Weekend Coffee Share; Time Flies, June 22, 2024

I Love this beautiful rose!

Welcome to my weekend coffee share. Can I get you something refreshing? Ice tea or ice coffee maybe? Or a strawberry lemonade? It is HOT! We are almost 100F today, it’s summertime. It has taken months for it to be this hot so I am not complaining. I also can’t complain because we have very low humidity at 29%, so thankful as I know there are plenty of people living in high humidity with the high temps. I’ve been super busy and I have to say that I’ve been away for so long I have gotten out of the habit of writing! Darn it all, as I love to share but when you don’t keep up then I feel a bit overwhelmed wondering where I should start as I tend to want to share everything! I feel like I could write a novel! HAHA!

Usually once I start typing and the thoughts start flowing then I can get into a groove and my story unfolds of what’s been happening in my life. I’ll start with a project my eldest sister wanted to make for a family member I won’t name because it’s a surprise for an event or celebration. I am 99% sure this family member doesn’t read my blog posts so I’m going to share here with minimal information. My 2 sister’s and I are making a quilt. My eldest sister had me buy on a website a cross-stitch pattern on material. The design is stamped onto the material and it will wash off so I had to be careful not to get it wet as I stitched. Here is a photo of one of the squares.

You can see light blue lines on the material. Those lines are for the quilter once the quilt is sewn together.

My sister’s were on the phone with me as we scrolled through all the choices and we really liked this cross-stitch pattern with these two colors of blue. I think it turned out great and is beautiful. I stitched 12 squares and it took me 6 months! That is one reason I had to almost stop blogging. I work full time, so I could stitch a little bit before work (but need to take care of Murphy too) and when I got home from work for maybe an hour. Then I had the weekends, but oh my gosh, the time is ticking and I wanted to complete all 12 squares. I could have sent them to my sister’s to finish, but it is my only contribution to the quilt. I realize it is the focal point of the quilt, but it was important to me to complete. It is complete and off to my eldest for her to piece it together with sashing! I’m so EXCITED to see it pieced together!!

My other sister who is my horsey sister and lives in Idaho has a long arm sewing machine. She will be doing the quilting once the quilt is sewn together by my eldest sister who lives in Colorado. This quilt will end up being the traveling quilt by the time it is done! Once completed I know they will send me photos and I can share those and I’ll share more info of the recipient. She will be so surprised and I know will love this quilt made by her Aunties!

Visiting my Mom and Dad!

Riverside National Cemetery, Memorial Day

Since I am a bit behind in blogging, I’m going to head back to the end of May as we went to Riverside national Cemetery to visit my parents. I was in awe with all the flags which makes sense now. They passed in 2003 so its been 21 years and so the area where they are buried is now full of those who have passed these last 21 years. We do not always visit there on Memorial day, and so you don’t always see all the flags. Anyways, I shared with my family members and sometimes I can’t believe how many years have gone by. I think of them often, in different ways and you never know what memories pop up from time to time. I am so happy we were able to make this visit, it was a beautiful day! ❤

Star Wars Land at Disneyland!

My daughter and I visiting Star Wars!

Yummy salmon dinner!

Lobster open faced roll! Delicious

Taking a photo of us with my kids behind us on a ride!

My hubby and me!

We are back in June and my family and I finally made it to Disneyland and Star Wars! We are huge Star Wars fans, so much so I named my middle son Harrison after Harrison Ford! We are only 35 minutes from Disneyland and I thought we should wait for the crowds to die down before visiting the new Star Wars Land. Well, we ended up waiting 5 years! Haha, not intentionally of course. Mostly just getting busy and trying to get everyone’s schedule together so we could meet up and spend the day there. It was a nice day, not too hot. We went the first week of June! We ended up eating dinner at a nice restaurant at Downtown Disney which is in walking distance just outside the park. After dinner we went back into the park to experience more rides! Fun time for all!

How are you doing? Do you need a refill? I have been making a lot of video’s of Murphy because I created a YouTube channel. I am getting a little obsessed with sharing all things Murphy! Haha, it’s very fun, he is so fun. I so enjoy my time with him and I know he enjoys our time together. ❤ I’ll share a link to one of my most watched video’s which has over 2K views. I now have 18 subscribers and 8.4K views as of today. Its crazy there’s people that watch little old me and my sweet horse when there are thousands on YouTube.

I started the channel in March because I was planning on taking video’s of riding Murphy and entering into some online horse shows. The way you enter is uploading your YouTube video, so I created the channel. It’s morphed into just a place to share all things Murphy as I’m just not that interested in showing at this time. Even if it’s as simple as making a video and entering an online show, I’m just busy enough to not be interested. 😀

Enjoying Murphy in the arena! He is my muse and friend. He loves people and attention!

