Tag: #smiles

My Weekly Smile; Nov. 15, 2021 Family Fun!

On By DianaIn Living life, weekly smile21 Comments
  • Pismo beach, California!

Welcome to my weekly smile post. I am back from a super fun weekend visiting my daughter who lives 3 1/2 hours north in Orcutt, Ca. She is currently a Major in the Space Force and she is stationed at Vandenberg Space Force Base. They have officially changed the name of the base and so here is to a new era of a new branch of our military. We visited Pismo beach and had the best ever cinnamon rolls which I have shared before since we often go there when we visit. The place is called Old West Cinnamon Rolls and oh my, they are so delicious and every time we sit down at the pier to eat them I forget to take a photo of them. Haha, trust me, they are to die for!! 😀

We then went shopping at a local mall as it was recently my youngest sons birthday. Oh, I forgot to mention he came up with me to visit as he hasn’t seen my daughter’s house she is leasing and he hasn’t met her kitty, Evie! He is bad about shopping and buying himself clothes and so we went to Macy’s and they had great sale’s and he got the pants he needed and a new belt. I found a pair of shoes with memory foam that I was looking for at a great price and my daughter ended up buying 2 pair of shoes. A totally fun day! I am always smiling when I can spend time with my family.

I took this through the front window of the car when we came up on the light at this intersection! I thought it so cool!
My son meets Evie, my daughter’s kitty!

Evie is such a friendly cat. I am so incredibly happy my daughter found her and was able to adopt her as she cuddles and plays. She is such a wonderful pet and friend for her and its so fun to visit as she sits on all of our laps and treats us like family! For those of you who don’t have cats, some cats can be really scared or do not like strangers. Then when you visit they just hide under the bed! Haha, we have 2 cats and one of them is like what I described. She will hide until the strange people have gone, but thankfully she will come out if you spend the night. Then she realizes she doesn’t need to be that scared. I just LOVE Evie! ❤

Funny story, my daughter is taking piano lessons. She took lessons as a youngster following in my footsteps as I took lessons for many years (which I followed in my father’s footsteps as he was almost a concert pianist!). I am so proud that she is back taking lessons again. She has a wonderful piano teacher who put together a recital with all of her students. I was so excited and told my daughter I wanted to attend. She said it is a Sunday night and that she didn’t really want me there because she thought that would make her even more nervous. It turns out our visit up there was from Saturday thru to Monday and what a coincidence the recital was this last Sunday evening! We were able to attend, she didn’t mind and even though she was nervous she performed well. Here is a half a minute snippet and a photo at the recital. She played a Chopin Nocturne, one I was not familiar with but it is beautiful.

I’m so proud of my daughter and the teacher is nearby to turn the page for her so she doesn’t have to stop playing the piece.

This teacher explained how this was a casual recital and that it is good to have casual performances to work out the nerves and to have fun with the pieces you play. We are all so hard on ourselves when we perform and I was so pleased to see how encouraging this piano teacher was with all her students. There were many children, I think more boys than girls playing and a handful of adults as well. It was such a joy to see and hear them all! I am SMILING! 😀

This is just a 30 second snippet. I thought it was a beautiful piece but then I just LOVE Chopin and can play many Nocturnes and Preludes. She is doing great and I’ve already said but will say it again, I am so proud of her and for her getting out there and performing this piece. She struggles fitting in all the practice needed since she does work full-time.

I wanted to mention that the gentlemen you can see his head in the video brought the really nice camera and recorded the whole recital. He also played in the recital and takes lessons with his very young son and daughter. They will edit the video and then send to all the students. I think that is so COOL!! Another huge smile on my face today! 😀

I started a new project, cross-stitch which I haven’t done in some years! Can you guess what I am making?

On to my last subject, my new craft project. You know I share my crochet projects and I make a ton of crochet things from blankets to crochet animals. After I finished the baby blanket and mailed it off to the Mom who absolutely loved it thankfully, I decided to pick up my cross-stitch. This piece I am working on is the third project in a book of four. They are called Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. I am working on Fall, and you can just make out the beginnings of a barn! I will share photos as I go, and my next blog post I will share the other ones I have completed. I wanted to end with this sunset photo and ask you, what makes you smile?

The sunset from last night! We didn’t stop and I just took a quick photo and I thought it’s worth sharing.

