Tag: #smilingphotos

My Weekly Smile; April 8, 2021

On By dprastkaIn weekly smile28 Comments
I lost my seat! Haha, what’s the saying? Move your feet, lose your seat! ❤

Welcome to my weekly smile! 😀 I was sitting here thinking what makes me smile this week? I love to share but when you share weekly it seems like I just share the same thing over and over again. I know I change it up a bit when I can but a couple of thoughts have popped into my head for this week. I am hoping to write a separate blog post about the work that I do. How I got involved in Veterinary laboratory work is 100% because of the animals I own, I am such an animal LOVER! So my smile this week goes to all my animals! And Duchess in the photo I am sharing just took my seat!

I got up to start cooking my artichoke. I just love artichokes and cook it for about an hour and then enjoy it’s goodness and am having that for lunch today. I walked back from the kitchen and my seat has been taken, haha! I know all animal lovers can relate if you own a cat. I think cats own you, and own the house! I know I can easily move her but it isn’t the only seat in my family room, so I relocated. I have all my crafty stuff near her chair as I work on crochet projects. You can see my laptop as I am getting ready to write this post! She is super happy all curled up sleeping away!

My other kitty is on my bed all curled up as I disturbed her for a photo! She loves our bed, silly kitty!

I have written and shared a lot about my cats. They are sister’s even though they look nothing alike. Maybe they had different dads, but they came from the same litter. I adopted them from my son’s family as they had them as very tiny kittens. My daughter-in-law LOVES cats, especially kittens and would have a house full if she could. They added more kittens to the mix and they didn’t all get along as they grew into adults. They tried everything, and it was in their best interest if they came and lived with us and I am so Happy! They sure make me SMILE! 😀

The girls as kittens, so adorable!
My dogs BZ the shepherd mix and Drew the border collie! They are the sweetest pups, we LOVE them so much!

I could have so many more pets. I actually live in an area where I could have chickens. They would be hen’s and we would have lots of eggs. I suppose they wouldn’t be exactly pets, but they would be more animals to take care of and to be honest I feel like the extra care would fall on my shoulders. I know I have heard they need very little care, but you can’t just ignore them, any extra care right now in my busy life is just not what I want right now! Haha, the thought of chickens just doesn’t interest me at all. Anyways, can’t think of a better segue as you all should know by now my last animal I own is my horse!

Miss Chloe loves to graze! This is from a few weeks ago and you can see the grass is not as lush as it is now!

Thank you for visiting my smile post for this week. I’m smiling at the 5 animals we have that enrich our lives. They are funny, goofy, lovable and they bring so much to the world we live in. They help keep me sane and give me many, many smiles and fun days. I hope you all are having a great week! I have one more funny photo to share, because cats are just so silly! ❤

Have a happy week and weekend! If you would like to visit more smile posts click here! Thank you Trent for hosting!

~Diana ❤

My Weekly Smile; March 29, 2021

On By dprastkaIn Family is important, weekly smile17 Comments
  • Desert blooms!

Welcome to my weekly smile! I had such a wonderful weekend visiting my family in Arizona. I was in Grandma heaven as I spent the weekend with my son and his family. I can’t get enough of them and feel extra excited because I had just visited last month for baby Teddy’s first birthday and then I was able to return so that my son and wife could celebrate their anniversary. They had a wonderful time together and I had so much fun baby sitting. They have a lot of energy these little ones and I was able to take them for a walk in the neighborhood and thought I would share some photos.

My grand daughter said she knows some tricks with her scooter! She is so cute as she balances on one leg and holds up the other. She only scooted around half the block though, giving it up to walk. Lucky the scooter fits under the stroller so I didn’t have to carry it and push the stroller. As we rounded the corner there was a road runner and he didn’t shy away at all! I should have zoomed in but if you click on the photo I think you can see him pretty well. I should have walked all the way around their complex – they live in a townhome in a very nice area. My grand daughter was getting tired and I hate to say she was whining but yes, she was saying she was tired and I thought it best to cut through the complex for a shorter walk. Haha, she wanted to sit in the stroller with baby Teddy! I told her she doesn’t fit and she is 5 1/2 years old and the exercise is good for her. Oh my, she’s so adorable and silly. I think she likes acting like a baby around me because you know, I’m Grandma! She sure makes me smile! 😀

I don’t know when I started to take selfie photos with the grand kids but it has become sort of my “thing”. It’s funny because I don’t particularly like seeing photos of myself but the selfies became a ton of fun! I have tried taking selfies with my horses, Haha! Now that is difficult because they are so huge. I once had a selfie stick which back when I got it as a gift years and years ago, I never used it and it is long gone. So I just go with the length of my arm selfies, and my grand daughter gets so excited she just makes funny faces. It’s fun and so now I have to add Teddy to the mix so here are some selfies that turned out I think….. well, at least the ones here aren’t too blurry! The kids move so much, I deleted the blurriest ones. I hope you enjoy them too! They sure make me SMILE!

