Betty White will celebrate her 100th birthday on January 17th, and she’s in excellent spirits about it.

The “Golden Girls” star says one of the secrets to aging gracefully, is preserving her sense of optimism.

“I’m so lucky to be in such good health and feel so good at this age,” the veteran actress says. “It’s amazing.”

She joked, “I try to avoid anything green. I guess it’s working.”

White, who has been in shows such as “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” over the years, now leads a peaceful life, doing crossword puzzles and playing card games. She also enjoys documentaries on nature, “Jeopardy!” and golf.

The Golden Girls star, who has been acting since high school, also attributes her ability to “always find the positive” to being “born a cockeyed optimist,” a quality she acquired from her mother, according to People.

She also remembers her late husband Allen Ludden on a daily basis.

Mikelas revealed, “She keeps a photo of him on her bedside table and blows him a kiss every morning. At night when she opens the shutters, she blows a kiss to him up in the sky. He is on her mind constantly.”

White is a also supporter of animal charities and donates her time to the Wildlife Learning Center, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and Actors and Others for Animals.

CREDIT: BETTMANN ARCHIVE/GETTY

And her illustrious legacy goes on. White’s celebrity acquaintances discuss their encounters with the “very funny” actress in PEOPLE’s cover story.

“She’d come on my show, [The Carol Burnett Show], and if there was a tinge of risqué humor in one of our sketches, she’d roll with it and make it even funnier and add a little wink to show that she was thinking of something sexy,” Carol Burnett says. “She’s not a stand-up. She’s not a jokester. It’s the way she can twist a line to get a laugh.”

Sandra Bullock lauded the 99-year-old for her comic timing as well.

“Timing isn’t easy in comedy, because you have to navigate other people’s timing. Betty pivots like I have never seen, making it look seamless,” Bullock, 57, says. “The rest of us just remain silent and pray we’re not cut out of the scene.”

Bullock also hopes White enjoys her birthday “the same way she has celebrated every day of her life with humor, kindness and a vodka on ice, toasting to the fact that she’s a badass who has left us all in the dust.”