I hope you all have a wonderful week. I can’t believe Thanksgiving is just over a week away! The time just flies by but I am enjoying each day to it’s fullest. Keep smiling! 😀

Happy Smiling Mom,

~Diana ❤

My Weekly Smile; March 25, 2021

On By DianaIn Living life, weekly smile16 Comments

Welcome to my weekly smile! I was out on my morning walk this week and just loved how the sun was coming up behind the trees! It just had a glow as I was walking so I couldn’t resist and had to take this photo. We had a couple of sunny days early in the week and as the week is ending lots of clouds and threat of rain. It has been very cool and I am enjoying every day. I know the heat will be coming and so enjoying these Spring days. I am also enjoying my blooms, so many flowers! I decided to take some photos to share because they all make me smile. 😀

I am heading out tomorrow to see my family in Arizona! YAY! ❤ I am so excited to see them and I will be babysitting so my son and his wife can take a day and celebrate their anniversary. I shared last weekend some really cute photos of my grandchildren and if you missed it you can click here to visit. I am so happy that I have the entire weekend off and I can travel and not feel sleepy from working night shift. I am so enjoying my new job, and can’t say enough how happy I am that I made the decision to leave my old job. There is so much that makes me smile these days, I am just so grateful and happy. Back to my photos, here are some flowers I thought you might like! 😀

I haven’t seen this bush have so many blooms! It is going flower crazy!! And my container flowers are blooming too!
This is my flowering bush further away and I haven’t ever seen it so flowery ~ this year it’s going crazy and I Love it!
I LOVE these purple flowers!

I plan on working in my garden and plant more flowers. I mentioned before I was not going to grow veggies but as I have been thinking about it I may plant just tomatoes. I Love home grown tomatoes and so I am thinking of giving them another try in a container. Do you have a favorite veggie you like to grow? or flowers? I know there is so much to choose from. I remember my Mom had gardenia’s in our yard and I just LOVE the smell of gardenia’s! I am thinking of planting in containers and I have some shady spots for them because I know they can’t take direct sun and summer heat. I also remember the artichoke plants my Mom grew. I love artichokes, definitely one of my favorites but would have to investigate if they would be worth planting and growing.

I want to thank you for visiting my smile post this week. I am excited about my weekend and am hoping you all have a ton of things that make you smile too! I hope you have a wonderful weekend. I am going to end with my sweet pony. I took this photo of her earlier this morning. It was a very cloudy day, but I thought it a cute photo and decided to share. She brings me many smiles and helps keep me sane! Love my sweet Chloe! ❤

Smiling Happy Grandma!

~Diana ❤

My Weekly Smile; March 18, 2021

On By DianaIn weekly smile10 Comments
  • Welcome to my weekly smile! These pretty flowers sure make me SMILE!

We have flowers! This pretty bush has so many flowers and there are lots of bees. I like helping the bees! I also have geraniums blooming which I did not photograph. I will do that for my weekend coffee share. I am having a much better work week and have kept busy. I can’t believe its Friday but I am so happy the weekend is almost here as I am enjoying having the two days off each week. Working in the medical field I have worked my whole working life on the weekends. Yes, I have never had every weekend off EVER! I’ve always worked in 24/7 laboratories open and running samples 7 days a week. I am smiling as I found a job where I work Monday thru Friday in the lab, something I think I’ve earned after all these years!

  • Another baby on the way! Sending to a dear friend who is due in July!

My daughter’s best friend is due with her first baby in July. She is having a baby girl, so EXCITING! I will be sending another gift I’ll purchase online from her registry but I had these from last year when there were a ton of babies happening in my extended family. Many nieces and nephews had babies last year! My bestie girlfriend knitted the tiny booties and I knitted the baby hat from the same yarn. My bestie girlfriend and I just kept knitting and crocheting all these baby items and this is the last of our stash. It was FUN to make. We are such grandma’s knitting and crocheting to our hearts content! Haha, makes me smile

  • My sweet Dinah kitty! She is on my bed and I just love this quilt I had bought at our local craft fair last year!

I just couldn’t resist taking a photo of my pretty kitty she makes me smile too. I tried taking some photos of my dogs, maybe I’ll share but they didn’t come out that great. I’ve never taught them to pose, so the angles are funny or the photos are blurry! Haha, I’m surrounded by animals as there are more of them in my family than the people that live in our house!

