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 and Square Challenge Fun

My beautiful rose bloom. I love the hint of pink and wish you could smell it, so rosy!

Welcome to my weekend coffee share, can I get you a cup of coffee or tea? I thought I would create both a coffee share and use as the square challenge for my blogging friend Becky B’s Square challenge this month too. In order to participate I need to make all my photos in “square” format and then share the theme which is Moving Forward. This could mean Reconstruct, Renew and/or are Burgeoning which is a great Spring theme. As I share coffee and my square theme I think the rose above could be burgeoning with color! I will share more photos that are burgeoning with color and beauty.

My beautiful Iris blooms!

The renewal each year of these beautiful blooms!

I couldn’t resist sharing my garden blooms which always make me smile and make me appreciate what Springtime brings to us as we enter into warmth, sunshine and the beauty of nature that comes this time of year. I can also relate this theme of Moving Forward to my personal life as I had to move forward with my horse Murphy. We were not in a good place back in February where he was so unhappy where he was living that I had to move forward and find him a better place to live. We moved to a beautiful boarding facility just a mile away from where he was at and he is so HAPPY! Here are a few photos of Murphy as our partnership has been renewed!

Murphy is so happy grazing and at his new home!

We have been here at the new barn for 2 months now, and he is flourishing and he and I have a wonderful bond together. I am able to turn him out to run around in the arena which is so important to his mental health. (At the other barn, it was not allowed to turn out in the arena which was hurting his mental health. He was so unhappy as there was no place to really run and stretch his legs!) I’ll share a video here of Murphy lose in the arena. Even though he can run he is often lazy too, which is a good thing. I want a calm, relaxed horse that has the room to run if he so chooses. 😀

Can I get you a refill? I wanted to share my moving forward as I have been talking for years about moving closer to family. We are working harder than ever to make this dream come to fruition hopefully this year. We are wanting to move closer to my daughter who is 3.5 hours north of us here in California. I will have to keep you updated on this process as we are in the beginning stages and months away. I am hoping for a smooth transition as I think moving can be very stressful. We will work hard to keep stress at a minimum. That is very renewing, and a little hard to imagine at this point, so staying positive as we head down this path!

I’ll end with this image of my burgeoning basil and lavender blooms! My camera focused on the basil in the background making the lavender a bit blurry but I thought it was a fun artsy kind of photo. I have this “live focus” on my camera and I think works great on my bigger blooms, haha, tried it on this shot and it’s fun to see how it turns out. I also want to wish all the Mom’s out there a wonderful Happy Mother’s Day!

I thank you for sharing coffee with me today and I hope you enjoyed my renew theme for Becky B’s square challenge. I have to get going here, off to the stables to take care of Murphy and so want to get this finished up and linked up for everyone. Thank you Natalie for the #weekendcoffeeshare link up. I appreciate you all stopping by!

Happy, Renew, Coffee sharing Mom!

~Diana ❤

Weekend Coffee Share; Family and Roses!

Welcome! I just love my rose blooms!

I can’t believe April is almost over as the months rush by this year. Welcome to my coffee share! Can I get you a cup of coffee or tea? The blooms are really making their mark here where I live, although I am still waiting for my Iris’s to bloom. Last weekend was birthday weekend for my hubby and my daughter. His birthday was the 13th and hers the 14th. We drove up to Arroyo Grande, CA where my daughter lives to celebrate. We had great food and fun together.

Above, my daughter and hubby in Morro Bay, and Dave and I with the mural behind us (and the sun glare.) 😀 Behind them is the rock which Morro Bay is known for and is a State Historic Landmark. According to the internet “it was formed 23 million years ago from the plugs of long-extinct volcanoes.” It was an important navigational aid for hundreds of years to mariners as it stands 576 feet tall. The town is quaint and fun to walk around and shop. We ate a yummy lunch in Morro bay and I forgot to take photos of my food. I had Shrimp Louie salad with shrimp and crab, DELICIOUS! And we ate with the view of the bay. Here are a few more photos.

