit down, read it twice, and then put it on the mantelpiece where it stays for a week as a reminder that somebody was thinking of you. My mother knew all of this, of course. She always did. She was right about the cards, right about the sunscreen, and probably right about that boyfriend in 1987. I should have written that on a card and sent it to her years ago. She would have put it on her mantelpiece. Catherine Uretsky Editor, Main Street Magazine info@estrellapublishing.com 623.398.5541

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May 2026 5

On Our Cover

We asked and you answered - introducing the Cutest Kid in Verrado 2026! Ryker is the most adorable little tyke and that hat is just the thing. His Nana and Papa have lived in Verrado since 2012 and love it here. Mama graduated Verrado High School in 2015 then Estrella Mountain Community College. Upon graduating she moved to Hawaii to finish school where she met Ryker’s daddy in Hawaii while he was in the Army. Ryker was born in Hawaii before his Daddy was stationed in Colorado Springs so they moved there until he retired. They moved back to Verrado in 2022 and have lived here ever since. “I love to swim, play with my friends, tennis lessons with my Nana, camping, Disneyland and school where I am in Kindergarten. I love making new friends and want to be a ninja when I grow up.” says Ryker.

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May 2026

Camden Steele Global Real Estate Advisor camden.steele@russlyon.com 602-573-2288

Britany Steele Marketing Specialist britany.steele@russlyon.com 317-657-9098

...AND CONTINUING!

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May 2026 7

Healing takes Give yourself some grace. time.

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SADDNation

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May 2026

The Bug Guy They Were Here First

under your refrigerator, have opinions about it, and are sharing those opinions with forty thousand of their closest friends. • Cockroaches, meanwhile, are simply living their best life. The desert variety did not get the memo about being secretive. They walk across your kitchen at noon. In good lighting. Making eye contact. They are 65 million years old and have survived five mass extinctions, and something about that history makes them extremely difficult to embarrass. The solution, of course, is a good local pest control plan — perimeter treatment, sealed entry points, and the monthly visit from a professional who has seen things and remains calm about them. Schedule it before May hits, not after. Treating an active infestation reactively is like mopping during a monsoon. The West Valley is beautiful, warm, and gloriously sunny. It is also, technically, a desert, and the original residents — the ones with exoskeletons — have not forgotten that. Shake your shoes. Call your guy. Enjoy the sunsets. Submitted by Larry Cash, of Estrella Mountain Pest Control.

Every Spring, West Valley residents perform the same sacred ritual: stepping barefoot onto the patio, inhaling the warm desert air, and immediately retreating inside after spotting something with eight legs that appears to be assessing property values. Welcome to pest season. The scorpions have been planning this since February. • The bark scorpion is the undisputed mascot of the West Valley in May. Translucent, glow-in-the- dark under a blacklight, and capable of squeezing through a gap the width of a credit card, it is nature’s way of reminding Goodyear, Avondale, and Surprise residents that no amount of HOA dues buys you safety from the Sonoran Desert. They climb walls. They climb ceilings. They have been found inside shoes, towels, and — in one legendary Buckeye incident — inside a Croc, which frankly feels like a personal attack. • The ants arrive next, organized with a military precision that would impress a logistics consultant. Argentine ants form supercolonies that span the whole street, which means your neighbor Dave’s failure to treat his yard last October is now your kitchen’s problem. They have located the crumb

Estrella Publishing - Main Street magazine

May 2026 9

Kindness Corner

May is often filled with milestones. Graduations, celebrations, and transitions mark both endings and beginnings. In these moments, kindness provides grounding and perspective. Watching the comfortable and familiar become replaced with the new and uncertain can place an uneasy sense expectation in our core. Some see the change, the promise as exciting while others see it as daunting. Ultimately, we must remember that one person’s perception of change can be distinctly different from another person’s perception. Indeed, these milestones of change can bring mixed emotions. Pride and excitement may exist alongside anxiety or uncertainty. Kindness helps us acknowledge this complexity. Offering encouragement without expectation, listening without judgment, and recognizing effort without judging outcomes. This measured approach can make these transitions feel less overwhelming. As May is full of activities, the self-imposed pressure to be available and family-pressured expectation of keeping up appearances, can take a toll. Lean into self- kindness and self-awareness in these times of tension.

Kindness towards oneself is especially important during busy seasons. High expectations can lead to self-criticism when things do not go perfectly. Choosing self-compassion. Allow yourself time to rest, accept imperfection, and recognize limitations. This approach helps maintain balance and emotional health. From a relational perspective, kindness strengthens connections during change. Simple acts, such as expressing gratitude or offering help, reinforce trust, and mutual respect. These gestures communicate that people matter beyond their accomplishments. The benefits of kindness extend beyond emotion. They improve mental clarity, they reduce stress, and they foster cooperation. Practically, they help individuals navigate transitions from one stage of life to another with greater confidence and resilience. May reminds us that success is not measured solely by milestones reached, but by how we support one another along the way. Kindness ensures that transitions are not only productive, but meaningful. By practicing compassion during times of change, we create lasting memories rooted in connection rather than pressure.

