My Weekly Smile; For June 24th – Furry Family!

Welcome to my weekly smile. The first photo here is Murphy from a couple months ago. The barn manager where he lives took this photo and sent it to me when I was visiting my daughter for the weekend. How can you not smile at him. 😀 I like how the photo almost looks like a painting which could be because of the photo being transferred from one media or phone to another. I am so very grateful for Murphy in my life. This week I’m smiling and enjoying all the animals in my life, and decided to start with Murph!

Duchess is so sweet!

Dinah is relaxing, I’m giggling!

The sister’s are doing great and have the run of the house. As you can see, Dinah is sleeping in a bit, haha! Silly kitties! And here they are with my son. I call him the cat whisperer as they both love him a lot!

The lighting isn’t the best in this photo because it was so bright outside. I still like it though, as the kitties with my son are just adorable. This just makes me SMILE! 😀 They love being around us, especially my son!

One more photo of Dinah, she’s so pretty!

Our sweet BZ girl!

Sharing my photo’s of our furry family is so much fun. BZ is doing really good. She is completely healed and going strong. She loves to play with her doggy bed as you can see in the photo. She bites at it and pushes it around. She’s so silly. I hope my smiling post is making you smile too! Haha, I have one more sweet photo that my daughter shared with me and I think it will be a perfect ending to this post.

But before I wrap up this post I wanted to thank everyone here in this blogging community. I want to thank all of you who have given me support in sad and hard times and have been here encouraging me even if its been in liking my blog post. I see everyone, even if there are no comments. I thank you for encouraging the good and fun posts too. I am a positive person and do not like to dwell in sadness but life can sure throw us curveballs. I know this is all just part of life, and I’ve learned over the years it’s okay to feel happy and sad at the same time. I think you know what I mean, and that’s why its good to start each day thinking about what makes you smile?

My daughter’s kitties, Mousse on the left and Molly on the right!

Isn’t this the best photo! My daughter’s kitties make me SMILE! Keep smiling, laughing, and enjoy each and every day. I also want to thank my sweet family for all of their support as well. I want to thank Trent for creating and hosting the Weekly Smile. Life is to short to not enjoy every day! 😀

Grateful, Smiling, Animal Lover,

~Diana ❤

My Weekly Smile; End Of January

Reminiscing and remembering my sweet Chloe girl! ❤

Welcome to my weekly smile. I haven’t shared a smile post since last September and to be honest, I haven’t been writing much these days. I’ve started this post at least three different times, having trouble finding the words that use to flow so easily as I’m struggling these days with lots and some of life’s biggest challenges. Some of these challenges are things like when should I retire? Where should we live once we retire? and I worry about some of my family members who struggle with mental health issues. Other than these things that have been occupying my mind, I am trying to find all the small things that make you smile! So here I am hoping I can find the words and the small things that make me smile. 😀

I had memories on my social media this last week of my sweet horse Chloe that I shared. It actually brought me great smiles as I reminisce and remember my sweet girl. That is why I thought I would share a photo of her to open up this smile post. She brought so much joy in my life and I know she is at peace and out of pain now. She was with me for 18 years, and even though I miss her immensely I am very grateful to have Murphy to love on and share my mornings with each day.

Murphy and I having a great ride!

Murphy is so much FUN! I lie a tiny bit, as he is very fun to ride and is very respectful but when I work with him on the ground and lead him around to get from point A to point B he is sometimes a challenge and disrespectful. I have realized that in my kindness to him, I’ve let him be the leader of the 2 of us and so when I challenge him to follow me he puts up a fuss and sometimes refuses and acts out. My sister was here for a couple of weeks in January and she has helped me immensely with his ground manners and he is so much better. She has found a good trainer with good YouTube videos that we have been watching, and with his guidance we have really got Murphy thinking smarter and he has been so much better. I know we are on the right path with his manners! This makes me smile! 😀

My sister having fun riding my sweet guy!