I’ve enjoyed sharing what makes me smile this week. We had rain in the beginning of the week and as the week unfolded it has been perfect weather. It’s a beautiful day today and I am off to the barn. I will take care of Miss Chloe which will include a trail ride and lots of treats. She is very spoiled and loved, as we spoil and love all our animals! I hope you all found at least a few things that made you smile this week! Thanks to my friend Trent who hosts these weekly smiles! 😀

Happy Smiling Grandma,

~Diana ❤

My Weekly Smile; March 10, 2021

On By DianaIn Living life, weekly smile9 Comments
The morning sun in the clouds! Makes me smile! 😀

Welcome to my weekly smile and I finally got out for a morning walk. There are storms here this week and lots of cloudy skies. I love weather and this week my smile goes to winter rain and cloudy skies! It’s been nice and cool as well. I am enjoying the cool weather immensely. I will say that the hardest thing I am having trouble with is fitting in walking. I think I am a bit lazy and so procrastinating is part of the problem. I always feel better when I get in a morning walk, but I have been using excuses like its too cold out to walk. I’m a bad girl, but finally this week I told myself just go out and walk! And I got this cool photo which I thought I would share. What makes you smile this week? I have more to share!

I took this photo the other day on my ride because the clouds looked so cool!

One more photo of some clouds and I can tell you that we could probably count the cloudy days here as we get a ton of cloudless sunny days. So that is why I love it when some weather blows through our area. We don’t get snow here, only in the local mountains at higher elevation. I’m very grateful for this weather as outside activity is possible all year around. I like to make a big deal about the weather when it arrives. It rained like cats and dogs last night, even hailed a bit too. We have had so much water that the arena at the barn has a lake in the corner. I’ve shared many photos of this giant puddle (lake) is a better description. We will be getting more rain tomorrow, so its to rain most of this week which we really need. I hope this helps keep us from drought conditions. I think I’ll pull up an old photo and share here of the arena with my horses in the water. I have a fun upside down photo that my phone flipped after I took it.

Fun to reminisce and share this photo once more. I did not flip this photo but my phone did with the mirror image in the water! Pretty COOL!
Here’s a right side up photo. My horses Love the water. They will dig a trench to help drain this corner! The rest of the arena is usable. 😀

It is fun to reminisce and its great to have these wonderful shots full of memories!! I am so thankful I have a ton of great photos to have and to share. I have some fun smiling photos of my grand kids that my family sent that I want to share. I think I’ll just share with less explanation. Haha, I also have a time limit here to write trying to fit in this smile post today!

Teddy’s first visit to the playground! I think he is having a blast and I’m Smiling from ear to ear! Hi Alice and Teddy! 😀

With this last year being as crazy as ever the kids haven’t been to any playgrounds which is totally understandable. I am so happy they are able to get outside a bit now. YAY! and I always love to see them in action. I will end with one kitty that you can guess where he is in the photo that my son sent. It is a good ending to all the smiles I am thinking about this week. I hope you all are smiling or I hope what I share brings you a smile. Thank you for visiting!

How can you not SMILE! Silly kitty!!

Have a wonderful Smiling day!

~Diana ❤

My Weekly Smile; March 3, 2021

On By DianaIn Living life, weekly smile18 Comments
  • Desert Botanical Garden ~ Phoenix, AZ

Welcome to my weekly smile and I have a lot to smile about. I had the most fabulous weekend and I am so excited to share. My daughter and I were able to travel to stay with my son and his beautiful family and celebrate my grandson’s first birthday! I am in grandma heaven! It has been over a year since I have been able to visit and stay the weekend. I am planning on visiting a lot this year as I miss my grandbabies so much. My grand daughter is not a baby any more at 5 1/2 years old and she sure can be silly and enjoys making her baby brother laugh. She is in kindergarten and doing well. She attends virtually at this time. We started out our weekend by visiting the Desert Botanical Garden and I wanted to share some photos. In the photo above those very bright cactus are all made out of glass which is at the entrance, beautiful! 😀

It was perfect weather at the gardens. Teddy with his Dad, Alice looking adorable and Teddy in stroller!
I like to take random photos as we walk, which includes interesting foliage!
My son, wife and Alice getting so big, such a sweet family! ❤ ❤ ❤