Beautiful bay!

The Morro Bay Rock!

My daughter LOVES ALL bookstores and so we stopped in town and visited this bookstore in the photos above. I found a book called Thoroughbred Spirit, and it has wonderful photos and chapters about The Blood Horse, The Sport of Kings and a Vision of Beauty to name a few. It’s been so FUN to read all about the Thoroughbred ~ I can’t wait to finish the book. Its a great book to have on a coffee table. ❤

We treated each other to dinners too! I did remember to take a few photos of the dinner we had for my daughter’s birthday. She is very much a foodie, trying so many great restaurants and expense is not worried about and so she will bring us to the best food restaurants in town. I am more of a foodie than my husband and my favorite channel is the Food Network which I end up having on often just to have something to relax to while I work on my crafts. Its on in the background.

Celebrating! ❤

Me and hubby! ❤

Delicious!

Best pizza ever!

Happy Birthday to these beautiful people! I feel so blessed. ❤ The weekend was so wonderful even though it rained the two days we were visiting. Thankfully, it only rained in the mornings as you can see at Morro Bay it was nice and sunny in the afternoon. We ate at a nice restaurant in Arroyo Grande and the plate on the left above was an appetizer toast with tons of yummy stuff on the top! Too many things to remember it all, it was so yummy. And we ordered two pizza’s we shared. The one my daughter is about to take a piece was a caramelized onion, mushroom with the best cheese, walnuts and honey! It was so unusual an umami bomb! The other was a pepperoni pizza which was so good but a bit spicy for me. Lucky, my husband preferred the spicy pepperoni!

Meet Molly! ❤

I can’t remember if I’ve shared but will share again if I didn’t, that my daughter lost one of her kitties in February. She was an all black kitty named Evie, and she probably had a congenital defect that caused fluid in her lungs. She wasn’t that old but it was so bad that she has crossed the rainbow bridge. My daughter has another kitty named Mousse. You can see Mousse in the photo on the left staring up at the kitten. Mousse is just over a year old and she decided she wanted to get her a friend as Mousse was adopted to be Evie’s friend. Above is my daughter’s new adopted kitty she named Molly! She is about 6 months old, a little shy but super sweet! She wouldn’t sit still long enough for a decent photo. She’s so adorable, I just had to share. ❤ We are all animal LOVER’S and have many furry family members! ❤

Can I get you a refill? I have so much to share, my goodness, April is a busy month for us here. I think I’ve covered most of the happenings around here. I so enjoy sharing, and I hope you all have enjoyed the coffee and our virtual time together. What’s been going on in your neck of the woods?

Murphy was well cared for while we were away! This was when I returned, he is so happy! ❤

I’ve missed the weekend coffee share link up as I took too long to get this together this weekend. And with the time difference, it’s closed. It’s all good as I am still going to share, there just won’t be any link to others. I am going to have to write and share on Saturday’s!

Family Loving Mom, Wife and Cowgirl!

~Diana ❤

Weekend Coffee Share; Welcome Spring!

The same bush with different blooms!

Welcome April, and welcome to my weekend coffee share. Can I get you a cup of coffee or tea? I am looking forward to some warmer weather this next week. It has been unusually cold here in southern California as we haven’t seen 80F(27C) in a few months. I am grateful for the coolness but am looking forward to some nice warm weather as we head into Spring! I am welcoming Spring with all that it brings!

How has your week been for you? I am enjoying my new barn that I moved Murphy to last month. I can’t believe how fast these weeks fly by and we are having so much fun together. The other thing on my mind this weekend is friendships and how friends can change. I’ve been reading how as we get older our values and what is important most to us can change and that it is normal for friendships to drift apart. It is difficult to be friends with someone who doesn’t see you and in conversations can misconstrue what we say, as they feel hurt and betrayed and when you discover this as they share I feel shocked. All I can do is move on and hope and pray for them and hope they can find peace and happiness. Life is complicated and so are relationships whether they be friendships or family relations.

