8 years...long but wonderful years

Russel and I have been married for eight years today.  

Eight years that we have grown closer than I ever thought possible.  

We have our ups and downs...I think everyone does.  It is healthy.  

We also have our fun...day after day and year after year. 

And we will continue to have fun together for the rest of our lives.  

It's in our blood, our souls, our hearts. 

I love you sweet hubby!

Stacey

Coal Creek Saturday

We drove over to Coal Creek OHV on Saturday with some friends.  

Russel put together this video from videos and pictures

that we took with hi Go Pro Hero 2. 

I think it is easily one of the best gifts that I have ever gotten for him. 

He uses it constantly.

A Daily Funny for You

Our dog is spoiled, crazy and a little wacky sometimes.  

He only likes to play when he is ready and really only plays well 

with Russel, me and occasionally the nieces. 

Last night Russel and Rachel were playing with Hunter as he ran around the pool.  

I caught this photo and can't help but laugh. 

I didn't have my camera on the right setting for fast movement

because I just grabbed it up and started clicking so it's a little blurry but still funny as all get out. 

 And of course I had to doctor it up with the ermahgerd because truthfully it's the first thing that came to my mind.  

Have a great Wednesday. 

Stacey

Easy Sherbert - No Pictures

A few years ago at the June is Dairy month event at Dorris Milling company a lady brought orange sherbert.  Mom made it for father's day yesterday at lunch and then I made a variation at supper for the in laws.  It is so good and SO easy to put together that it may well be my go to dessert for summer get togethers.  Don't get me wrong:

 I LOVE MAKING ICE CREAM IN ALL DIFFERENT FLAVORS!

But this is so easy it will take little time to whip it together.  

Here's what you need:

Your ice cream freezer - Mine is the "standard size" that you get at Walmart/ Target/ Ace hardware

Ice 

Rock Salt (also known as ice cream salt)

2 cans of sweetened condensed milk

1 two liter of orange Crush soda

*** mom used orange Crush soda - my MIL was having peach cobbler so I used the Kroger brand peach soda - but I was really looking for Diet Rite Golden Peach.  I think that you could probably use any kind of flavored soda to make your sherbert depending on your taste.  Let me know what flavor you chose*** 

Pour 2 cans sweetened condensed milk into the bottom of your ice cream canister. 

Slowly  pour your 2 liter of soda into the canister.  It is going to froth so pour slow and make sure that you do not fill your canister past the fill line. 

Slowly stir the milk and soda together. 

Insert the dasher into the canister and put the canister top on.  

Using the salt and ice freeze according to your freezer directions. 

Hope that you enjoy....we certainly did!

8 years!

Russel and I have been married 8 years this month.  YAY!

Even after 8 years of marriage and many more of dating, I am always in a conundrum about what to get Russel for birthdays, anniversaries and Christmas.  

He is a man that is hard to buy for (which one isn't).  I say that because he goes out and buys items that he wants.  If there is something that I think he wants it is normally something that I can't say - "Hey - I need a extra medium blue in that" - It is something with 15 different models, 10 different speeds (faster is always better - I have learned that in 8 years) and 55 colors.  It's never a decision that I want to make - so I end up getting him a gift card for somewhere that carries said object and let him pick out his own.  I know - I am a terrible gift buyer for Russel.  We've even went to "stocking gifts" at Christmas with each other because I am hard to buy for too. 

 So this year for our anniversary I decided to DO something for Russel.  I hope that he likes it as well as the men that I have mentioned it to have said that they would like it. 

I CLEANED THE GARAGE AND ADDED HANGING STORAGE!!!

(not by myself)   

Russel left to work out of town on Monday morning.  I came home itching to get started on my anniversary project.  The first task was to move the fridge and stand up freezer from the garage to an unused wall in our downstairs "office".  Easy Peasy Right????