We had a great time at the garden and we could not have asked for better weather. The winter in Arizona is perfect and the best time to visit most anything outside. There were so many beautiful plants and flowers and many were blooming. What a fun afternoon! I have to thank my daughter who so thoughtfully planned and booked this outing. I am so happy we were all able to do something together and enjoy the beauty of the desert. I hope you have enjoyed our little adventure as it sure makes me smile! 😀

I have more to share and am so excited we were able to help celebrate Teddy’s first birthday! I wanted to share a few more photo’s of his special day. I have to say that I did not take a lot of photos instead enjoying as much time with the family. I was asked if either my daughter or I wanted to make the cake and I volunteered and made a confetti cake with vanilla frosting. Teddy absolutely loves strawberries and so I put whipping cream in the center of the cake with cut up strawberries. I then lined around the top strawberries I cut in half. I was holding Teddy during the singing “Happy Birthday” song, so my daughter shared her photos so I can share with you. As soon as Teddy got close enough to the cake (Alice helped blow out the candle since Teddy is too little) he grabbed one of the strawberries, so adorable!! ❤

Teddy turns 1 and is eating a strawberry, his favorite!!

I realized and knew strawberries have a lot of water and I tried drying them off really well and they still lost some water on the top of the cake. It tasted delicious, I would share with you but we just about ate the whole thing! It tasted like strawberry shortcake, haha. I cut up the strawberries thinner and smaller for in the middle of the cake. I’m just a home cook and baker, but it is made with Love ~ the best kind of food I think! ❤

I had so much fun last weekend and as anyone that follows me knows I just can’t get enough of family togetherness with miles in between loved ones. Some day that may change but for the long term future my Grandma heart is in Arizona. I am always going to dream of living closer to them, we will see what the future holds! I want to share a few more photos of fun with the family. Just can’t SMILE enough!! 😀

Teddy walks all over the place now! Me and my selfies with Alice and adorable Teddy
Best ending ever! How can you not Smile, they make me laugh and I cried when I left! ❤

Thank you for visiting my smile post for this week. I want to thank Trent who host’s our smile’s and I absolutely Love to share. Not only is it fun to have a place to document my Life and the happenings as I hope it will be fun to go back and visit these fun times. Alice cried when I left, which in turn made me cry. I will be back to visit as often as I can make it happen. I feel so grateful for my family, and I Love each and everyone of you so very much. Here is to many more fun visits and maybe someday I’ll only be around the corner instead of a state away. Someday……

Loving being Grandma!

~Diana ❤

My Weekly Smile; Jan. 28, 2021

On By DianaIn weekend coffee share18 Comments
Our local mountains covered in snow!

Welcome to winter in my corner of the world. We get snow in our local mountains and it is a beautiful sight. I decided to drive to a street nearby my house to get this view. It’s rather pretty with the clouds I think. As I write this smile post I am listening to more rain as a big storm has arrived and we will get more snow in the mountains. The skiers and snow boarders will be in heaven. Where I live we have all these outdoor activities only an hour or so away from you in almost any direction in southern California. If you want to scuba dive, or surf, or go whale watching the pacific ocean is right here for all your fun-filled beach activities. If you love to ski or snowboard, the local mountains have plenty of ski slopes at many locations in the winter. The amazing thing is you can enjoy the snow by owning a cabin or renting one, and visit the wintery months without having to deal with commuting in snow or living in freezing cold weather. I grew up here so it is a great place to enjoy what ever is calling your name. I know you all know my outdoor activities, my horses. 😀

I am so happy with my horses as Chloe, Zack and I head down the trail!

I am REALLY SMILING BIG! I have been able to ride this last week after last weeks rain storm seven days. That just amazes me as I haven’t ridden that many days in a row in years! The shortest ride lasts about 30 minutes and I rode two rides about 45 minutes. This is the whole point of having these cute ponies is to be able to ride them out on our local trails! Not only am I enjoying this immensely, but I know the horses are enjoying our rides as well. They are eager to go out and I believe are getting some really good exercise. It’s a win, win for all of us and I have been joined by my best friends at the stables for a couple of the rides I am counting. I am a lucky gal, and am thankful that I am now at a location where I have easy access to the trails so there is no excuses not to tack up and head out for a ride! ❤

We have had many pretty days and it has been cold for our area.