I know I am not alone with the struggles of friendships whether it be with loved ones or friends. I just have to say that its been a tough couple of years and I am tired and can only take care of myself. I find that blogging is therapeutic as I enjoy sharing my thoughts here and sometimes these thoughts when shared helps me appreciate life and all that life can give us. I want to stay strong and as positive as I can and pray that any angst I may have caused to anyone in my life will some day resolve itself. I know I am being very vague, intentionally so, as there is absolutely nothing that can be done with the family estranged or the friends that are hurt. Life goes on and I’ll pray for them like I always do. ❤

The stormy day looking at the mountains!

The next day, mountain views!

I thought I would share some photos of the storm that recently came through. The clouds are so pretty and this year has been full of weather events. We have joked over the years that Southern California is just hot and sunny. We would make such a huge deal when clouds would arrive and we would relish every rain shower! The last two years have been the opposite of that where we have seen tons of storms and much cooler winter. The photos I’ve shared look so much prettier in person and the local mountains when covered in snow are dramatic and beautiful!

I found some blooms! They are not here in my yard but in my town. These daisies are just so beautiful and the roses are from the barn. I will take more photos of the roses as they have a long row of roses and they are all starting to bloom! I just LOVE all flowers and the blooms are so beautiful and make me smile! 😀 What makes you smile? I have a ton of things that make me smile, flowers are definitely at the top of my list!!

Can I get you more coffee or tea? I’ll end with these photos of the most handsome guy and he helps keep me going every single day! Haha, I know he will survive just fine if I did not go to the barn every day. I so enjoy being with Murphy as much as he enjoys being with me! As I arrive he always nickers to me to say Hi! I always turn him out so he can enjoy another area to explore, and I ride him about every other day or so. I am reading a wonderful book called “Horse Brain, Human Brain – The Neuroscience of horsemanship” by Janet L. Jones PhD and I have learned so much about horses. Did you know that their sense of smell rivals dogs? Who knew! They can smell things far better than any human and it is far better for you to let them explore their environment when they reach with their nose to sniff something, than to reprimand or pull them back and not let them explore and enjoy their surroundings. There is so much more I can share, but this is getting long enough! Just know that our bond together is AMAZING! I LOVE YOU MURPHY! ❤ ❤ ❤

Thank you for sharing coffee with me today and I hope you have a wonderful week ahead. I have to thank Natalie for our weekend coffee share link which is here ~ and please visit others if you can. I am thankful to be here and am thankful for my life, my family and my furry family too!

Loving Spring,

~Diana ❤

Let’s Skip February, Looking Forward To March!

Looking forward to Spring! A photo from last year!

Welcome to my stories! I wanted to start with, I’ve been missing blogging. I also wanted to apologize for all the ads that now show up on my blog because I am back to a free account. I had paid for years and with rising prices I decided to stop paying which means everyone visiting has to scroll past ads. Sorry about that. Maybe some day I’ll go back to paying. It’s a big question I have, am I really getting a better blog by paying? Maybe, in the sense I get rid of the ads, but other than that I am going to just stick with the free for now.

As I write this I realize I did lose a lot of storage space since going back to free. I also lost sharing video’s. I know many clean up their blog and so in order to download new photos I had to delete old ones to make room. I have been meaning to do this anyways and probably deleted a ton I didn’t need too, but I have freed up a ton of space. I also deleted a lot of old blog posts now that the photos have been removed from them. It’s almost like I have a new blog, haha! Not really, I feel like I am learning all the time what it is to blog and what’s the purpose of keeping a bunch of old blog posts. I doubt they will ever get read and I had blog posts that went back 5 years! YIKES! I like to keep things moving forward so making room for new posts is the way to go forward! 😀

What a month we’ve had. And although there has been some things throughout last year I wish I could change, it’s been quite a year also. I shared on another social media page how I tend to withdraw and not want to share when things are bad, sad or extremely emotional. I need to live through it first and then reflect back as life gets back to a steady state. February was brutal for us and my family.

