Month: July 2022

July 23rd, Thankful For The Summer Breeze!

On By DianaIn Living life, weekend coffee share33 Comments
My summer rose bloom! It smells heavenly too!

Welcome to my weekend coffee or tea share where I enjoy sharing what’s been happening here in Southern Cali where I live. It is definitely summer time here as the heat is on and we are hoping for a break but there isn’t one coming any time soon. I am thankful for the summer breeze! It almost always shows up every afternoon and it feels so good and helps you cool off. I had to look it up as I was pretty sure there was a song about the “Summer Breeze” by Seals & Crofts and it’s a nice relaxing song to listen to on these summer days, I do date myself!

As I share a tall glass of ice tea with you (I have lemonade and we can make it an Arnold Palmer if you’d like!) I decided I would share my cross stitch I have been working on the last month or so, I am nearing completion and this is my winter scene. This is the last one I needed to complete for my 4 seasons pattern that I started many years ago and am determined to finish. (I’ll share the photo of the other seasons here too.) I am planning on making my first quilt with these cross stitches as the star or center pieces of the quilt which will be the size of a wall hanging or small throw blanket. If I run into trouble I’ll have to have my sister’s help me as they are the expert quilt makers in the family!

I have a confession and that is this coffee share I started late last weekend and never finished it so I thought I would just add to it and finish and post it this weekend. I took the above cross stitch photo on July 2nd and I have done a lot more since then so here is a current photo of it today. I am working on the bottom portion as you can see the cart the horse is pulling, a sideways tree and some snow texture stitching. 😀

Winter!

Some of the funny colored shapes will eventually be people and things really become defined when I am done with the stitching and then I will outline everything and that will make everything pop and look completed. It is so fun working on these projects! I know it is another way that I can relax and create and keep my brain thinking as I count away. I am hoping this and other things I do in my life will help keep me healthy. What do you do for fun or for relaxation? I know many enjoy their gardens, and they are a wonderful source of healthy cardio work and relaxation too! And others enjoy being outside exercising. Here are the other seasons. (Click on photos for full view).

Spring
Summer
Fall

I am motivated to finish my winter themed cross stitch because I was gifted this last Christmas some really cool cross stitch pattern books I had on my wish list. I will be diving into these new patterns when I finish here and I won’t start working on the quilt until I feel inspired or motivated to sew. Maybe I will dive into it sooner, I just take things one day at a time and see how I feel when starting new projects. I know my “in the house” projects I call them are not cardio, but it’s important to have the relaxation to help lower blood pressure when relaxing. I get all my cardio from the stables and I like to call the barn my outside gym! I love my segue as I want to share my horses this weekend. My last share about the barn was how busy I have been and thankfully it has calmed down now and I am not having to take care of so many horses!

Getting ready to buck!
And a big BUCK! Go Murphy!
Pretty trot
Standing tail! Such a handsome boy!
A girlfriend at the barn took these photos even catching him getting ready to buck and the buck, such pretty photos of Murphy and me out in the arena together!

I am having so much fun with Murphy! Him and I are really bonding and he is always excited to see me which to me indicates he enjoys our time together. He is vocal about this nickering as I arrive! 😀 Today I started some liberty training with him which basically means working in the arena with him lose and following my lead as I ask him to work with me free or at liberty. I also have thought long and hard about his training and I decided to introduce R+ training which is Positive reinforcement (+R) is a form of learning that occurs when a desired behavior is rewarded. It’s based on the idea that reinforced or rewarded behavior will be repeated out of want for a reward. I have found that Murphy would rather not do much of anything and although his defiance is not bad (he does not bite, rear, kick or do anything nasty) on the contrary he is very sweet but can be a bit stubborn. He is also very food driven! I have already started to introduce treats in a meaningful way and he has not started biting and/or is not aggressive at all. He has remained very respectful and sweet which is perfect for this kind of training! I’m very excited!!

He loves to splash and play in the water bucket and every time I see him and want to video he stops and comes to visit me instead. I LOVE you Murphy, but I just want to get some water fun action!