I know I write a lot about my horses and I do share my rides but for this last week what was exciting was to get out there on the trails almost every single day. I mentioned that another storm is here and it will be raining all night and all day tomorrow so I won’t be able to go out again until sometime this weekend. I am so happy my horses are doing good, are in good shape and are more than happy to get out on the trails! I am smiling from ear to ear!

Thank you for visiting my smile post this week. What makes you smile? I am enjoying our weather, my horses and looking forward to working on some of my crafts with all this rain. I may pull out a gardening book I have so I can start teaching myself how to garden. I have tried a bit and posted about my teeny tiny gardens. I have been thinking I have enough room I would like to make an attempt at a bigger veggie garden this year. I want to put more effort into this and see what I can grow. I hope you have a great day in your part of the world!

Happy Trail Riding Cowgirl!

~Diana ❤

My Weekly Smile; Jan. 12, 2021

On By DianaIn weekly smile22 Comments
These are my sons cats, they are brothers and so handsome!

Welcome to my weekly smile. I have to say I am telling myself to just smile as I was messing around with my WordPress sight trying to manage all the emails that go to my AOL email account. It really doesn’t matter but everything posted through WP whether its notifications or posts or whatever goes to that email. So, I went through the settings and turned a bunch of stuff off under the title “emails” but it somehow stopped sending the notifications to my phone app. So I have posted several posts since New Years and was wondering after this last week why I wasn’t seeing any ones comments. I was thinking maybe my posts didn’t post or something and that’s when it clicked in my head, I think I screwed things up!

I only go on my laptop to write these posts. I enjoy typing on it much better than trying to write posts through the phone app. That’s where I found all these comments I haven’t been seeing, so I apologize and feel lost in space! 😀 This last week I have made a few blunders, and this is one of them! I also messed up the beginnings of a lemon bar, putting 3 cups of sugar that was suppose to go into the lemon curd into the cookie layer underneath. I had to throw it all away and start all over again. I have to laugh at myself, read the recipe carefully Diana!! So I am smiling at making mistakes, because it seems that is my theme this week! 😀

This is a little blurry I think, but I got brave and wore my Star Wars mask at work. Haha, no one cared at all! I felt like such a nerd! 😀

I am also wearing a nerdy Star Wars shirt to go with the mask. Now that I am not a supervisor, I don’t have to have that “in charge” look? or you know, be the responsible looking supervisor. I can be my geeky self and not worry and of course I also work as responsibly as I can and everyone knows that I work hard and do a good job. Anyways, I really wanted to get this smile post out there as I know I don’t need to apologize but as I went through as many missed comments as I could and I tried to respond I may have missed a few folks. I just love the comments and interaction so I have to say, sorry if I missed ya!! Here’s to leaving things alone the way it is set up which works great and I will not mess with the settings again! (I even uninstalled, then reinstalled the WP app on my phone so it would reconnect with the correct settings!) Sheesh, I was really wondering what was going on for this last week or so! Haha, I need to slow down and read instructions and leave some things be just like they are when they work just fine.

The boys saying, hang in there Diana!

I hope you all have a great week!

Crazy setting changing gal,

~Diana

My Weekly Smile; Dec. 10, 2020

On By DianaIn weekly smile10 Comments
  • Welcome to my weekly smile! This little tree topper makes me SMILE!

I really want to participate in this weeks smiles and I have exactly 15 minutes to write this post! Haha, you would think that its easy peasy but I like to put some thought in the lay out and what photos I want to share. And then I re-read my posts over and over again for many reasons. Continuity, spelling errors and I may not be grammatically correct most of the time but I want it to sound like me! (I’m a little OCD, Lol) And sometimes I get stuck and my sentences or thoughts flowing out may not make a lot of sense so I have to rewrite the sentence so things flow like I want.

As I quickly put this together I am hoping it flows nicely and well, if there are errors then that’s what it is as I want to be spontaneous and share my happy week. Today was a beautiful day and I was able to go out on a trail ride. I share so many photos of my ponies which I will today as well. But they sure make me smile over and over again! I wish Zack was a bit more calmer in his box stall as he still gets a bit upset when he can’t see Chloe across the aisle. She will go outside her box stall in her run and stand behind the part of the box stall next to the opening to her barn stall. I took a photo of her stall so you can see the opening and she stands behind this.