  • Silly faces!
  • More silly faces! Haha!
  • He is so adorable! ❤

I so enjoyed my time away and now it’s back to work this week. The sun is shining and my heart is full! What makes you smile? I wanted to get this together today and I have just enough time to make my lunch before I head to work. I will end with one last photo of the brothers. It was great to see them and they curled up together and I got to take this photo.

They were very friendly except when they were on my bed they tried to bite my toes under the covers! Silly kitties. I hope you all have a wonderful week and thank you so much for visiting!

Happy Grateful Grandma,

~Diana ❤

My Weekly Smile; March 10, 2021

On By dprastkaIn 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; Jan. 12, 2021

On By dprastkaIn 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. 30, 2020

On By dprastkaIn Barn stories, weekly smile20 Comments
Happy Trails after a lot of rain!

Welcome to my weekly smile! I have a lot to smile about this week with the rain and my pretty ponies. We had some much needed rain which I have a love hate relationship with as I LOVE rain, but its aftermath not so much at the barn. My horses live in very nice accommodations now so I am not complaining as much any more. But the arena gets really wet but drains pretty fast after the sun comes out the next day. As long as the rain storms are spread apart, then its a beautiful thing. One of the most beautiful displays of the storms that come through here in winter, is all the snow that falls on our local mountains! It is just gorgeous and my camera probably doesn’t do it justice as the snow capped mountains are captivating! Here are a couple of photos, how can you not smile!

This is looking out from my front porch! I see this every day and am SMILING!
Beautiful snowy mountains on my trail ride yesterday!

The above photo was not easy to take as I was riding my horses, asking them to stand still “Whoa” I said, as they kept taking one or two steps on the trail. I have Zack’s lead rope, Chloe’s reins, haha, holding the phone I zoomed as much as I could and took this photo. I think it turned out pretty good considering all it took to take. I am a happy camper. The first photo I shared was just as difficult to take as all Chloe wanted to do is head home, and the barn is just past the tall palm tree on the left down the trail and as I tried to “Whoa” she wasn’t going to stop. She wasn’t bad but I thought I better snap a photo so the camera focused on her instead of the background which is a bit blurry but I thought a fun shot! I really like my shadow in that photo too. Photo Fun! 😀

You can see the standing water in the arena. This is rain day, raining on and off all day! And Zack is winking at you! Silly ponies! ❤
Enjoying each others company!
Hi Zack! He got body clipped as he grows a very long winter coat. This will be more comfortable for him.
Always looking for a treat! Haha, unfortunately I did not have one in my pocket but they beg anyways!

Can you believe it is December 30th? Just one more day of 2021 and even though this next year may be more of last year as I think it will take months if not longer to feel “normal” again, what ever normal is these days. But this year seemed very long and drawn out so it’s end is something I think we all long for….. I miss my family in Arizona, I pray for all affected by this pandemic, the lives that are loss and the loved ones sick. We all here are doing well and praying for this to all go away hopefully, eventually soon. I don’t want to pretend like I am not taking things seriously as we all are taking precautions and doing our part the best as we can. Hence why I like to share my smile posts. We all need some smiles, something to look forward to and something that makes us HAPPY! I will end with a photo that I took last week as I was challenged wearing my huge Christmas light bulb earrings with a mask. I have so many Christmas earrings and some are very large and putting on and taking off a mask was not easy. Luckily, once I put on the mask it stays on the whole time I am at work, until I eat lunch or go home! 😀 😀 😀

Have a wonderful, smiling New Year! Cheers to you and your families!

Love, Diana ❤

My Weekly Smile; Aug. 18, 2020 – SURPRISE!

On By dprastkaIn Love being Grandma, weekly smile14 Comments
  • Welcome to my weekly Smile! What are they looking at? A surprise at my house!

I know a rather unconventional opening but I really wanted to make this a surprise as my smile post this week is about the most fabulous weekend with my family. So if I used one of my other photos I will be sharing, then you would guess right away why I have the biggest SMILE right now. I am so excited to share! 😀

As we try and make sense of things with all that is happening in this crazy world my son and family decided they needed to come to California to visit my daughter-in-laws grandfather who is unfortunately very ill. My condolences to their family as he only has a short time with liver failure. I hate making this sad occasion into one of my happiest, I feel like I should apologize as this was not my plan but I can’t help but feel overjoyed because I finally met my baby grandson!! AND it was wonderful to see my granddaughter Alice! ❤ (I think I will be forgiven.)

  • Teddy has chubby cheeks!
  • He is pulling my hair, those little hands!