Our beautiful, sweet dog BZ was brutally attacked on Feb. 14th. It was a nice sunny day and we had her out in our enclosed front yard and she was sleeping in her dog house we have out there when 2 Pitbull’s dug under our fence where there was some erosion and squeezed under and viscously attacked her. They literally pulled her out of her dog house, they ripped the lid off (it’s a plastic two piece dog house) and then proceeded to try and kill her. My son heard the noise and got my husband who was in the garage and they were able to get the dogs to let go and leave the property. (The dogs were eventually located and animal control was involved from the minute the dogs left and our dog was rushed to the Veterinary hospital. The dogs through animal control were surrendered and euthanized due to the viciousness of the attack and they were deemed dangerous to the public and town. The owners are liable and this is an ongoing process for us. This is incredibly sad for all as I’m actually sad they were euthanized but the owners did not contain them in their yard and the laws in our city is what animal control enforces.)

Her new look post surgery with an ear up!

This is after her last surgery, she’s had two and she’s healing!

BZ girl is 14 years old this year. My husband named her BZ and I asked him why this name and he says, I don’t know, I just like BZ. He picked her out of a litter of puppies at a yard sale for free just down the street. She is a cattle dog mix breed and she’s a big girl weighing in at 72lb’s. The vet said that what saved her life was all the lose skin around her neck and shoulders. It tore so badly but no vital organs were injured and no broken bones. She is so strong and the will to live is AMAZING! She is a true miracle in my book and its so sad this has happened to her in her golden years. She is on a second type of antibiotics after a culture came back that the infection brewing was resistant to the other antibiotics she was on. She is so LOVED. ❤

February was a struggle with my sweet horse Murphy too. I had moved him last October to a new barn which has smaller paddocks than where he was and I thought he would be okay in the smaller stall, but unfortunately he became really unhappy. The place also did not allow us to turn out the horses to run in the arena. The arena was only for riding. This left a round pen which isn’t very big so poor Murphy had no place to run and buck when he needed to release energy when he feels good. I believe all horses should have a paddock, pasture or big arena to run. Murphy’s pent up energy was worse with the cold, rainy weather. He became harder to handle and I started losing sleep thinking I need to find him a bigger place to live.

His small stall. I moved him 5 day’s ago!

His new giant paddock! He is so much happier now!

He now has a neighbor, an old mustang which is important for his mental health!

He is so happy now!

My hubby helped me put up that black shade cloth. Murphy has so much room now! YAY!

I reached out to a friend who I knew was boarding at a place that had huge pasture type paddocks. Everything fell into place as there was one paddock open. Within one day I had secured this nice huge paddock for him and planned on moving him in a week at the end of February. I also asked the owner where he was if he could live out in a bigger paddock that they use for turn outs only. They don’t rent them but for one week he was able to live outside and this helped him so much! I had him trailered to the new place and he loaded into the trailer like a champ. Some horses do not like horse trailers or have little experience with them. I was a bit worried because he hasn’t trailered in the 3 years I’ve owned him. He is such a great horse, remembering his trailing with his racing days moving from Kentucky to Ohio, then to Oklahoma. Oh and then to California! I knew he had trailing experience and all good experience. LOVE YOU MURPHY!! He’s back to his sweet, kind self. I’m excited for our new adventures at his new home!

The arena is huge and he can run and play!

Such a handsome guy! So Happy!!

I actually started a weekend coffee share last weekend, only to find out I couldn’t upload any photos because I had used up all my space! Darn it all! So I had to scrap that post and work on cleaning up my blog so that I could share these new photos. I’m happy to be sharing again and I am hoping better days are ahead. I am hoping for fun days again with my family and all my furry family too! It’s been a journey, and journey’s sometimes are sad or hard but I know this all makes us stronger. I sometimes think I can’t be any stronger, and I come out the other side fine. I want to share smiles again, Spring is on it’s way. I hope you all are doing well and have lots to smile about too!

