The Weekly Smile for October 14, 2019 #weeklysmile

If you wonder why I sometimes have strange Smiles, like homemade chili using fresh from the garden ingredients, well, it’s because so often I smile about the same few things, over and over :)  This is one of those weeks that could almost be copied and pasted from a few weeks back….

I drove down to Cape Cod late Saturday evening. I walked down to the closer of the two landings on Sunday morning. It is rare for it to be so calm. Yep, time for a paddle!

This was perhaps my longest paddle yet. There was almost nobody out. I saw a lot of wildlife, including osprey, which is odd, I have never seen any in October. I saw quite a few Great Blue Herons, though no other herons or egrets. A seal came up close to check me out. A lot of large fish jumped out of the water, attracting a lot of birds. Since the water was so calm, it was crystal clear, so in the shallows I could watch crabs and shellfish moving around. There were jelleyfish. The cormorants were splashing around.

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The Weekly Smile for October 7, 2019

I am going to continue with my trend of small things, and perhaps odd things, this week….

We had a lot of tomatoes this year.  We also get a pretty good bounty from the Community Farm that we belong to (See here for a post about the CSA). The weather is getting cool, so I decided to make the year’s first chili using mostly fresh ingredients.

I chopped up a bunch of tomatoes and stewed them in a crock-pot while I soaked the beans. I added a clove of fresh garlic, a couple of onions peppers (Italian from our garden, chilies from the CSA), etc. After a day I put in the beans and started the spice routine. I added corn and celery and more veggies. A day later and it wasn’t there yet, but the next day it was perfection. Not my best chili ever, but better than most, and doubly good in that most of the ingredients were fresh picked before being tossed into the crock-pot – food the way it is meant to be ;)

Smile Recap Week of 9/30 – 10/7/2019 #weeklysmile

Wow, October is already here!  And with October come October smiles :)  If you need a little to smile about, read below:

Trent’s World
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking
Tessa Can Do It! Positivity is Catching!
Does Writing Excuse Watching?
The Jesh Studio
Sagittarius Viking
Light Motifs II
Nut House Central
Lady Lee Manila
Mylife-and-Horsestories
Priorhouse Blog
Change is Hard

A lot of great smiles!

The new post for this week will be posted in about an hour. What made you smile?

The Weekly Smile for September 30, 2019 #weeklysmile

I often say the Weekly Smile can be about small things, and again I am going to prove it ;)

After a cool start to September, we have had a warm spell the last week or so. This weekend was totally gorgeous. I didn’t do anything special. I didn’t go hiking in the mountains or anything like that, but I did spend a lot of time outside enjoying it. I walked around our little village, both with the dogs and on my own. I “scampered” through the woods behind my house, playing with the dogs. I took a long walk in a wooded area on the edge of town – just a few feet in and it was like being a million miles from civilization. I sat outside and enjoyed the day. And, well, I just spent as much time as possible out of doors.

Being outside really helps me.  I spend my work days behind a computer, so I need that “large screen” of the sky and the “high definition” of reality. It does wonders!

Spending most of my weekend outside is my smile for this week.

What made you smile?

The Weekly Smile Recap 9/23 – 9/29/19

Here are our smiles for this week:

Trent’s World
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking
Does Writing Excuse Watching?
Tessa Can Do It! Positivity Is Catching!
Sagittarius Viking
A Visit With Sandra
Light Motifs II

As always, there were a few smiles in the comment section of the original post :)

This week’s smile will be posted in about an hour.

What made you smile?

The Weekly Smile for September 23, 2019 #weeklysmile

Today is the official start of Autumn. Seems odd since the temperature will almost reach 90 F/ 32 C.

A friend of mine in town threw a surprise birthday part for her boyfriend yesterday. They both have adult children, so the kids were all there. He had been a firefighter in NYC, so some of his NYC friends came up for the event. A lot of people from the neighborhood showed up. It was a good crowd.

I am a complete and total Introvert and have a hard time at parties if I don’t know many people, but it was still fun.  It was also nice to see how touched he was that everyone came by.

The Weekly Smile Recap for 9/16 – 9/23/19 #weeklysmile

It was a pretty good week here in NH this week.  It was also a pretty good week here on the weekly smile this week :) If you had little to smile about, click on a link below and read some great smiles :)

Trent’s World
Tessa Can Do It! Positivity Is Catching!
Does Writing Excuse Watching?
Sagittarius Viking
The Jesh Studio
Poetry Short Prose and Walking
Colline’s Blog
Mylife-and-Horsestories
Change is Hard
priorhouse blog

A lot of good smiles for the last week of summer :) This week’s smile will be posted in about an hour.

What made you smile?

The Weekly Smile for September 16, 2019 #weeklysmile

I have often said that I like to change up the smiles from week to week. It would get boring if I said my smile was a weekend on Cape Cod or kayaking every other week. Talking about dog play and walks in the New Hampshire woods would get old as well. I could do those types of things but… To riff off of an old Monty Python phrase, and now, for something completely different ;)

I sit a lot during the day.  Too much. If I didn’t work I would be up and about, but i do have to work, and it is office work, even if it is in my home office. My back does not love me after a long day. I picked up a comfortable, inexpensive office chair for my office on Cape Cod, but found that it was terrible for my back. So I just picked up a “gaming chair”.

What is a gaming chair?

The Weekly Smile for the 9th of September, 2019 #weeklysmile

I try to mix up my smiles a little :)  It gets boring if I give the same on week after week after week.  This one is a little different, but if you read my blog regularly, it won’t be surprising.

Back in the late winter and spring of 2017 I wrote and posted a serialized novel, The Old Mill.  I pretty much wrote and then immediately posted each chapter, so it was a very, very rough draft.  That isn’t too unusual for me.  I did the same thing with The Halley Branch, which I posted in 30 consecutive days.  I have also done other serials, from three of four parts, to 20 or 25 chapters.

So, back to the Old Mill, I loved the story.  It was one of my favorites. But I hated the writing.  I mean, it’s not terrible, but I hope I am better than I was in early 2017. I also hope that my well-edited work is better than that roughest of drafts.

The Weekly Smile Recap 9/2 – 9/8/2019

Hi all.  A lot of smiles out there this week despite some things in the world that were hard to smile about, such as a major hurricane.  If you need a smile, follow one, or all, of the links below:

Trent’s World
Gary A Wilson’s Stories in a Dime of Time
Lady Lee Manilla
Tessa Can Do It! Positivity Is Catching!
The Jesh Studio
Mylife-and-Horsestories
priorhouse blog
Colline’s Blog
Change is Hard
Sagittarius Viking
A Day in the Life
Forgiving Connects

Quite a few smiles there :)

This week’s smile will be posted in about an hour/

What made you smile?