What acts of kindness can you bring forth this month? Find one thing to celebrate with yourself, a person you love, a person you casually know, and a stranger. As you reach out to those beyond your inner circle, showing kindness to a stranger, you will feel full of love and kindness. You will bloom with milestones of possibilities.

Submitted by Timothy Hunter Mathews, West Valley Resident

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Estrella Publishing - Main Street magazine

May 2026 11

The Doctor Is In What Does it Actually Mean to Be “Triggered”?

Within milliseconds, your CEO is escorted out of the building and your survival hardware takes over. This is why you can’t “think” your way out of a trigger in the moment; your logical brain isn’t even online yet. The most important thing to understand is that a trigger is a Time-Travel Error. Your nervous system doesn’t realize it’s 2026. It thinks it’s back in the original moment of pain. Your heart races, your breath gets shallow and your muscles tense because your body’s preparing for a fight that ended years ago. So, how do we update the software? 1. Acknowledge the Hardware: Instead of shaming yourself for overreacting, label the event. Tell yourself: “My Security Guard is sounding the alarm. This is a physiological response, not a current reality.” 2. The 5-5-5 Rule: Find 5 things you can see, 5 things you can hear and 5 things you can feel. Grounding forces your brain to acknowledge the current environment. 3. The Reality Check: Once you’re calm, ask the CEO to look at the data. “Is the person in front of me actually a threat, or do they just sound like someone who was?” Being triggered is a sign that your brain’s trying to protect you. The goal isn’t to never be triggered again—it’s to shorten the time it takes to realize you’re safe in the present. Submitted by Dr. J. Paweleck-Bellingrodt, Psy.D. Material is for informational purposes and not intended to be a substitute for evaluation or treatment by a licensed professional. Material is copyrighted and may only be reproduced with written permission of Dr. Bellingrodt.

The word “triggered” in clinical psychology is a specific biological event that has to do with misinterpreting the present as the past. If you’ve ever found yourself overreacting to a small comment or snapping at someone you love over something trivial, you’ve likely experienced a trigger. Think of your brain as having an Internal CEO (the prefrontal cortex) and a Security Guard (the amygdala). The CEO is responsible for logic, planning and rational thought. The Security Guard is responsible for one thing: survival. When you experience a trauma or a high-stress event, your Security Guard takes a snapshot of the environment— the smell of the room, the tone of a voice, etc. A trigger is when that Security Guard sees one of those snapshots in your current life and sounds the alarm.

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May 2026

Money Matters

Your Money at Every Age Saving money is one of those things that everyone agrees is important and almost nobody feels they are doing well enough. The truth is that what good saving looks like changes significantly depending on where you are in life. Here is a straightforward guide to each stage. Early adulthood: 18 to 35: The single most valuable thing you can do in early adulthood is start. Even small amounts saved consistently, early, grow into something significant over time thanks to compound interest. If your employer offers a 401(k) match, contribute at least enough to claim the full match. That is free money, and walking away from it is one of the most common and costly financial mistakes young adults make. Beyond retirement savings, focus on building an emergency fund. Six months of essential expenses in a savings account you do not touch gives you the flexibility to handle a job loss or unexpected bill without going into debt. At this stage, avoiding high- interest debt matters more than almost anything else. Middle adulthood: 35 to 55: By midlife, the financial picture gets more complicated. Mortgages, children, aging parents and career changes can all

pull at the same budget simultaneously. The priority here is eliminating high-interest debt, increasing retirement contributions, and reviewing insurance coverage to make sure it reflects your actual situation. This is also the right time to automate. Set up automatic transfers to savings and retirement accounts so the money moves before you have the chance to spend it. Review your subscriptions, recurring expenses and utility costs once a year, cutting out unnecessary spending. Later adulthood: 55 to 64: As retirement comes into view, the focus shifts from accumulation to protection. Maximizing retirement contributions is important. From age 50, the IRS allows catch-up contributions to 401(k) and IRA accounts, which can make a meaningful difference to your final balance. Work with a financial advisor if you have not already to understand Social Security timing, healthcare costs and withdrawal strategies before you retire is far less stressful than working it out after. Cutting unnecessary expenses at this stage also pays double. Every dollar you do not spend is a dollar that stays invested and keeps growing. That is a different kind of earning. Wherever you are in this picture, the best time to start was yesterday. The second best time is today.