I do enjoy the challenge he brings even though I’ve had some frustrating days working with him the last few months. He and I are learning so much together. It’s been a hot minute that I’ve had to train a young horse and he has quite the personality. He is sensitive but strong willed. He’s big and very tall which can be intimidating. I’ve learned that he is very smart and a fast learner and I have respect for his size and he doesn’t worry or scare me as our bond has grown immensely. He doesn’t want to hurt me, he mostly wants to do what Murphy wants to do, but he’s too big to let him have his way. So I have learned ways that convince him that it is better to follow my lead and do what I would like to do and believe me I do not ask him to do anything that would ever hurt him and I don’t exercise him to death either! Haha, meaning I don’t ride him for hours and I try and make all that we do fun together. He truly is a sweet guy!

If you click on the photos you can see them better and these photos have my girlfriend Sally riding her horse Roscoe with my sister riding Murphy. We had so much fun together! This makes me smile too! 😀

While my sister was visiting we took a hike in the local hills here in my town to Pumpkin Rock. You can see the view from the rock on this hazy January day. I’ve shared photos of this hike before and I’m trying to remember maybe a year ago or so? Anyways, my sister loves the outdoors and hiking, walking, jogging and riding horses! She is two years younger than me and we share so many passions together. The horses and our crafts. She makes me smile! 😀

I’ll end this crazy smile post with Murphy eating his lunch. He’s a good eater which I am thankful for as he maintains his weight easily. He eats a lot with his size, haha! He reminds me of like a goofy Marmaduke, love the way he looks at me! As I wrap this up I am feeling better and am happy I finally got pen to paper as it were…. I suppose the best way to end this is what makes you smile?

Have a great day!

~Diana ❤

My Weekly Smile; Sept. 4th, 2023

Summer Blooms!

I am smiling at my beautiful rose blooms. We had some recent summer rains and the plants just love the fresh water. They smell so wonderful! My honeysuckle has been blooming too and I just love the smell as I pick a small flower and enjoy the perfuming smell. I am smiling as I finally got some needed planting done this last weekend.

My hubby’s cousin had sent a living basket in memory of my hubby’s Mom and there were 5 different plants in this basket that were really getting root bound and I’ve been meaning to repot them. Finally, today I was able to get 2 big pots and I split up the plants and I know 4 of them should do great but one was not doing good and I almost didn’t replant it but I thought I would give it a try. We will see if it takes off growing in the new pots. These new pots are large and I figured they can grow for quite awhile before I may need to separate them again. Here is a photo! 😀

My new potted plants in pretty green pots!

I really didn’t want 5 separate pots and I really like the size of these green pots. They were so reasonable and they are plastic made from recycled plastic found in our oceans. I think that is so cool! As you can see in the green pots 4 different plants and the 5th plant is so tiny as it was being squished in the tiny basket you can’t see it in the photo. I will see if it starts to grow and if not it’s okay. The plant in the center on the chair is my arrowhead plant my husband bought for me 34 years ago when our second child was born. I was suffering from post-partem blues and to cheer me up he bought me a living bouquet much like the one that was recently gifted to us by my husbands cousin.

Where I live my outdoor/indoor house plants 😀 thrive under the porch with no direct sun and have grown very large over the years. All of my plants are over 30 years old and now there are new additions which I will have to put in my will for my kids to take care of I’m thinking! Haha, I just love these plants. ❤ ❤ ❤

My sweet kitties, Duchess on the left and Dinah!

My sweet kitties bring me huge smiles. I haven’t shared a photo of them in awhile. They are laying there waiting for their dinner. I thought I would try and take a photo and it turned out pretty good. Silly kitties! They are actually sister’s but look nothing alike. They may have different father’s as I heard that can happen too. As I think about what makes me smile, I will end with my sweet Murphy!

This is Labor Day Weekend, my sweet Murphy!

Thank you for stopping by my smile post for this week. I think it is good to think about things to be grateful for big and small and the things that make us smile! Have a great week!

Feeling Thankful and Smiling,

~Diana ❤