  • You can see the opening to the back paddock in Chloe’s stall. She stands behind either side of the opening and Zack can’t see her!
  • Miss Chloe looking out and across the barn aisle is Zack . He can see directly in her stall until she disappears!
Zack getting a treat and he is mostly happy!

There is never an ideal situation for these ponies unless you have a lot of money and can afford your own horse property. One day there will be open paddocks where I use to keep them here as people do eventually move to either other areas or other stables. There is one woman here moving to Texas but she has a box stall with a run, which is more expensive than where Zack is currently living and if I move him he won’t be able to always be able to see into Chloe’s stall. So I think I will have to wait for open (outside) pens or paddocks.

These ponies always bring great joy to my life and now that my schedule has settled down I am able to get into a routine with them which helps them be calmer and more at home. Well, my 15 minutes are up and I have to get going to work. I hope you are all having a great week and thank you for visiting my smile today! Here is a goofy photo of Chloe and she is sending you a kiss!

Happy, trail riding Cowgirl!

~Diana ❤

My Weekly Smile; Nov. 26, 2020 – Thankfulness

On By DianaIn Love being Grandma, weekly smile15 Comments
Table is set, turkey in the oven and sides waiting to be baked! What are you thankful for?

Welcome to my weekly smile where I not only wanted to share some smiles, I also wanted to share some thankfulness. I am truly thankful for being here today with good health and a loving family. I try and stay positive and optimistic in these difficult times where family is spread apart (missing my family and grand children in Arizona) and knowing they are only a phone call away or even a video chat. Speaking of video chat I had fun visiting last weekend and my granddaughter took me to her room which she was so proud of cleaning! They have their Christmas decorations up and she was showing me the tree and all the ornaments. A cute snowman and a pretty Christmas village. It was a great time and chat. So thankful for technology!

Baby Teddy is crawling all over the place and pulling himself up and walking along the couches. He is starting to say dada, and is growing every month. He is 9 months old now and I am hoping I will be able to visit at least once here soon. I may need to get tested if I fly there, but what ever it takes to be safe is no problem at all. Here are a few photos, so adorable!

I was going to crop these photos but decided to leave them. I was looking at the kitties at my house on right side of the photo. Teddy is making a silly face, thought these were cute!

What makes you smile? As we give thanks here for Thanksgiving today, with a bountiful of food and good times. After we ate, the 4 of us were all in the kitchen together as my hubby tore apart the bird for leftovers and I was putting away food and then started washing dishes. The fine china was hand washed and I had help with drying and stacking to put back in the cupboard. It was such a great feeling as I said aloud, “what wonderful help in the kitchen!” As all this was going on, my daughter was preparing dessert. A peach cobbler was put in the oven. How can you not smile! 😀

Dinner is done and after the clean up, peach cobbler fresh from the oven! Yum!

I feel like I have so much more to say but that I will save for another day. I really wanted to get these photos of our day together shared as another Thanksgiving has elapsed and I know that no matter where you are or what you are doing we all should be grateful for another day. I hope you and your family have had a wonderful day the best way possible as I know this has been a crazy year. My sister’s and brother all group text and stay in touch so of course it was a Happy Thanksgiving and Love to all! I’ll end with a few more photos of the day!

Another cute Teddy! I think he is looking at us and dinner! YUMMY!

Thankful Happy Grandma,

~Diana ❤

My Weekly Smile; Nov. 19, 2020

On By DianaIn blogging, weekly smile17 Comments
Welcome to my weekly smile! Isn’t my grandson cute? Haha, this makes me giggle!

I am enjoying this week and wanted to share a smile post. I thought this photo was so funny and couldn’t find a place to share and thought this smile post would be perfect! So silly, but how can you not smile! What makes you smile, are you having a good week? It’s almost the weekend, that should be something to smile about!

I am enjoying my second week at my new job. I am now on the swing shift schedule which is going well. My sleep is great which was the goal of making this change, but my eating patterns are all over the place. The way I ate working night shift was rather strange, so it is all I can do to figure out how much food I want to eat and at what time. May sound strange but I was use to eating only 2 meals a day, may not be the healthiest but my sleep and work hours makes 3 meals a day almost impossible before. I never ate at work, so that was part of the problem. Now, I am to take a 30 minute lunch on swing shift, so I have brought a sandwich with chips to just snacks. I’ll figure this all out eventually! I am happy and smiling at my new hours!