You can see how wet he got and all the water he splashed all around the bucket as he practically emptied half of hit splashing away! Haha, he’s so funny and has so much fun in this summer heat! With horses when you are with them whether it is every day (yep, I go every single day to see them and usually work with them) or every other day or once a week you are always learning and working together as a team. You should be growing your bond with them and mine grows each day. I have this wonderful bond with my other horse Chloe. Her and I are a team that just gets stronger every day. The trust the two of us have in each other is hard to describe. It would be like the trust you have with your best favorite dog or cat, it’s strong and we enjoy each others company. I am so grateful and thankful Murphy and I are bonding like Chloe but as I learn and grow reading/attending/watching other trainers I am growing and am doing more with him than I did when Chloe was his age. IT’S SO MUCH FUN!

Chloe and I out on the trails!
Murphy and I in the arena!
Miss Chloe after our ride!
Murphy after our ride!
I am enjoying riding him and working with him in Western Dressage!

I have a video I made all by myself by propping up my camera but since I don’t have a Pivo I ride out of frame a lot and so I decided not to share here. I will ask someone to video one of my rides soon. It is fun to see his progress. He is learning so much, a little each ride. I don’t ride him every day as he is young and growing and I don’t want to bore him to death. PLUS as I have recently shared I can be busy and so I usually ride one horse one day and then the next I ride the other. This is working out great! Happy horses means a happy Mom. Now that I want to incorporate R+ training, it is all started and performed while I am on the ground, we call this ground work with horses. So on the days I do not ride Murphy we will be working on things together which will be stimulating for him and I. Anyways, I enjoy learning new things as well and there is plenty of YouTube videos out there to visit for ideas. Can I get you a refill? I know I can ramble on and on sometimes! Haha!

He almost always rolls after a rinse or bath in his dry shavings! You can see them all over his back!
This was from a few weeks ago! All that I am sharing is from this month of July!

I am so thankful we have a huge pepper tree that has grown so tall now that it provides a lot of morning shade where we tack up our horses. This is why this photo is in the shade. I like it’s soft tones and you can see part of the tree in the upper right corner. Near noon the shade is almost gone except for closest to the tree. As July seems to be flying by we are getting closer to my granddaughter’s birthday August 3rd. She will be turning 7 years old this year and I can’t believe it! I am so excited to be heading to Arizona to help her and family celebrate my sweet girls birthday. YAY! This time I will be flying there!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and I thank you kindly for visiting with me today. I am always grateful for all the support I get from fellow friends, family and the blogging community. I enjoy sharing when I can and so I will get this wrapped up and get back to stitching. I am getting super close to completing my project. I’ll have to pass the ice tea and say how is your (week) or weekend going?

Loving Our Summer Breeze Cowgirl,

~Diana ❤

Weekend Coffee Share; Summer Reminiscing!

On By DianaIn Living life, weekend coffee share30 Comments
A beautiful magnolia bloom I took on my trail ride last week!

Welcome, can I get you a cup of coffee or maybe some tea? I made some blueberry muffins and they are delicious. I am enjoying summer. It has been a bit hot but we usually get a nice breeze by noon so being outside has not been that bad. I am also thankful it cools off at night usually into the 60’sF (15’sC) and so in the mornings it is really beautiful and it takes awhile before the heat sets in (up in the 90’sF) and I think this is because we are not to far from the ocean. My poor family in Arizona, this last weekend it has been averaging 110F (43C) and at night it only has been getting down into the 90’sF (32’sC). Now that is really hot! It is truly a dry heat with little to no humidity but now that I think about it I am happy we were unable to make the move to Arizona. I miss my family there immensely but I know here in California is better for me and my horses and not too hot!

My hubby has been working around the house and he keeps busy with the yards and house upkeep. I know I have shared before that he built a saloon in our backyard. He originally was building a storage unit, 10X20ft but since we live in a horsey town he decided to turn it into a saloon and so it is decorated inside and out like one and my kids through high school enjoyed spending time out there and had small parties there too. The saloon is mostly a storage unit now, just half full of boxes and holds some saloon furniture. The thing that excited me was I totally forgot that we had purchased a small wall piano for $50 from a yard sale years ago that fit perfect in our saloon! My hubby was working out back on the saloon cleaning up the dust and spiders and so I went back there to see him before I went to work and my heart leapt as I saw the piano! YAY! Here’s a few photos (click on photos for full view!)