I’ll end with this photo I just took in our front yard! I wanted to see if I could see a rainbow, no rainbow but I love how the sun is shining but the storm is coming! We had a ton of rain yesterday and more this evening as you can see the clouds coming our way. I’m smiling as I am at peace and I don’t have to worry about Murphy. He has plenty of room and stays nice and dry under his shelter in the rain! ❤

Smiling, Grateful, Animal Loving Gal,

-Diana ❤

Silent Christmas Eve Sunday

The magic of Christmas never ends.
It's greatest gifts are family and friends. ❤ ❤ ❤

I hope everyone has a wonderful, beautiful and blessed holiday season. I am looking forward to a New Year and 2024. Stay safe, healthy and happy.

With Love,

-Diana ❤

Weekend Coffee Share And Walktober Fun!

My birthday was last weekend October 21st! Thanks to my daughter for the yummy cake!

Welcome! Please enjoy a piece of my birthday cake! It actually was the perfect size to share with my daughter last weekend. I really wanted to write last weekend but by the time I returned from visiting my daughter on Sunday and taking care of my horse I ran out of time. I had one last birthday dinner with my hubby and son who I left behind when I visited my daughter up north. That dinner tasted great but we had to wait awhile to be seated and then the service was a little to be desired. It took almost 2 hours to eat which made it too late to write. I am making up for that as this is going to be two blog posts in one as I really wanted to join in on Walktober and share my post with Dawn! Can I get you a cup of coffee or tea as I share the happenings this month of October? I have a nice decaf as its the evening here in CA.

I’m not sure where to start as I believe the Walktober is suppose to be all about the Fall colors that are so vibrant and beautiful in all the areas that have that kind of foliage. Here in Southern California there isn’t much color change at all. We are more desert and I believe way too warm/hot and so I have photos of the new stables I moved to where there are a lot of trees, but they are very green. I was at the beach up North and there isn’t much change there either, or the right kind of trees. It’s still fun to share my area, and the month of October, my favorite month!

By the pier and the signage changes colors!

Pismo Beach and fog!

Tuna tartare

Grilled duck!

Yummy oysters

My first night at my daughter’s she brought me to Pismo Beach for the most delicious dinner at the Oyster Loft restaurant. She lives just 5 minutes from Pismo and I drove into some fog as you can see in the foggy photos of the town and the Pismo Beach sign. To the right of that sign is the pier and the ocean. We tasted two types of oyster’s with the Morro Bay oyster’s which are at the top of the photo being our favorites! Yummy!! I’ve never had duck, and that grilled duck was absolutely divine. It may not look like much but everything was grilled and the gastrique sauce was so FULL of flavor I couldn’t believe it. I’m thankful my daughter can afford to treat me at these foodie places. I was in foodie heaven!!

My daughter had a tuna tartare with avocado and cucumbers. She said it was delicious but I told her she should taste my duck and she loved it. I gave her a few more bites and later on in the weekend she said she can’t wait to go back to order her own grilled duck. It truly was that good! I’ll go back any day! Haha, I know we are loving something that isn’t seafood at an ocean restaurant, but wait, as I had my favorite seafood dish the next day!

A very nice lady walking by asked us if she could take our photo!

I wish I brought different shoes which would have made my pants look nicer! Haha, the things you think of after the fact. I brought a nice blouse because it was a nicer eatery, and my daughter said the jeans are fine because its the beach. The food I had the whole weekend was definitely the best present my daughter treated and bought for me. Love her so very much! She also bought me a few things I found while we shopped as gifts. Oh she is SO MUCH FUN!! I am hoping some day (in the near future hopefully) we can move up near where she lives so we all can be closer. She is about 3.5 hours away. 😀

My favorite spice store!

Main street in Solvang, CA with some pretty mostly green trees!

We drove to Solvang where we visited our favorite stores. We walked around a bit but spent the most time in our favorite Spice store and book store. I bought one of my favorite spices called Sweetie Tweetie, a blend the store created. I also bought two new spices to try and we also enjoyed the book store in Solvang. Afterwards we went to a Michelin star restaurant near Solvang for lunch. That is the two photos above where she had the egg salad sandwich with a yummy spread and I had the cheese crepe with the roasted tomato’s. We also enjoyed an appetizer of sardines with home made saltine crackers. DELICIOUS! And such a treat!

