Tag: #weeklysmile

Weekend Coffee Share; Weekly Smile Fun in April!

On By DianaIn Living life, weekend coffee share, weekly smile18 Comments
  • My bloom in my garden! A gift from a friend last year, blooming this year!

Welcome to my weekend coffee share where we share what’s been happening in our lives with old friends and new! What can I get for you today? I have both coffee and an assortment of teas. I have recently discovered how much I like Earl Grey tea and have been drinking it more often. This last week was a busy week as we celebrated birthdays. It was my hubby’s birthday and my sweet daughter’s. My daughter’s birthday is one day after my hubby’s. She came home for her birthday and spent time with one of her best friend’s here who’s birthday is one week earlier so it’s a busy birthday month! I am going to also call this my weekly smile post. I’ve always written these posts separately but this week was super busy so I’ll use this post for both. 😀

My daughter bought tickets to an outdoor symphony at the beach. It was super fun and an adventure to drive an hour to the beach to attend this small intimate style concert literally at the beach. It was held at Bolsa Chica State Beach which is in Huntington Beach, Ca. We arrived early enough to order food that was there for us so it was dinner and a concert that was approximately an hour long. The symphony was performed by Orchid Quartet and these women are part of the LA Philharmonic Orchestra and the music was excellent. The last performance included a keyboard player who travels and performs with the quartet. The only thing about this evening at the beach was that it was a bit chilly. It was barely 60F (15C) with the wind it felt colder. We dressed warmly and brought blankets which helped. It was super cloudy, looked like storm clouds but it did not rain. I captured some fun photos I will share. They make me SMILE!

Sealegs at the Beach restaurant is where the venue is hosted and you can see the quartet all bundled up performing!

I loved being at the beach and should visit more often and I am smiling as the drive to and from the concert was traffic free! We have so much traffic here in California and we just happened to be driving the other direction during rush hour and left early because we thought it would take us longer. So thankful it was such a nice easy, fun adventure! I have some video’s I want to share. This music is close to my heart as I just LOVE classical music and some of the pieces I can play on the piano. It was beautiful to hear this string quartet play, so enjoyable. They played Beethoven, Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky to name a few composers. I hope you enjoy!

The second video is Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin and there is the piano player on the keyboard behind the speaker on the left side of the stage. We were sitting at a picnic table in the back. The picnic tables were cheaper and we were a group of four. They had fire pits which cost more and seated more people. My daughter said it was just about sold out online but there were many empty seats so I am thinking the weather may have kept people from attending. Here are more photos of our fun adventure! 😀

Haha, this is a really up close selfie! I almost did not post but thought why not, its cute I think 🙂 The wind made our ears cold!
Aww, my beautiful daughter and the sun a bit bright washing us out but have to share! ❤
Besties, love these girls to the moon and back again! ❤ ❤ ❤

Such a fun week and I love the setting sun, how can you not smile watching the sun shining through the clouds! I’m so thankful for all our family and friends!

There were over 35 cargo ships sitting out in the sea waiting to be unloaded is our best guess. Port of Long Beach is just around the corner. Maybe the unloading takes longer due to Covid? We’ve never seen so many ships anchored off shore.
You can see more ships out there in this photo. The sun is really trying to shine through the clouds as it sets!

Thank you for visiting my coffee share and I hope I brought you a smile or two as well. I am smiling and am so happy I could spend these days with my family. Since we were down in Huntington Beach we stopped by a dear friend who is my hubby’s best friend. My daughter hasn’t seen him in quite awhile and we were only 15 minutes from his place so it was fun to visit with him. My daughter had to get back home but am so thankful for the time we get to spend together. It will be my turn to drive and visit her soon as I haven’t seen in person her kitty that I am so excited to meet.

I have to thank Trent for hosting the Weekly Smile and Natalie who hosts the Weekend Coffee share! I so enjoy sharing and thank you so much for visiting. I hope you have a fabulous weekend and wonderful week ahead.

Beachcomber Mom,

~Diana ❤

My Weekly Smile; April 8, 2021

On By DianaIn 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 DianaIn 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 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; Feb. 18, 2021

On By DianaIn weekly smile14 Comments
Welcome to my weekly smile! These roses were blooming a few weeks ago at the stables where I board my horse.

I decided that I needed to smile and this beautiful rose I saw and stopped and took a photo sure makes me smile. It’s that beautiful pink color! And I can imagine the beautiful smell as I just Love the smell of roses. How are you this week? I am doing good and as I sorts things out I am the type of person that looks to the future and remembers the past with super fond memories. I have been enjoying our mild winter and for those of you in places of wintery weather, my heart goes out to you all. Especially in those places that do not commonly have such frigid cold and are suffering with power outages and the like. I pray for warm weather soon!

I have been working and enjoying my time at the barn with my horse Chloe. She makes me smile as she is always very happy to see me and we enjoy the trails whether it be with a trail partner, or not. My best friend and I have been able to go out which is great therapy as we chat about life as we ride along! When my friend is not available, it is just Chloe and I. She has so many trail miles and knows the way, like she has GPS in her brain! Which she does right? She totally knows the blocks, the turns and knows exactly where she is going!

Usually us crazy horse gals match everything! But I randomly bought this red halter and lead rope a few months ago. So now we are very patriotic. Haha, with her white blaze, red halter and my blue reins and breast collar! 😀

We are all tacked up and ready to head out on the trails. She and I just ride along and I take in everything. From the song birds, to the clouds in the sky. To the cars that go by, which on this day there were a lot of folks that waved as they passed by. This is rather common in our town since it is a small community and everyone so friendly. Today I got more than normal waves! I felt so special. Haha, it truly was such a nice feeling. Here is a video of my trail ride on this day. 😀

This trail ride was so wonderful for us both. Enjoying this pretty day today!

I am actually riding out on the trails more often than not which is my goal. I own horses because I love to ride! I sometimes wish I could afford a couple more horses so that I could get back into competition riding, but at this point in my life it is just a dream. Maybe it will always remain a dream because competing is expensive, and I don’t have that horse at this time, but I love every minute I spend with my girl Chloe! I think we all should have dreams, its important to our psyche and so this is what I dream. I dream of living near my grandkids some day too. It may or may not happen, but for now it is something I have had to put on the back burner because I just got a new job. So we will revisit this in another year or two.

I really wanted to share a smile post this week, it makes me feel good to share! So my smile is for the mundane things I do each day (they aren’t all that mundane, haha, but it is the same routine day in and day out!) Makes me feel warm, sane and happy.

She’s a pretty girl and am thankful for Miss Chloe! I Love her and she melts my heart!

Have a great day, week and weekend!

Horse Crazy 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. 30, 2020

On By DianaIn 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; 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 ❤