I received baby Yoda as a good bye gift from one of my employees. He fits in with all my crochet Star Wars figures! I need to make more!

I thanked yet again the young man that worked for me at my old job for the gift he got me as he knows I love Star Wars. I sent him this photo and I thought I would share as I just love my little community of Star Wars figures. I have given away many of my crochet figures and need to make more. I am currently making fingerless mittens and if I can make enough of them I wanted to send to family for Christmas. I am a little late getting them stitched together but they stitch up fast, so I’ll see what I can make. After that I will make more Star Wars figures. They are so fun to make! 😀

I really wanted to share a smile post this week and this is going to be fairly short. I say, short and sweet! I need to make a little lunch and then make a sandwich for dinner at work. Haha, here I go again trying to figure out food! I am really happy to be worrying about something like my diet and food instead of all the stress of my old job. Being the supervisor at my old job was really stressful, so much to worry about and 9 employees to deal with! I am a happy camper!

My pretty ponies this week! ❤

I’ll end by saying I am having enough time each morning to tend to my ponies. I am having to sleep later because I go to bed late but that’s to be expected. I am giving myself a break this week as I know everything will fall into place as the weeks go by. Sometimes it seems like weeks have gone by, and then I remember it’s only my second week! Crazy year!! I hope you have lots of smiles this week. Looking forward to the weekend. 😀

Smiling, crochet loving Grandma,

~Diana ❤

My Weekly Smile; Nov. 11, 2020

On By DianaIn Living life, weekly smile11 Comments
My beautiful daughter with her Dad! Both Veterans! ❤

Happy Veterans day to all the veterans currently serving our country and all who have retired and who have served this great country. I have shared this photo before when my daughter promoted to Major, but I surprised my hubby by ordering this canvas print of my veterans that I Love so dearly. I have never ordered a canvas print (all my photos go to Google cloud, then I order from them photo books and decided to try canvas prints. You can order regular prints too. It’s quick and easy so I love it!) I am not trying to write a commercial or promote Google photos, but I am so impressed with its ease I thought I would mention it. I know there are many places to get prints and photo books.

My daughter is finally recognizing her accomplishments, giving herself some credit for all her hard work. I tell her often how proud we are as graduating from the Air Force Academy is no easy feat and she did this with flying colors 10 years ago. This year she has transferred to the Space Force so we will see where she goes on this new career path. My husband is a Viet Nam Vet, and very proud of his service. He served 8 years in the Air Force. He did not fight in Viet Nam, he was supporting the troops that were there.

I am smiling as we honor all that have served. Again, Happy Veterans Day!!

My ponies as I attend to them early morning before work!

I am on day 3 of my new job. Switching to day shift has been a bit tougher than I thought it would be. By the end of the day I feel jet lagged, as I stand all day at work which also includes walking around but it feels like a long day. I know I am feeling a bit tired too because I am learning a new computer system. So my brain is full of all this new stuff. It isn’t difficult now that I see it in action and I am seeing the flow of work through this computer system. Last night driving home it really felt like Thursday, and its only Tuesday! Haha, 3 more days to go but I am feeling refreshed this morning. 😀

I am smiling at this new adventure and am sure once I am on my swing shift schedule I will feel better. I don’t have much time in the mornings to attend to my horses. It’s all I can do to go turn them out and make them run around the arena a bit to stretch their legs. These photos were from yesterday morning. I like the rising sun in some of the photos!

Pretty ponies scratching each other!
What are you looking at Chloe? Zack getting a drink!

I am so happy I have the time to see these pretty ponies every morning as it is my bit of normalcy. I can’t wait for this week to be over because I do not have time to ride. But I tend to them, getting some blood flowing and moving their stiff legs as it’s in the 40’s now at night. I groom them and put them up until tomorrow. I miss riding, but will ride this weekend and any day I want starting next week! So very THANKFUL this new job decided to create these new hours just for me!! They have never employed someone swing shift before, I feel like a guardian angel is looking out for me! SMILING from ear to ear when I think of my new hours! One more photo to share, I hope you all have some great smiles this week. I think there is a lot to smile about. 😀

I kissed her nose, picked up my camera and snapped! Looks like she’s saying thanks Mom! HAHA!

