The Weekly Smile for the 11th of January, 2021 #weeklysmile

My smile this week is a little odd, though I have done similar ones in the past. It is editing.

If you have read my blog for any length of time, you may have seen that I have been just on the verge of having my book The Old Mill ready to be publish for almost two years! Nothing else that I have put out has been quite as difficult or painful to get together.

Slight history – I wrote the book in the winter and spring of 2017. It shared some themes with The Halley Branch, which I was just preparing for publication at the time, so I pushed it back. I finally got to it in January of 2019 and figured I’d be set by August (typical time if I work hard). By June I had pushed it back to early November. In September I started putting out preliminary marketing posts, but in October pushed it back to January of 2020. In January of 2020, I was sure it would be complete by July, 2020. And then it was supposed to be ready by late October. Yes, two and a half months ago. Sigh. I have no idea why it has been so difficult.

The Weekly Smile Recap for 1/4 – 1/10/2021

Hi all. It was a bit of a rough week, but there were still things to smile about out there. Here are some of those Smiles that you submitted Perhaps we all need to read a few of these and Smile:

Trent’s World
Natalie the Explorer
The Hidden Edge
Change is Hard
Lady Lee Manila
Enigmas Thoughts
Nut House Central
Light Motifs II
Tessa Dean – Author
Ruth Scribbles
Superlative Deviation
All Things Bright and Beautiful

Quite a few great smiles.

I’ll post this week’s smile in about an hour.

The Weekly Smile for the 4th of January, 2021 #weeklysmile

Hi all! Happy New Year! I know, 2020 was not a very good year. In fact, it was awful. But we did see a lot of good smiles, despite it all :) Well, with 2021 just starting, I expect to see even more smiles.

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you might know that I spend a lot of time on Cape Cod. In fact, I have a house down there. Well, I haven’t been since mid-November. That is, until now. I drove down last Monday and spent New Year down there. I returned to New Hampshire Saturday evening.

It was a good visit. It was great to get away, even if it was “going home”. I really didn’t do a lot. I walked in the woods, walked on two beaches, walked the dogs down to the two landings, ran (which goes by one of the beaches), and just did more normal things. That being said, it was very relaxing. I love being by the water. It was a good way to see in the new year, particularly this year.

The Weekly Smile Recap for 12/28/2020 – 1/3/2021 #weeklysmile

Hi all. This was it, the week that we shifted from 2020 to 2021. To quote Monty Python, and there was much rejoicing. yeah. ;) Anyway, I am sure that a lot of people are smile about that change of date and the change of calendar. And, yes, we had a lot of good smiles over the last week. Check them out!

Trent’s World
The Hidden Edge
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking
Lady Lee Manila
A Day in the Life
Tessa Dean – Author
Mylife-and-Horsestories
Change is Hard
Ruth Blogs Here
All Things Bright and Beautiful
Thistles and Kiwis

Some great smiles! As always, let me know if I somehow missed any in the recap (I remember two smiles,but can’t find the links!)

I will post the first Smile for 2021 in about an hour. What made you smile?

The Weekly Smile for the 28th of December, 2020 #weeklysmile

Hi all! This was an odd week, though for the most part, a good week. There were a lot of small smiles in there, smiles from my dogs and cats, family and friends, work (yes, I know…), astronomical observations ( ;-) ), learning, playing music, listening to favorite music, writing, reading, and on and on.

So what is my big smile for the week? Hmm.

Perhaps a Zoom meeting with my family.

It’s been years since I have spent Christmas with my family, which is fine, but I typically see my siblings at least once a year and my parents at least twice. Most years it is more. 2019 was an odd year, and I only saw my parents once, and, because of the obvious, I haven’t seen them at all in 2020! So I have not seen a family member in the flesh since the 4ht of July, 2019.

The Weekly Smile for the 21st of December, 2020

Welcome to the Winter Solstice edition of the weekly smile! And today is even more special since Jupiter and Saturn will be aligning in the sky! I took some photos of Jupiter a few weeks ago and was able to clearly see the 4 Galilean moon (see below). I hope to get some photos tonight as well!

The Weekly Smile Recap 12/14 – 12/21/2020

Hi all! Did you have a good week? Well, we did get a lot of smiles in, so if the answer is “no”, click below and perhaps you can find something to smile about!

Trent’s World
Natalie the Explorer
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking
Heart to Heart
Nut House Central
Lady Lee Manila
Natasha Musing
Change is Hard
Tessa Dean – Author
priorhouse blog
The Hidden Edge
All Things Bright and Beautiful
Thistles and Kiwis

Quite a few great smiles!

This week’s smile will be posted in about an hour. What made you smile?

The Weekly Smile for the 14th of December, 2020

Hi! This was a strange week. I did a lot of things that made me smile, such as exercise, playing with my dogs work (well…), decorating the Christmas tree, playing with musical instruments, finishing editing of my book The Old Mill and sending it off to two people for their editing skills, reading, eating cookies ;) (yes,it is that time of year), and more, but nothing stood out. I don’t want to do another “it is all of the small things in life!” post, so I will choose something odd.

I like exploring the Universe. A few weeks ago people were surprised that I was reading math books in my spare time. Why not? The Universe is fascinating and mathematics is the most elementary building block of the Universe.

The Weekly Smile Recap for 12/7/2020 – 12/13/2020

Hi all. Some pretty good smiles this week. I’m super busy, so I’ll just list them with any more discussion :)

Trent’s World
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking
Natalie the Explorer
Lady Lee Manila
The Hidden Edge
The Jesh Studio
Natasha Musing (1)
Natasha Musing (2)
Serendipity Seeking Intelligent Life on Earth (political)
Heart to Heart
Change is Hard
Mylife-and-Horsestories
All Things Bright and Beautiful
Thistles and Kiwis

Note on Political Content: The Weekly Smile has a “No Politics” policy. That being said, I see a lot of posts that there contain subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, statements and opinions, sometimes very controversial opinions, stated in the post. Since I have been letting them go, I let the one today go, not just for that, but for a couple of other reasons – the cartoon should not be offensive to anyone, no matter political belief. And the statement that no mention of national politics was heard on the news, in my opinion, deserves a huge smile. I marked the post, so if you don’t want to read it, you do not have to.

Anyway, do try to keep keep political opinion out of the Weekly Smile, but unless it starts getting out of hand or someone posts something I think some will find offensive, I most likely won’t skip any in the weekly recap. I will mark them if they are more political than not.

And, even with a political cartoon, all the smiles were great this week, no?

I will post this week’s smile in a bout an hour. What made you smile?

The Weekly Smile for the 7th of December, 2020 #weeklysmile

Today, a day of remembrance for those of us in the US, is an odd one, and yet there is still plenty out there to smile about. And on that note, my smile this week may seem odd to some – I have been doing a lot of editing over this last week.

A little over a year ago I thought I would have my book The Old Mill out by the end of the year. And maybe January. Or… For some reason, after I finished a draft in late September 2019, I dropped it and could not pick it up again until March 2020. OK, great, out to beta readers, and I could publish by mid-summer!

Nope.