Oh my goodness! They only came for two days with one day spent with her family and the next they spent the afternoon at my home. So much FUN! Thank you dear Lord, I can’t tell you how happy I am to finally meet baby Teddy. Isn’t he just adorable? Well, I am prejudice I know but I just had to share as these are my only grand children and so any minute I can see them, hold them and share some love makes Grandma’s HAPPY!

  • He is such a cutie patutie! He is on a blanket his great aunt Bonnie made for him! ❤
Mom and son! Beauty and Cutie!

I have some more photos to share, selfies with my granddaughter. They aren’t bad, a little blurry here and there. I am sharing anyways! This is what makes me smile as I am remembering this last weekend. I welcome this kind of surprise any day! I didn’t find out they were coming until last Friday. It all worked out so great.

She is getting so big! Love you so much Alice!

As I was getting ready to write this blog post my phone rang and it was my son calling and Alice wanted to talk to me and tell me about her kindergarten class. It is online and she was telling me on the phone about this cookie jar. It was so cute talking to her as we have not done this often. We did video chat the weekend before this which I always love as well. I just wish we lived closer so I could help more and babysit to give mom and dad a break. In time, we will see what the future holds.

Thank you for visiting my wonderful smile post this week. I have been meaning to get this together. I have been dealing with a heat wave here where we live, it’s been really miserable trying to take care of all the animals. We had to take one of my dogs to the vet for skin problems. He is okay, got some shots and is on antibiotics. It’s always something, I don’t talk about the always something but I know we have these in our lives. I hope you all can find something that makes you smile? We all need smiles, I’ll end with how I began as these two make me smile as well! 😀

  • Thanks for stopping by! Chloe and Zack say thanks for the treats. I gave them some for you!

Happy Cowgirl Grandma,

~Diana ❤

My Weekly Smile; Aug 5, 2020 – Birthdays!

On By dprastkaIn Love being Grandma, weekly smile18 Comments
  • Happy Birthday!

Welcome to my weekly smile! And what makes me smile this week is BIRTHDAYS! YES! It is birthday month. The first birthday this week which has been celebrated is for my beautiful grand daughter, Alice. She turned 5 and I can’t believe she is 5 years old and is starting kindergarten. I was able to get a care package together with lots of presents for her and some extra gifts and baby clothes for her baby brother. She is so special to me as grand children are and I know not everyone is a grand parent, but it makes me wish as I think back that I was able to see and be with my grand parents. They lived states away and I rarely saw them. May they rest in peace.

As I am smiling at the wonderful photos I will share, I am also smiling at all the birthdays this month. My brother’s birthday was this week also. He lives in Reno, NV and we do not visit as often as I would like so am hoping some day I can visit all my relatives more often. Something that I was planning on doing this year until travel was stopped or hampered, darn it all…. but let’s talk about smiles! Stay on track, Diana! Lol 😀

  • Beautiful, special, loving grand daughter!
  • She’s funny, happy, playful, silly and oh so ADORABLE!
  • My favorite! ❤ ❤ ❤

Missing her like crazy! My son has asked me if I could come and babysit these cutie patutie grand kids some time soon as he would like to take his wife out camping for a weekend get-a-way. I would absolutely Love to do this but it is all just in the planning stages right now, so I can wait patiently and hopefully something will fall into place. The way things have gone this year its really flipped everything upside down and this is my weekly smile so let’s keep on smiling, shall we? YES! What makes you smile? Here is more!!!

  • This is my best friend, Sally! It is her birthday next week!

The celebrating continues as next week is my best friends birthday! She reads my blog posts so “Happy Birthday Sally!” She will be surprised to be one of my featured photos! She brings me SO MANY SMILES as she is my companion with her beautiful horse Gracie. We will be trail riding later this morning. I CAN’T WAIT as ya’ll know how much I Love my ponies and my trail rides! I will help her celebrate next week because that is what friends are for, right? She is like a sister to me as we have been together since we were in grade school (over 50 years!) we have shared so much together. I’m SMILING from ear to ear! 😀

I’m going to wrap up my smile post today wishing all my relatives a Happy Birthday. There are 2 more sister’s with birthdays this month. One is August 23 and the other is August 26 and to be honest I can never remember who’s is on what day, but Facebook will remind me and/or I will look on my calendar list of birthdays. My nephew’s birthday is Aug 14th and I believe my other nephew’s wife has a birthday this month too, busy month. HAPPY BIRTHDAY family! ❤

  • The brother’s holding hands! 😀

Thanking my son for the wonderful kitty photos, these brothers are so adorable. I am so thankful I have a place to share all my smiles! I thank you for visiting and am hoping you all have a wonderful week and to remember to smile and enjoy each and every day!

Feeling grateful, Happy Smiling Grandma!

~Diana ❤