Our fridge and freezer for whatever reason always seems to be a hub for junk.  Lay something up against one, slide it between the two or stack it on top.  So I got busy moving all the junk so that I could move the fridge and freezer.  I started with the fridge and got it to the door to go into the other part of the basement and GOT STUCK. Well there went my momentum.  I went outside and through the house to get on the other side of the fridge that was now currently standing in the doorway and wouldn't go backwards or forwards.  I took the door off the hinges thinking that would help.  Not so much.  So I called our friend Dave who lives down the road  **side note - I had planned on calling Dave later in the week to help me hang the wall storage but had to call on him MUCH earlier than planned**  Dave was to the rescue and helped move the fridge and freezer.  We discussed the wall storage options and he agreed to help me later in the week.  

Dave's question when I said it was an anniversary gift - "You are going to have this cleaned up when Russel gets home, right??"

"Of course!" So I started cleaning.

After some internet research I picked up the pieces that I wanted for our gladiator wall storage system.  Dave came over for mechanical and engineering assistance - you can't hang these things with only two arms.  We stagger hung 16 feet of the gear track channels and then started adding different hangers.  I think we came up with the perfect balance (bottom picture above).  It got so much up off the floor that I wondered where it all was before - Oh right - in the floor, in the corner, on top of the fridge, hiding out in the RZR.  

After that I went ahead and swept & cleaned up oil spills and put up what I thought I could.  

The result?  A clean semi organized garage - which is probably the best anniversary gift I could give Russel - if he can find all his stuff now. 

Stacey

Thread Board

My super cool hubby bought me a HUGE bunch of spools of thread for Christmas last year.  I have used and used and used on the thread and absolutely love it.  It had every color I could ever need.  It even came in this super cool shelf with a handle.  However, there was no way to hang it on the wall and I found out the hard way what happened when it fell over...and a hundred + spools of thread went flying every where!  After that incident and quite a while of wondering WHAT to do with bobbins that had thread still on them that matched thread on a spool I decide that something had to be done.

I searched the web and found some options...that were a little costly.  So I searched pinterest and found an alternative.
A thread rack tutorial by Sugar Bee Crafts.  Her tutorial is great.
The only thing I knew that I wanted to change was that I wanted my dowel rods to be cut longer so that I could put the coordinating bobbin in front of my spool of thread.  
I started by buying the peg board and dowel rods.  I brought it all home and grabbed one of my handy dandy spools of thread.  It slid right on.  Then one of my bobbins (because I wanted my bobbins to be on the same dowel as its coordinating thread) and it wouldn't go.  CRAP.  So I went back to the Home Depot and looked for peg board with smaller peg holes - no dice. 
I ended up getting a piece of 2 * 4 particle board.   I also carried along a bobbin so that I could pick a dowel rod small enough for my bobbin to slide on to.
I took my new particle board home and laid it underneath the peg board.
I took a pencil and marked every other peg hole through to the new piece pf particle board so I would know where to drill holes. Then I drilled holes and drilled holes and drilled more holes. 
My hubby used the table saw and cut my dowel rods to lengths that would hold my spools and bobbins. 
After those steps, I pretty much continued following directions according to Sugar Bee's instructions.
 We made one slight variation which was to leave one corner to attach some mason jars to hold pins, safety pins and other small objects.  We just ran wire through holes that were intended for the dowel rods and wired them on tight.  Then I wrapped a cute piece of cut fabric around to cover the wire.  
Here are our results ~

I found a couple more things I would have changed (or changed the order I did it in) if I had thought about it to begin with:

1. Paint the peg board before you put in all the dowel rods.  It would just be easier.
2. Paint the trim before you add it around the edges - because then you don't have to be so precise
3.If you want the dowels painted also do those before hand.  I would have probably left mine natural colored.
4. On the bottom row I would have put a dowel in every other hole so I could use the bottom row to hang winder items.  As it is, I am using mine for scissors and cutting tools but wish I could hang a few more things there. 
5. I wouldn't have gotten so excited to make it and not thought about issues 1 - 4 before hand.  Take you time.  Figure out what all you want to use the board for and make adjustments to suit your needs. 

Hope you enjoy making your own thread board. Please leave comments and questions.  I'd love to hear from you.

Stacey