Transitioning Smiling Cowgirl! Loving my Veterans! ❤ ❤ ❤

~Diana

My Weekly Smile; Oct. 14, 2020

On By DianaIn Barn stories, weekly smile21 Comments
My grand daughter Loves to cook as she helps her momma in the kitchen!

Welcome to my weekly smile as I love to share the things that bring me joy in my life and as I look at how happy Alice is in this photo, she just brightens my day! I am grinning from ear to ear, she is just adorable! My birthday is just a week away and these little ones will be coming here for my birthday ❤ that is the best present EVER! I miss my son and his wife and to be able to see baby Teddy crawling, I can’t wait! And my daughter will be coming home too ❤ my heart will be full as we celebrate this milestone birthday. I also treated myself to most of the week off from work! I am grateful the stars aligned so that I didn’t have to cover vacations or any other issues at work to get the days I needed off. Yay! Lots of smiles going on over here! 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀

This year 2020 has been a very strange year. We all know one of the big reasons why. It seems like this year has messed with our brains, haha, not really but I have made decisions I regret but I am thinking I need to learn from these decisions. Exactly six months ago with emotions running high (I am thinking now, don’t make big decisions based solely on emotions) I decided to move my horses with my girlfriend and her horse to where I am at now. Of course, I tried to not be emotional about this move and my girlfriend did have needs she wanted for her horse as she wanted more shade from the sun. The covers where we were didn’t provide enough shelter like she wanted. But I figured this would be a good move for us both.

Fast forward to now and I have made the decision to move my horses back which I am doing at the end of this month. There are many reasons why I am not happy, one of the biggest is not having a riding partner on the trails. Since Gracie is 28 and has EPM which she is being treated for she has a risk of tripping and falling. EPM is a protozoa which lives in her brain, and they are trying to get her immune system to fight it. Zack has EPM too, but he is in remission as far as I know and is doing fine. So, no more trail rides with my dear friend and I have no other riding partners as there just isn’t any boarders that trail ride. All my friends are at the other stables. It is bittersweet leaving my best friend as she wants to stay with the shady stall!

It’s hard to take action shots, but I love how pretty Zack is moving. See how he is stretching out his front and back legs, that is what we consider a good mover with the stretch coming from his shoulder! Chloe is not a good mover, but has healed injuries that have added to her bad movement. She does have a lovely gallop!
This is how I’ve been riding lately. I ride on my bareback pad either on Chloe or Zack in the arena. It’s fun, but I miss the trails and its difficult and not as fun riding alone on the trails here in my town. I am just a bit lonely at this stables when my girlfriend is at work.

I am really excited to move back across town to where there are lovely trails and all my other friends. I was tearful after making this decision. I’ve been torn and almost made this decision a month ago, but didn’t want to leave my best friend. (We have been friends since 10 years old) She finally gave me permission as she said to me last week, take me out of the equation. If you remove me from all your decisions what would you do? I knew in my heart of hearts I wanted to be back to where I was, so I decided to make that happen. Shedding a few tears along the way, I didn’t realize how much I miss all my other riding buddies. My best friend is like a sister to me, we will always be BEST FRIENDS FOREVER!

Instead of regrets, I am going to look at this adventure as a learning experience. I did not know or realize what a social girl I am and how important all the social interaction is to me. Currently when I am at the barn it is like my own place because rarely is anyone there. Maybe one other boarder, but she is up at the barn so we don’t visit. It’s a ghost town, so I get very lonely even though I love my horses, I miss the people. I realize I never want horse property, unless it could be a small gentlemen’s ranch so I could have boarders. Not going to happen in my lifetime, but good to know! 😀

My girlfriend is more of an isolationist, loving the peace and quiet and aloneness way more than I can bare. I guess that is why I blog. I didn’t know what blogging is or how it seems to be and with all the friends and lovely people that share their thoughts and kind words, oh I am in blogging heaven! I never knew and drink it all up and love each and every blogger out there who want to share with me their world. It’s been amazing and am smiling at my smile post! THIS IS ME! and I am discovering me with new realizations all the time. You are never too old to learn, I am grateful for this adventure! I am going to end with a video of Zack feeling his oats running in arena.

Thank you for visiting my smile post today! What makes you smile? I am loving October so far….

Happy cowgirl Grandma,

~Diana ❤