Speaking of Murphy, a funny story! His stall backs up to an elementary school. He can walk to the back and put his head over the fence and greet anyone who walks up to the fence behind him. School is out now for the summer, but when school is in session he greets all who park in the back of the school. There was a water leak from a sprinkler from the school and the barn manager called the school about it and the next day the security guard was out and about and talked to the barn manager after the repair. He asked her, what’s that big horse’s name over there? He pointed to Murphy and she told him his name. He said he greets us every morning, he is so friendly. He’s so tall you can’t miss him! He wants to meet EVERYONE!

I think he is getting use to posing for me and my photos! ❤

Well, this is long enough and I think I’ve caught you up on the happenings around here. I am riding Murphy and he and I are doing great together. I’ve ended with a few photo’s of him that I took recently. I hope you all are having a wonderful weekend. I know some are heading into winter as we get on here with summer. Thank you for stopping by and I want to thank Natalie for hosting the #weekendcoffeeshare link up. Have a wonderful week ahead! 😀

Take care my friends,

~Diana ❤

Weekend Coffee Share; May 21, A Happy But Solemn Day

My sweet roses make me smile!

Welcome to my weekend coffee share, can I get you a cup of coffee or tea? My rose blooms are waning and so are my Iris blooms. I am so happy I took photos so I can still enjoy their beauty. As I write this I am wanting to celebrate my 2 year anniversary of when my sweet horse Murphy arrived and I am so happy and grateful for our journey together, and am excited for our future together, he is so much fun. However, as I titled this post I am very solemn since I had to say goodbye to my most beloved horse Miss Chloe. I’ve posted a tribute and if you missed it you can find the link here. She has left a huge hole in my life and I am going to have to take one day at a time. I knew this day was coming, and I miss her terribly. I haven’t figured out a new routine yet at the barn, everything is in flux, and I know it just takes time to grieve and so I will try and enjoy each day as it comes. Its been a tough year and am hoping and praying for a better second half to this year.

I didn’t want to be all sad, and I didn’t want this post to be a downer so I will try and share more positivity as I am hoping this will help me smile. I have finished all the crochet hats I was making for my sister. She had brought to me when she visited some alpaca wool all spun and ready to use and then she will gift the hats this coming Christmas. They were fun to make! I am more than half way through my cross stitch and so am back working on it as I really want to finish and frame it. Here are a few photos of them.

My cross-stitch looks better in person as I know the grey material makes it more muted in color. The narwhal is almost done and next to stitch is a big orca whale! There is a squid and more small fish to stitch as well. Then the intricate border. The pattern actually called for a dark blue linen but I had grey and thought it would look nice enough. The crochet hats I adore and am thinking of making more hats with my yarn as gifts to my family members. I decided to try and use almost every piece of yarn my sister gave me and made the 2 tricolor hats pictured together. I actually ran out completely and found a multi colored yarn to finish that one hat. I might keep that hat for myself, since it is unique and/or I’ll ask my sister if she would like all of them or not. Haha, I worry about the silliest things sometimes as the yarn isn’t exactly a perfect match but thought it will work so I just stitched it up anyways!

Let’s see, my emotions are all over the place. Normal right? I know life can throw you curve balls sometimes and so I am trying to keep to my routines as this helps keep you sane. At least that’s how I see things. 😀 and I know smiling helps your mood. I have been wanting to start a veggie garden in my containers and so I think I will work on that this week. Ironic or not, now I actually have time in the mornings tending to a small garden since I now only have one horse. I let the horses commandeer many hours of my mornings before I have to go to work. I have so much to think about, keeping busy for idle minds helps.

He sees something next door! When he stands tall, he is VERY TALL!

Murphy is so handsome and beautiful. I want to slowly get going with riding him more often. Now that he is 5 years old he is at a great age mentally to handle more, not that I couldn’t have done that sooner but I keep saying we have all the time in the world. Now that he is my only horse, it feels surreal. I think partly because an era has ended. When you have a 17 year history with someone or a beautiful animal like Chloe you realize that life will be completely different. One day at a time, my new mantra!

Forever in my heart, miss you sweet girl!

Memories are wonderful and I have hundreds of photos. This one is one of my favorites, me and my selfies. 😀 I’ll end with my boy and looking forward to a new adventure as we forge ahead. I needed to write as I find it cathartic. I may sprinkle my sweet Chloe girl in my future posts just because she has a piece of my heart forever. It’s nice to see her beautiful face, she had the hugest heart and loved and touched so many lives in the years she walked on this earth. Run free sweet girl! ❤ ❤ ❤

Love you Murphy, he loves to graze!