Downtown Arroyo Grande, pretty architecture!

My favorite sanddabs at Ada’s Fish House!

For my birthday I had my favorite, Pacific sanddabs with sweet potato fries and green beans. The last time I had these sanddabs at Ada’s I had scalloped potatoes as the side dish. We ended up going there for lunch instead of dinner and so I wanted to try a different side and the sweet potato fries were super yummy, the fish was AMAZING! My birthday weekend was so beautiful and it was so great to spend it with my beautiful daughter. I’m so proud of her and her accomplishments as a Major in the Space Force at Vandenberg Space Force Base. She brings me such joy!!

I so wanted to share my birthday weekend last weekend and I am not sure how this falls into Walktober other than it was a fun-filled October event. I know not everyone is a foodie and/or loves food photos but I was excited to share my adventures both in visiting, shopping and of the culinary kind. 😀 I’ll head into the rest of my October which is photos of my horse Murphy at our new boarding facility. There are tons of trees there, but no fall colors to speak of. Haha!

My hubby took this photo of me with Murphy and his truck! 😀

He’s so tall he can see over the fence! Pretty trees in background!

Murphy is so much FUN!

I can’t believe October is almost over and Halloween is next week! CRAZY! This year has flown by and the holiday season is right around the corner. I thank you so much for visiting with me today and I hope your October has been good to you. I will end with this fun photo my sister shared, and I hope she doesn’t mind me sharing here on my blog. It’s a sweet photo of Gracie who is up in horsey heaven now (my best friends horse). She was taught to smile for a treat, and I’m smiling right back! And there is a cool tree in the background!

I have to thank Natalie who hosts the #weekendcoffeeshare link up and for Dawn who is hosting the #walktober and I will share a link to her blog. I also want to thank all my friends and family who made my birthday so special and my sister who shared this photo, which I think of as a gift to me as I just LOVE IT!!

Have a wonderful day!

Love, Diana ❤

Weekend Coffee Share; Anniversary And A Hurricane!

Beautiful San Luis Obispo!

Welcome to my weekend coffee share, can I get you a cup of coffee or tea? I can’t even believe this weekend and how we had to change our plans because of Hurricane Hilary! This weekend is our 39th wedding anniversary and we had made plans to visit my daughter who lives about 3.5 hours north of us here in California. We drove up there last Thursday evening not even realizing there was a hurricane brewing very far south of us in the pacific ocean. We enjoyed dinner Thursday evening and had a wonderful day on Friday. One of the things I wanted to do visiting my daughter is to check out a local horse boarding facility. I had found one that looked promising online and the owner finally called me back while we were up there on Friday.

It was a wonderful place, reasonably priced and the owner was my age and my kind of horse woman. Her husband was the handyman improving the property which was a wonderful boarding facility. They own 10 acres and I was very impressed especially with the riding arena. She says there are a lot of ladies who board and ride the trails there and she hopes I will join them someday if we make a move north. This is something I wanted to find to make sure Murphy would have a great place to live too.

Honestly, I think I talk about moving closer to my daughter more than my husband does. I think he would be perfectly happy to stay where we are and just keep doing our day to day things, without planning a thing. We have done a ton of living (day to day) which I am so grateful for but not a whole lot of planning for the future. So as we are aging, I think it is important to think about where we want to retire and/or where is the best place to live as we age. It’s tough, because my family is spread apart and family is one of the most important things to me so I want us to be closer if possible. My daughter has said if we do not want to relocate close by, she totally understands. We still have a lot of homework to do… We will figure it all out eventually!

My hubby and I at breakfast!

Yummy breakfast at Del Monte Café!

Left to right me, Flora, Dave and Linea!