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May 2026 13

Cook With Zona May is the perfect time to get into the kitchen. The farmers’ markets are full of bright, fresh produce, and with the end of the school year just around the corner, there is plenty to celebrate. These two recipes are simple, colorful and delicious. They make a great lunchbox, a lovely Mother’s Day surprise, or just a fun Saturday afternoon project. Read through the recipe first, wash your hands, and let’s get cooking. Rainbow Pinwheel Wraps

the whole tortilla. 3. Layer the vegetables across the middle. 4. Roll the tortilla up tightly from one end. 5. Ask a grown-up to slice the roll into rounds about an inch thick. 6. Arrange them cut-side up in your lunchbox so the rainbow shows! Tip: Press the roll firmly before slicing so the pinwheels hold their shape. Sunshine Pasta Salad

Prep: 20 minutes |Makes 4 servings

Prep: 15 minutes | Makes 4 pinwheels Ingredients: • 1 large flour tortilla • 2 tablespoons cream

Ingredients: • 2 cups cooked pasta, cooled (bowties or penne work well) • 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved • 1 cup corn kernels (canned is fine) • 1 cup cucumber, diced small • Half a cup of shredded cheddar cheese • 3 tablespoons olive oil and 1 tablespoon lemon juice • Salt and pepper to taste Instructions:

cheese or hummus • A handful of shredded purple cabbage • A handful of shredded carrots • A few slices of cucumber • A few leaves of fresh spinach Instructions: 1. Lay the tortilla flat on a clean surface. 2. Spread the cream cheese or hummus evenly across

1. Cook the pasta with a grown- up’s help, then drain and let it cool completely. 2. Combine the pasta, tomatoes, corn, cucumber and cheese in a large bowl. 3. Mix the olive oil and lemon juice together, then pour over the salad and stir. 4. Season with a little salt and pepper, cover and refrigerate until lunchtime. Tip: This tastes even better the next day, so try making it the night before!

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Estrella Publishing - Main Street magazine

May 2026 15

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16 Estrella Publishing - Main Street magazine

May 2026

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May 2026 17

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May 2026

Mental Health At Work

It usually starts quietly. You stop looking forward to Monday. A difficult conversation with your manager replays at 2am. You’re getting everything done, but just barely, and it’s costing you more than it used to. Nothing dramatic, just a slow draining that’s hard to name. That’s where most workplace mental health struggles actually live. Not in crisis, but in the long stretch before it. And May’s Mental Health Awareness Month is as good a time as any to look honestly at how work is affecting you. The signs worth paying attention to: Reduced motivation, difficulty concentrating, snapping at people you care about, dreading your shifts or your inbox, feeling invisible or undervalued. These aren’t personality flaws. They’re signals. The question isn’t whether you’re ‘coping’, most of us are, after a fashion. The better question is what it’s costing you to cope. What you can do: Start small and specific. Block one lunch break a week away from your desk, outside if possible, even briefly. Set one boundary this month and actually hold it: no emails after a certain hour, one full day offline. These aren’t luxuries. They’re maintenance.

If something has been weighing on you for more than two weeks, tell someone. A trusted colleague, a friend, a doctor. Many employers offer an Employee Assistance Program, free, confidential counselling sessions you can access without going through your manager. If you’re not sure whether you have one, check your employee handbook or ask HR. Most people who have access to an EAP have never used it. Most people who use one wish they’d done it sooner. What a healthy workplace looks like You are entitled to work somewhere that doesn’t routinely make you feel worse. That doesn’t mean a perfect job, it means a workplace where you can raise a concern without fear, where mistakes aren’t weaponized, and where people are treated as human beings with lives outside their hours. If that sounds like where you work, tell someone there, people who build good cultures deserve to hear it. If it doesn’t, knowing what you’re entitled to is the first step toward either changing it or making a different plan. This month, pick one thing: check for an EAP, have the conversation you’ve been putting off, take the lunch break, make the appointment. Not everything at once. Just one thing. That’s enough to start.

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May 2026 19

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May 2026 21

B’Ball

Something Special Is Brewing in the Valley, and the Suns Are Proving It It wasn’t supposed to look like this. Not this soon, not this good. But if you’ve been paying attention to the Phoenix Suns over the past few months, you already know that something has genuinely shifted with this team, and it goes beyond a hot streak or a lucky schedule. The Suns have looked like a squad that finally figured out who it is. The roster moved past the drama of recent years and found an identity rooted in pace, defensive intensity, and a remarkable team-first mentality that hasn’t always defined this franchise. Veterans and younger contributors alike are stepping up in moments that previously would have exposed the team’s depth issues. That’s a meaningful change. Much of the credit has to go to how this group has come together culturally. Devin Booker continues to be one of the most talented guards in the entire Western Conference, but what’s become more apparent is how much better he makes everyone around him when the system is working. The supporting cast, long considered an afterthought in recent seasons, has been