Thank you for visiting with me today. I am trying my best to smile and am very thankful I am here to enjoy all that I have in this life. We all have our ups and downs and I know I am truly blessed with all the wonderful friends and family in my life. I want to thank Natalie for hosting #weekendcoffeeshare. I hope you all have a beautiful week ahead. I need to remember to smile often and laugh more, life is too short to not enjoy it to its fullest! ❤

Horse Loving, family loving Gal,

~Diana ❤

Weekend Coffee Share; It’s May, Crafts And Horses!

Welcome to my coffee share, can I get you a cup of iced coffee or tea? It’s warming up outside and I am loving it so much. I think we could definitely sip on a cold beverage as we chat. For those of you who are mother’s ~ Happy Mother’s Day this weekend. I think of my mom up in heaven and know she is smiling down, thinking of her today. ❤ We use to give her a Mother’s Day weekend by giving her some time to herself. Growing up in a big family, our gift was a day or two with Dad as she always gave so much of her time to be the best mom to all of us kids. She gave me her love of flowers, one of her favorites gardenias. She also absolutely loved gardening and really wanted a green house, something that never happened during her lifetime. I always think of her when I see the blooms in my garden. Love you Mom!

I have been enjoying the warmth this weekend. This last week was very cool with overcast sky’s and never reaching 70 degrees. I drank in the coolness as the warm up is here, 88F(31C) degrees this weekend and it’s going up this next week into the 90’s(32C). This is what I am use to here in Southern California. I am ready for the heat as I rather missed it if I’m honest. I know not everyone likes the warm weather but I am very acclimated to it and do just fine. Its a dry heat with no humidity so I enjoy it immensely. 😀

We have been going through a bunch of boxes we had packed up and were storing for a future move one day in the future. We decided to go through and reorganize and donate stuff we really don’t need. We came across this container of match books. I am thinking my parents were collecting these as they are very old and mostly from restaurants! I shared them on my Facebook page and my sister told me her friend collects match books as a way of documenting her travels. That friend messaged me and said she probably has 2k match books! haha, that is a ton of them. Those of us that collect stuff knows we can accumulate a lot. We do have a collection my hubby and I started when we got married. We love the movies and our favorite was Star Wars so yep, we have many Star Wars collectibles!! Do you have collectibles? I would love to hear in the comments!

Onto my other love and that is crafts. I cross-stitch and crochet. I set aside my cross-stitch I was working on when my sister came to visit last month because she brought alpaca yarn. A friend of hers had her alpaca sheared and their wool spun. It is beautiful and so soft. I asked her what she would like and she told me hats. I have a wonderful pattern book with lots of hat patterns and we picked out 3 patterns. I only have photos of 2 patterns as she took the third hat home with her. She left the yarn with me and I have been making hats for her to give away as gifts this coming winter. They stitch up fast, so fun to make!

I decided to try and use up all the yarn and stitched up the 3 colors together. So pretty!

I have so much yarn that I could be making a ton of hats. I went through a scarf craze some years ago and made enough to give as gifts and gave so many away. I have enough family I could make these hats and send to family as gifts and if I really go crazy maybe I will make enough to sell at the local craft fair we have here in town. We will see, I do enjoy making things and am addicted to the crochet right now. I do want to finish my cross-stitch project too. I am about half way through that and need to finish it up soon. I also want to dig out my gardening book and follow the instructions and try and plant some veggies. I am trying to get motivated! For all of you who garden you may say what is the big deal? But I cut corners and the last time I tried to grow tomatoes I did not have much luck. I know it isn’t difficult, I just want to do it correctly. ❤

I am getting more organized with my time at the stables. I actually spend probably too much time there each morning even though I love every minute but if I want to garden then I need to carve out time in the mornings to water and do light gardening before the stables. It sounds easy but I go to bed pretty late and so I don’t get up very early, and I only have so much time in the mornings before I need to get ready for work. It’s all about priorities and like I said being organized! I can do it, I just need to plan. 😀

A short video of Murphy today after a great ride! He is such a good boy!

Murphy is so happy!

Getting ready for a trail ride on Chloe!

Happy ponies! Miss Chloe enjoys grazing as well and I am thankful we have the grass around the stables so they can graze away the hours. Haha, I could spend hours letting them eat but usually it’s about 15 minutes or so which they enjoy immensely. Murphy is really filling out as he has grown into his body. I’ll share a photo of when I got him, lets see the difference!

Murphy in 2021, he is 3 years old!

He looks pretty handsome in this older photo but for those who can spot the slight ribs he shows and he isn’t as muscled as a three year old. I have a photo that really shows his youth and I’ll share it here;

Murphy when I first got him 2 years ago. He really looks young in this photo!