We had such a fun weekend even though it was cut a day short because of the crazy weather. We had great food on both Friday and Saturday. Saturday was our anniversary and we went to downtown SLO (San Luis Obispo) and ate breakfast in this cute Café. It was opened in 1939 and I’m sure has had many owners over the years. It is really cute inside and the food was delicious! I had stuffed French toast, yummy! Flora, my daughter’s girlfriend treated us to breakfast, thank you Flora! ❤ and my daughter treated us for a delicious dinner that evening. Thank you Linea! ❤

My daughter lives alone, well not all alone, she has 2 cats. They are so cute and keep her company and busy. She still has one guinea pig too. I always love helping her as much as we can when we come and visit. This is one reason why I wish we lived closer, so that I could pop over anytime to help say hang pictures or clean the backyard. Since we were coming she made a list of things she could use help with. We only accomplished a few things on her list but we were able to help her declutter her backyard from many leaves and dead branches we pruned. We helped with a few indoor items as well. We also visited and had yummy meals together. And we watched movies each night. A FUN WEEKEND!! 😀

This was our anniversary dinner at a local restaurant that wasn’t fancy but had great seafood! Haha, we asked my hubby, do you want fancy? or not too fancy? He chose not too fancy, my kinda guy! I didn’t bring any fancy clothes so the hometown feel and great food was my kind of dinner with my daughter and hubby. My heart was as full as my stomach!! 😀 ❤

AND A Hurricane! I would take a photo of the rain, but I know you can’t really make out rain in a photo. The Hurricane has turned into a tropical storm and is upon us as I write this. We are all fine and we have good drainage around our house and the barn where Murphy is has good drainage as well. We haven’t been hit with wind yet but the news says it is coming. The eye of the storm should be going right over us eventually which could mean why we haven’t gotten much wind. I am okay with that. It has been raining all day long and it will continue through the night and into tomorrow. I am so happy I am off today (Sunday) but I am suppose to work tomorrow but not until 2pm. I know the roads will be bad tomorrow, so I hope and pray my commute to work won’t be treacherous.

I’ll end with a couple of photos of my sweet boy from this last week. I have so much fun with him, he sure keeps me busy and actually is helping me keep in shape too. The riding workouts are aerobic for both of us as we walk, trot and canter around the arena. I also get a arm workout grooming him and I walk a lot around the barn with and without Murphy. 😀 I love it!!

Thank you for sharing a cup of coffee with me today as I shared my wonderful weekend with friends and family. The central coast where my daughter lives is absolutely beautiful and the weather is to die for in my opinion. The high’s barely reach 80F(27C) in the summer months and lows in the 50’sF(10C). Its even cooler throughout the year. She lives about 2 miles from the pacific ocean. It would be a great place to retire, maybe someday. 😀

Staying Safe and Dry,

~Diana ❤

Weekend Coffee Share; July Fun In The Sun!

My girlfriend in Kentucky sent me this beautiful flower photo! I just LOVE IT!

Welcome to my weekend coffee share, how are you all doing? Can I get you a cup of coffee or tea? I can make it hot or cold or I have some cranrasberry juice if you prefer. I can’t believe we are in July! My goodness, the weeks just fly by don’t they? I am enjoying the summer weather as it has been pretty warm and as the weeks go by my sadness about losing one of my horses has gotten better as I move forward. The only sadness I sometimes feel is when I want to take photos. I LOVE taking photos as you can see, I try and share as many as I can throughout my blogging. As I go through photos, I see my sweet girl Miss Chloe and it just hits me in the face, oh my, this is the last photos I’ll ever take of her 😦 DEEP BREATH, it’s okay, I say to myself. She is up there running free with my other horses that have passed throughout the years. Other than the photos, my heart is filled more each day with the love of my horse Murphy. He is SO MUCH FUN! ❤

He is so handsome and is looking at me as I call his name! He is enjoying grazing, his favorite activity!