Its in good shape and plays fine. It needs a tuning but truly there is only a few keys that sound tinny but it actually plays better than my old parlor grand piano that really fell apart and it became unplayable. Currently we do not have a place for it to be in our house so if I have a yearning to play, I will have to sit out in our saloon! Haha, that’s fine with me. I just miss playing and being an accomplished pianist hearing music that we can impart with our own hands just brings joy to my heart! The action of the keys are not the best, that’s okay as it sounds like an old timey piano. So FUN!!

My sweet girl BZ, my hubby named her so many years ago!
From an old west website, Oh My! HAHA!

The photo with my sweet girl and all the chairs is looking out from the saloons porch. That barn in the photo is the back of a storage unit built like a barn that you buy from Lowes or Home Depot and it came with the property when we bought here. My husband decorated the back finding that “Stables” sign here in town. As a matter of fact so much of the decorations on our saloon are from farm or ranch properties that had yard sales or items with “free”. There is one more photo I can share of the front, but I wasn’t planning on spending so much time out in our saloon. It is really cool though, eh?

Shh, don’t tell my hubby that I am sharing his photos with the world. (He’s fine actually) Haha, I’m thinking he looks pretty dang good for turning 70 this year. He is eight years older than me and is doing great! He has worked so hard all his life and is now partly retired, is a Vietnam Veteran and the best hubby, father and best friend. I will say since I am on the subject that I can see why marriages change as we get older. Things are definitely different now than with little babies running around and then teen-age kids, and now they are grown adults with kids of their own. My goodness, I never wanted to dwell on aging and I am so thankful we are super active (I still work full-time) and as you know I do so much with my horses. 😀

Can I get you a refill? As I am writing this post I started out wanting to share summer and as always my horses which I will save for another post. I absolutely love it when I start to write and as the words flow from my mind to my fingers I end up sharing a subject that is near and dear to me and I am feeling rather nostalgic and so this is what I want to share today! It is so much fun for me! The next two photos are photos of a photo that my hubby came across going through some photo boxes. We have tons of photos we need to go through eventually. These caught my eye and so I’ll share here!

My son Harrison with Darth Vader. He is now 33 years old and a Dad himself. We are huge Star Wars fans so it was fun to run across this photo. That lightsaber he is holding looks like it is as long as Harrison is tall almost! Haha! And the second photo is such a neat photo of my niece Allie who came to visit back in the 90’s and I am on horseback as we ride around my sister’s backyard. I just love the accidental lighting on our smiling faces. These kinds of photos are just the best! I shared these photos with them on my social media and it was so wonderful to reminisce with them. And to think there is hundreds of photos to go through and I am sure there will be more gems to find.

Thank you so much for visiting my coffee share and I am just making it into the link up. I appreciate you visiting and I hope you all have a wonderful week ahead! 😀

Feeling nostalgic Mom and Grandma,

~Diana ❤

Weekend Coffee Share; 4th of July Weekend!

On By DianaIn Living life, weekend coffee share22 Comments
My pretty honeysuckle blooms which are so tiny but so fragrant!

Welcome to my coffee share, can I get you a cup of coffee or tea? I am having a nice cup of joe with my favorite creamer, sweet Italian cream. I can’t believe it is July! Where did June go? it just zipped on by seemingly so fast. I had a busy month last month and I am hoping to slow down a little and enjoy this month. For those of us here in the states, this weekend is July 4th weekend ~ Happy 4th of July! ❤ I am so thankful for the long weekend and an extra day off this next week. We always barbeque which millions of American’s do, and since it is summer here it’s always a great way to celebrate!

Did I mention already how busy I have been? Ah, yes, I think I bring it up all the time. I am not sure how I fit in all that I do and my life just seems to get busier. My “busier” has been at the barn where I board my two horses. It seems that when there is other boarders that need help with their horses, my name comes up. I am honored and deeply grateful that so many trust me to take care of their horses, but it is getting to the point where I am getting super busy with many to care for especially this month. (I will say that it is difficult for me to say No! Haha, so I do this to myself to a certain degree!) I have 6 horses for the first week of July (2 of them are my own) and after next week that care will go down to 5 horses. I can thankfully take turns getting them out and exercised which means I do not have to handle all of them all on the same day. It will put a kink into my riding on some days, I may be getting less sleep so I can get up earlier to fit in all that I want to do each day. We will see how this goes. 😀

Miss Chloe after a nice ride this weekend!

