Catching up

This site is experiencing technical difficulties. If you are having problems viewing photos, please be patient, I'm working on it. Thanks!I can't believe how fast this year is going. We are already a week away from midterms. The Barrett-Jackson car show, the Phoenix Open, and the Arabian Horse Show have come and gone. It's getting ready to be spring, and we've only just had our first rain of the year. Probably one of the more perfect times in our corner of the desert, and what people fall in love with when they come for a visit. Especially with the kind of winter everyone has been suffering through this year! Polar vortex indeed.It makes me glad to be here, but at the same time the snowbirds glory in our 80° February, what they don't realize is that even for us, it's unseasonably warm - and dry. It harkens to a tough year ahead for fire season, drought, habitat loss, and stress on wildlife. Not to mention a scorching May - September. I'm trying not to think of that now, and just revel in the glory of living someplace snow-and-windchill free.I feel a blog re-vamp coming on (again), so look for some changes coming up. While I have loved using Wordpress.org, and having the customization freedom it offers, I am frustrated by the fact that when I read through some of my posts, half the time the pictures don't show up (WTF?). And the whole hosting situation is a pain in the rear. So I'm looking to move the whole operation over to another web hosting site, hopefully with lots of improvements.I'm taking Austin Kleon's advice from STEAL LIKE AN ARTIST, and stealing ideas for how to make this site better. Austin sends out occasional newsletters with a quick update on his projects, along with links to interesting things he's found on the internet recently. Alex Yeske from Dreams + Jeans blogs beautiful pictures and product recommendations. I really like how both of these bloggers give a succinct post, paired with images, and suggestions from around the web, and hope to implement their best practices here. I'd also like to make to make this site better for YOU, my readers. Any comments? Suggestions on improvements? I'd love to hear them in the comments section below.Here are some recent photos: 

More pictures of Gypsy Horses

While I'm working on the new site, I'll post here and there so as not to leave you out there in cyberspace, wondering what the horses are up to.Fina has been sold, which is both bitter and sweet. We had planned to sell her before she was even born, but it's still hard to see one of your babies go. She is a very sweet filly who will grow into a beautiful mare. She is to be trained in dressage, perfect for her floaty movement and snappy trot.The silver lining of the sale is that she is going to a family who will love her and spoil her like crazy. Just as Chroicoragh was MY finally-found-dreamhorse, Fina is the same for her new owner:

I'll have more about Fina soon.

Keira is still for sale.

www.westceltgypsy.com

RANDOM HAPPY GYPSY HORSE PICTURES!

As always, thanks for stopping by - I hope you have a great day.

:)

Heidi

Instagram, Pictures & Gypsy Horses

Instagram is a free photo sharing app that you can get for your phone or tablet. It gives you the ability to instantly post photos to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and Tumblr, among others.

But what's cool about Instagram is that it allows you to add a filter to your photos that give them a vintage feel. What's even cooler is that it's not complicated, there's no learning curve, and it's just plain fun.

So I can take a plain old picture of Chroi and Fina running around in the backyard like this:

And make it look like this:

And there's no photo editing; no Photo Shop. All it is is a color filter.

All of the pictures in this post were filtered with Instagram.

I met a lovely woman in the store where I work about a month or so ago.

We exchanged recipes, and I gave her my "business" card (ha ha, as if there is any business involved; more like busy-ness.)

look at those dapples!

She came into the store again the other day, and said,

"I love your writing!"

And, me the dumbass, said

"My writing?"

And she said,

"Yeah, I read your blog."

I guess I still get a little dumbstruck when people tell me this.

I know, that sounds totally stupid.

I mean, I HAVE a blog,

I TELL PEOPLE about my blog,

I WANT people to read my blog,

I LINK, LINK, LINK to my blog,

(on my website, my Facebook page, and on my other blog)

I pass out my aforementioned cards,

I check my stats obsessively to see how many hits I've had, and

I can see the silly hit counter right there, in the right-hand column, that says (as of today) that I've had

OVER SIX THOUSAND (yay!)

visits to this blog,

But still for some reason, when I'm sitting here in my pajamas,

having my coffee,

and playing around on my computer,

it's hard to think that there's anybody out there,

and that they even read my little blogger blog,

and that they like it enough to come back.

But that's the WHOLE IDEA,right?

Well,

whoever you are,

I appreciate you.

I am so thankful that you have taken the slice of time out of your day

to visit my blog,

read my silly stuff,

listen to my opinions,

and look at pictures of my horses.

Which, by the way, was one of the pieces of advice my

store-customer-friend gave me:

"You need to show more pictures of the horses!"

To which I thought,

"Duh."

As in, she's right.

Sometimes I am such a dumbass.

So here are some horse pictures, all Instagrammed for your viewing pleasure.

Keira's dapples are starting to show, and her mane is growing back, thank goodness.

Fina is learning how to behave herself while on lead:

I caught her making a funny face:

The girls got a visit from a friend:

This is one of the cutest horse pictures ever. And that's not just my opinion.

I'm pretty sure it's true:

Fina's stylist picked out this halter for her, because it brings out the blue in her eyes:

This is her "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" pose:

Four off the floor:

What're you looking at?

Strike a pose:

And because I'm a dork, and I grew up in the 80's, and was an original wanna-be,

and because I love giving you a musical interlude,  and because I just get a song in my head sometimes,

and because it's my blog, and I can do it if I want to,

Here's one of the best Madonna videos ever.

Told you I was a dork.

Have. Fun. Every. Day.

Just Pictures

Well we are on the road again, this time to the north rim of the grand canyon. I'm playing with my new iPhone and blogging while my husband drives.It's unbelievable to me what we can do with technology these days. Video calling and all the stuff we used to see on the Jetsons is here. Now all we need are floating cars and jet packs.I really want a jet pack.But until then I have to say I am pretty thrilled with my new iPhone. It's awesome. And now I will be able to take more video! As soon as I can figure out how to get the video from the phone to blogger, you'll see more of that.For today, I'm posting some random pictures of dirty horses :) and all weekend I'll tweet pics of our trip. (twitter link on the right).Have a great weekend!Heidi