Every day we are together we enjoy some grazing time! ❤

I have been loving on this big guy and we have been having a lot of fun together. We definitely have a mutual respect for each other. I use to have it in my head that I would not let him eat the grass at all because he is so big I knew if I let him graze then he could take over and pull me all around wanting to eat. However, I realized that with every relationship we have with others there is give and take and so I decided I will let him graze but I introduced cues that he understands. When we need to be done grazing and walk to his stall or walk to the hitching post where I groom him and tack him up if I am riding, I give him this cue and say we are done. (The cue is clucking to him and saying “we are done” with a slight tug on the lead line. He is very responsive and understands well!) This mutual respect with cues and understanding has improved our connection to one another so greatly that I think we are both so happy in each others company. It is fulfilling to be able to let him do things he likes and in turn he goes with me for things I like to do with him. I feel truly blessed to have Murphy in my life. He is so smart, sensitive and handsome! ❤

My new snaffle bit I bought for Murphy!

My silly selfies, both our heads don’t fit in the photo! 😀

I have been looking for a bit which Murphy will like for riding. I have many different types of bits and bought one about 6 months ago which he doesn’t like very much. I do have one that I have had for years that is okay and will make a nice trail bit if I ever get back out on the trails. Last month I attended the Monty Robert’s horse clinic called “The Movement”. I attended last year too, but I did not purchase the Monty Roberts bit. This year the clinic was fantastic and I will have to share in another post, but it dawned on me why don’t I buy Monty’s bit which he created. After all, he is a horse whisperer and understands Equus better than anyone I know. I can tell with this black sweet iron bit, laced with copper it is something Murphy loves in his mouth. The sweet iron and copper induces his saliva glands and they enjoy the taste in their mouth which in turn makes for a better connection when we ride. He isn’t tossing his head, or bracing up against the bit. We have had such enjoyable rides! I wish I had bought this bit a year ago. Better late than never, I like to say! ❤

As I think about all the horsey stuff I have been up to lately, I need to take a turn and love on my family a bit too. I can definitely go on and on about horses, and sometimes I can find myself losing myself with all things horsey! I have to tell myself, Diana, you need to spend time with family and don’t lose touch with them. Well, I am not that bad of course…. as I have said many times throughout my writings my horses are my therapy and what keeps me sane. (I also needed a segue to talk about my family.) 😀

My sweet grandson! He was excited to see me!

I was excited to see my son and my granddaughter!

My son with one of his kitties. This is Dublin!

Me and my selfies! This one is a little blurry, but the best faces.

I was able to visit my family in Arizona a couple of weeks ago. It was a healing visit in many ways and without going into detail, things are on the mend with my sweet family that I love with all my heart. My grandkids are such cutie patuties and I have missed them all and am hoping that the future looks bright. This year has had the lowest of lows with one thing after another happening in my life for different reasons. I feel like this last month things are looking up and even though I’ve had some sadness I am beginning to really feel better and feel like myself again and I have found my smile! 😀

Can I get you a refill? I have been thinking a lot about this year and I believe my faith and being an extremely positive thinking person has helped me through the darkest days this year and I have to stay strong and look forward and cherish the past (I’ll never forget my sweet horses that have passed on) and enjoy each day I am here on this earth. ❤

My new hair cut!

I’ll end with a big change that I did last month and that is my hair cut. I needed a change and it has taken me years to finally cut off my long hair. It is still long enough to put it in a pony tail, but it is too short for a braid which I enjoyed. I now have shorter hair around my face but it is freeing to leave it down and have it look nice. I intend on keeping it shoulder length as I think it suits me well. I REALLY needed a change this year in which I could look in the mirror and see something different and new. It has revived me in more ways than I imagined it would. There is something refreshing about making changes like hairstyle! I can smile in the mirror and feel good about myself and my life, I hope you all can do the same!

I thank you for visiting with me today. I want to thank Natalie for hosting the #weekendcoffeeshare. She does such a great job and I always like to join in when I can. I hope you all are having a wonderful weekend and have a great week ahead.

Horse Lover Forever and Loving Grandma,

~Diana ❤

Wordless Wednesday

I know this is suppose to be wordless; however I wanted to say my daughter, Murphy and these blooms bring me smiles. I need the smiles and I hope they bring a smile to you too! ❤

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 ❤