Since I am on the subject of horses I thought I would share some photos. I have been able to ride a lot out on the trails with Chloe. I am riding my other horse Murphy but mostly in the arena as I want him to learn in there more basic riding commands so we are safe together. I am hoping to get him out on the trails some this summer. I want to partner up with a friend as it can be scary on the trails for a young horse in our town all by himself. He is very brave and the trail riding I have done this past year with him was always with other horses. I knew he needed more arena training but wanted to see what kind of “brain” he had which just means that the trails I have ridden him on were short, not far from home and he had a good “brain” and was very sensible and kind.

Now that Murphy has turned 4 years old I am upping the demands slowly and asking him to do things that will make our partnership together more cohesive and safe. He should know how to walk, trot and canter when I cue him to do this and just as important to “whoa” or stop when I ask. His whoa he is getting better at especially at the walk and trot but he still needs work at the canter. I am in no rush and have done more with him at the walk and trot, so that is why he is getting that down better. I wish I had more time to spend riding him and hence why I am a tiny bit frustrated with my time at the barn. Part of the issue is a friend fell off this last Friday. She owns 2 horses and has asked me to care for them as she recovers from the fall. She broke 2 ribs and hurt her back and so how can I say no? She doesn’t know another lady is going out of town for one week so I have already said yes to her for her horse. And I have another that I care for 2 days a week, the lady has paid me through to August for that horse care. It’s all good, it just is what it is at this time!

Hi Murphy, we will do some fun riding this week I promise!

He is such a handsome guy! He is so laid back, so calm and pleasing. I think he gets a little bored. Since my other horse Chloe is 18yrs old, I can just hop on and head out on the trail. My shortest trail ride is about 25 minutes, so it’s a total of almost an hour from getting her out and tacked up, out on trail and then I need to clean her up (which may be hosing her off if it’s hot) and get her put away. I then do Murphy. Or I do Murphy first and spend about an hour and a half with him and then I ride or turn out Chloe. I then have to fit in another turn out with some care to other horses that others have paid me for. My riding time gets cut into if say I eat breakfast out with hubby one or two mornings each week. Haha, I guess I have a full-time job and now a part-time job. My family can’t understand why I am at the barn every single day. (They kind of understand my obsession, but they have asked me why do I go every day?) Seriously, I NEVER miss a day unless I am out of town!! I am seriously that horse CRAZY! 😀 😀 😀

Seriously though, how can you not love her sweet face and I want to give them the best care!
Heading down the trails on my sweet girl! The best exercise for her and joyful for me!

As I am writing this I am realizing my horsey obsession has turned into a somewhat part-time job especially since I concede and help so many others. I am realizing I need to take back some control since it is eating into my horse riding time and if I am feeling frustrated because of this then it takes the fun out of my time at the barn. Talk about a juggling act! Sheesh! I am not old enough to retire because if I could retire then I could have this part-time horse care job. Something I will look forward to when that year comes to fruition. I am the type of person that tends to put the needs of others before my own, hence why I haven’t learned to say no very often (if ever) so the learning goes….. I need to be stronger, and put my needs first but for now I will just be very busy! Do you over extend yourself? or do for others to the point where it takes time away from your needs? I am curious as I can’t be alone! 😀

I’ll end with this sweet kitty. This is Evie, my daughter’s cat and she is so incredibly friendly. You know how I am with my crazy selfie photos, she was so fun to be with when I was visiting with my daughter in June. I had so much fun at the horse clinic and spending time with my daughter. She invited some friends over when I was there and we had an indoor barbeque on Sunday after I was done with the clinic. We had so much fun breaking bread and playing a card game. I have so enjoyed having coffee (or tea) with you this weekend and for filling you in on my busy schedule! Haha, it’s been crazy days and will stay that way for awhile!

Thank you Natalie for hosting the #weekendcoffeeshare and if you would like to visit and read other shares you can click here! I hope you all have a wonderful week ahead.

Super Busy Crazy Horsey obsessed Gal,

~Diana ❤