It is amazing how much they mature in a few years. It is fun to look back and the grazing photos don’t always show as much with their neck down as they get so much muscle in their necks as well! I am so enjoying both my horses so very much. They help keep me grounded and keep me focused on the task at hand. When I am with them I give them all my attention because horses can tell if you are not in the present. If your mind wonders or you aren’t focused, they know it! I also enjoy their interactions with me as we spend time together. They are such intelligent animals, so much we can learn from each other. 😀

Thank you for visiting today. I enjoy sharing and I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and week ahead. Thanks to Natalie who hosts the #weekendcoffeeshare link up. I will try and visit others if I have time this weekend. It is going to be another beautiful day tomorrow. I told my son for Mother’s Day I would like to see a movie. We are going to see Guardians of the Galaxy 3 as I love sci-fi and have seen the first 2 movies. I have heard great reviews as well. Happy Mother’s Day for all who have furry friends as we are moms to all our animals too! ❤

Family and Animal Lover,

~Diana ❤

Weekend Coffee Share; Winter Rain In January ~ 2023

Welcome to my coffee share, can I get you a cup of coffee or tea? Today it is a cup of nice hot coffee for me as I welcome in the new year. I am worried as I write this that we are not going to see any dry weather for most of this month and for us here in Southern CA that is very unusual. We are so wet, like drowned rats! My horses are surviving but its a muddy mess out there and it’s all I can do to keep a dry space in their stalls. We’ve had so much rain last month and as we get a break in the rain, another storm is on its way and so I feel like we are in this perpetual spiral of rain, a break then more rain. It is at this point never ending!! Rain, rain please go away and come back another day!

I know we need the rain and more importantly the snow pack. I know that many lakes were starting to dry up and I believe all the weather here on the west coast has brought up the levels of many lakes and I believe we are closer than ever to getting out of the drought we’ve been in and so it’s all a good thing all the rain. At this point I am looking forward to Spring. 😀

I had a nice visit in Arizona last month with my grandkids. My son and family found a bigger house right around the corner from where they were living for the same lease payment and so they decided this would be a good move for them. It is literally in the same neighborhood so it made moving there so easy for them. It is a nice big house, unlike the smaller townhome they were in and they have a small backyard so the kids can play outside. The townhome did not have any yard at all, so this was a really good move for them. I don’t have any photos of their new house, but I will share some photos of our visit.

Cute Teddy with Auntie!

Alice is so adorable!

We enjoyed Christmas a week early in Arizona and was able to attend Alice’s Christmas Winter Wonderland singing with her grade. She was so cute singing up with her friends. And Teddy is almost 3 years old and is talking so good now. They are growing up so fast, I wish we lived closer!

Me and my selfies with the kids. I am thinking my phone was not very clean as my selfies are not very clear, oh well, they are still fun to share! 😀 And Alice at the school singing event. She is waiting for them to start! LOVE my grandkids SO MUCH!! ❤

My sweet family!

We had a great meal together on our last night in Arizona. I took this cute photo of my son and his wife and the two grandkids. The best family ever and I miss them so much! I am glad we can easily drive there as I know they could live even further away. I am not sure what the future holds for where we will live someday and where they may live some day. They have talked about moving back to CA, that would be awesome. At this point we are here in California to stay as making these huge decisions is not easy and not to take lightly. I will plan on visiting my grandkids in AZ often this year. That is something I know I can do easily. ❤

How is your coffee or tea? Can I get you a refill? I wanted to share that I finished my cross-stitch that I was working on and now that it is completed I plan on framing it up and giving it away. I have started on another project I plan on framing up once completed and keeping so that’s why I am going to give away this project. Here is a photo of it finished but not framed yet.

I enjoyed making this and Love the quote!

I am enjoying cross-stitching and will share soon the new project I have started. I will continue with cross-stitch until I finish this new project and maybe I will go back to crochet, I haven’t decided yet. I really enjoy creating things, it fills that side of my brain and I love seeing things come to life while working on these fun crafty things. I find the time I spend creating very relaxing too!

I am hoping to work in my garden this year. I never got going last year and lost all motivation. I do not do new year resolutions and to be honest I do not ever set any goals either. I do not really give it much thought as I go from one day to the next ~ I just try and enjoy each day to it’s fullest. I realize though, some things need planning and so I think if I look forward to working in the garden and try and grow some veggies this year maybe I can get excited about that and be more thoughtful with my planning. We will see and I will have to keep you posted on my progress.

I thought I would end with my horses grazing. This was the other day and the sun was out and I was able to wash off Chloe so that is why she is all wet. I rinsed her off after I rode her out on the trail. Murphy likes to roll and has been rolling in the wet sand in the arena. When he dries off I can brush the sand off of him easily. They are doing good despite all the rain and the muddy stalls. They have a dry area under their shelters which I am thankful for at this time.

Thank you for visiting with me as it is always nice to share with you all. Thank you Natalie for hosting the #weekendcoffeeshare link up and I hope you all have a wonderful day and week ahead.

Rained Out Smiling Grandma,

~Diana ❤