a genuine strength. Role players have embraced their assignments and delivered when it counts most. For West Valley fans who pack the seats at Footprint Center or watch from their living rooms, there’s something deeply satisfying about cheering for a team that actually competes. The late-season push the Suns have shown is proof that the rebuild, the roster shuffling, and the rough nights were all pointing somewhere worth going. The Suns finished the regular season 45-37, landing as the seventh seed in the Western Conference. That means they’ll enter through the play-in tournament, where they’ll face the eighth-seeded Portland Trail Blazers for a chance to earn a true playoff spot. Win that, and they’ll draw the San Antonio Spurs, who finished second in the West at 62-20 and are one of the most formidable teams in the league this season. It’s a steep hill, no question. But this Suns squad has shown all year that they don’t shrink from difficult situations. Getting through the play-in is step one, and if they do, the experience of competing in a high-stakes environment could be exactly the kind of proving ground that accelerates this team’s growth.

Don’t count them out.

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Estrella Publishing - Main Street magazine

May 2026 23

Desert Creatures

The sun has barely come up. The desert trail is quiet. Then — zoom — something darts across the path. Fast, crested, completely unbothered. That was a Greater Roadrunner. It runs at nearly 20 miles per hour, and yes, it can catch rattlesnakes. Here’s the thing about our desert: it is packed with incredible wildlife. You just have to know where — and how — to look. May is the perfect month to find out, before the summer heat sends everyone indoors. So lace up your shoes, grab some water, and meet The desert’s most entertaining bird barely flies — it prefers to sprint. Catch it early in the morning on any desert trail, spreading its wings wide to warm up in the sun. Fast, fearless and a little ridiculous-looking. Pure desert attitude. The Black-tailed Jackrabbit Those enormous ears aren’t just for hearing. Blood flows through them, the desert breeze cools it down, and that cooler blood travels back through the jackrabbit’s body. Built-in air conditioning. Look for them in open desert areas at dawn, some of your wild neighbors. The Greater Roadrunner

across a desert trail today may have been walking those same paths when your grandparents were kids. May is one of the best months to spot one. If you do: look, but don’t touch! The desert looks empty only if you’re moving too fast to notice. This May, slow down. Walk the trails early. And look closely — your wild neighbors have been here the whole time See how many you can spot! Before You Head Out, Remember: • Always go with a responsible adult • The Arizona heat is serious - go early, if it gets too hot turn back • Bring plenty of water - more than you think! • Wear a hat and sunscreen • Watch where you step and put your hands- snakes, scorpions and cacti are all present, be awareof your surroundings • Never touch or pick up wildlife • Tell someone where you are going and stick to marked trails • Know the signs of heat illness - if someone in your group is ill seek medical help immediately.

sitting perfectly still, absolutely convinced you can’t see them. The Gila Woodpecker You’ll hear this one before you see it — a loud, raspy call that sounds like a toy laser gun. The Gila Woodpecker drills holes into saguaro cacti to nest. When it moves out, elf owls, snakes and starlings move in. One bird, dozens of neighbors. Keep an ear out on any trail with mature saguaros. The Desert Tortoise Slow, ancient and completely calm. Some tortoises live to 80 years old, which means one plodding slowly

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24 Estrella Publishing - Main Street magazine

May 2026

Silent But Invisible

Our Congress has a laundry list of laws to debate, dissect, and delay, yet one of the most important subjects of all—the English language—isn’t even on its agenda. We teach our children mathematics. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it: 2 + 2 = 4. But when we teach them how to read and write, those same ifs, ands, and buts seem to buzz around their heads like bees in a hive. They see a word, but hear something else entirely. They read knee , and sound it out as k-nee . Then the teacher informs them that the k is silent. The same happens with thumb , island , talk , hour , and a host of other words filled with silent letters. Are we intentionally confusing our children? Might it be better for their mental health if we simply eliminated silent letters altogether—made them vanish into linguistic history?

Silent letters are fossils. They preserve history and often reveal a word’s origin, but they do not help us read or write. If someone wants to know why a word has a silent letter, they can look up its etymology—and then get on with reading and writing without extra, unpronounced baggage. “Oh,” you say, “but what about words that need silent letters to distinguish meaning?” That’s called a silent- letter disambiguator—quite a term for something that, ironically, contains no silent letters itself. Not and knot is one example; whole and hole is another. These homonyms are common in English, as are homophones and homographs. Oh, the confusion our children must endure! But what if we dropped the k in knot and wrote, “He tied a not on his shoelace”? Surely context would carry the meaning. Willn’t it? There are roughly 200,000 commonly used words in the English language, not including technical terms, slang, acronyms, and the like. Whew. Reading and writing would surely be easier if we trimmed the excess—especially words that seem no longer necessary, such as disambiguator , homonym , homophone , and homograph . Come on, Congress. Put the English language on your agenda.

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