Graduation and a 243

Graduation:

John is finally done with School!!!!

What more is there to say? We (especially John) have been waiting for this time to come. For those of you who don't know John, when he transferred to ACU he had two years of basics behind him so really he should have been done in about 2 or 2.5 years. Well, his advisers kept telling him to take classes he didn't need but then all of a sudden there were classes he was supposed to take and so on...so 3.5 years later he finally got to graduate this December! Yay! I'm so proud of him!! The poor guy has been going to school for about 7 years while working because he went to TSTC before CJC. I'm so proud of him for sticking with it and not giving up! I know he is relieved to be done!

Congratulations John! We are all so proud of you!

243:

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I hope everyone had a wonderful and happy Christmas! This year we went to Austin to spend Christmas with John's familia. We had a really great time and got to play "Santa" for my niece and nephew. We stayed up late putting their toys together and setting them up under the tree. I have never had an opportunity to be "Santa" before so it was fun! 


....Well you are all probably wondering what the "243" in the title is all about...that's just describing the Christmas present John got me this year.

That's right... I got my very own rifle for Christmas! A Marlin 243 with a scope. And complete with matching bullets, camo coveralls, and camo boots! :)

I never thought I would be so excited to get a gun for Christmas but lately I've been wanting to go hunting with John. We are going to go deer hunting this weekend so stay tuned for that adventure! I was telling my mom how I never thought I would get a gun for Christmas and she said "it just shows you how one person can change everyone's lives" (referring to my brother getting a gun for Xmas as well) which is so true. My family was never outdoorsy until John came into the picture and now we go camping and hunting and everything else. But we wouldn't have it any other way!

My husband is the greatest!!!

Here are some more pictures from John and I's Christmas together:

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
~from the Stephens

Happy 12-12

Yesterday was John and I's 2nd Wedding Anniversary. It's hard to believe we've already been married that long. Not to be too cliche but it really does feel like it was just yesterday that I was counting down the days til our wedding...crazy!

What's even crazier is that we have survived these last two years since we have been totally dependent on my cooking abilities. I must admit I didn't quite pass with flying colors in the cooking department but I didn't do so bad. I give myself an A-.  I did have my moments though. I only almost caught the kitchen on fire once while cooking some chicken. Me, well I'm a survivor. The chicken, well he was not as fortunate.

This year for our anniversary John and I decided to get each other camo coveralls. (Yeah you heard me right) And I have agreed to wear them when we go hunting.  I must have been in an exceptionally good mood that day when I agreed to this. We will have to see how that goes. Pictures to come later.

So there is this blanket I've been amateurishly crocheting for John over the past...4 Years! And this year for some reason I got really motivated to finish it so I wanted to give it to him for our anniversary because he has been anticipating this awesome blanket for quite some time now. So I started to fold it all up so I could wrap it for him and something strange was happening...for some odd reason the corners wouldn't match up, so I laid it out and here is what I saw...

...and no the side is not slanted because the camera angle. When I was crocheting I was apparently either making each row longer or smaller. So now the intended-to-be square blanket is a pyramid shape...awesome! It only took me 4 years to make that pyramid blanket...quite the accomplishment!

It was overall a great anniversary. Hopefully next year we can go somewhere since John will be out of school.

Happy 2nd Anniversary John! I LOVE YOU!

I'm Thankful for Fried Turkey

I know Thanksgiving is over and this is a little late but there is always time to be Thankful!

- I am so thankful for my wonderful husband who always supports me and loves me even during my moments when I'm un-loveable (I don't think that's a word so I'm thankful I have the freedom to make up my own words).
- I'm thankful for my fantastic family who always make me laugh when we are together. I don't think there has ever been a time that we have been together and not laughed.
- I'm thankful to have a job that allows me to support John and I while he finishes school, which leads me to being thankful for John graduating in less than a month!
- I'm thankful for my friends that have encouraged me and been there for me in times of need.
- And most of all I'm thankful that God has Blessed me with these people and the opportunities to love and be loved.

But this Thanksgiving I have a new item to add to my "Thankful List:"

I'm Thankful for Fried Turkey...

This year for Thanksgiving my family decided to fry, not one but TWO turkeys! We've never even fried a turkey before so why not just go ahead and fry up two. Or as we saw it... a back-up in case the first one blew up or something...

Surprisingly, the turkeys turned out pretty tasty. Two was probably a little over kill but so were the 6 dishes of sides and 4 different desserts to feed an army of....oh, you know, 12 people.

(Of course, John and I started getting our turkey ready and making our side dishes at midnight on Thanksgiving day...procrastination at its finest!)

Here's how it turned out... 

Note the precious turkey just chillin on the driveway while the grease gets hot. The only thought that keeps coming to mind is, "You know you're a redneck when..."

      To the right of John is a basketball goal. We were hoping the first turkey would shoot out of the fryer and go through the hoop...that didn't work out!

Turkey #1 and Turkey #2 - Do not be alarmed, Turkey #2 did not have to surrender it's wings and legs to the pot of hot grease. It came without any which is why it looks a little strange, and you can see why it was the back up turkey. A wingless/legless turkey with metal rods coming out of its ends is not exactly the picturesque Thanksgiving Turkey I have always envisioned but it sure was some good eatin! ~ Happy Thanksgiving Y'all!

Cousin Picture

The Life of an Artist

Today I went to the sink to clean some dishes left in there (imagine that) and there was a mixing bowl, left over from the pie I made yesterday, sitting right next to a bowl with a paint brush from when I was painting yesterday. Oh the life of an artist... Just hope I don't mix up the two. Surely acrylic paint isn't that dangerous if swallowed, right?

October Catch Up

So since I've only had this blog for a month and am already behind on my blog posts, that's not a good sign. Here's a catch up of the last two weeks that hopefully I will only have to do once....doubt it. Blogging regularly is probably not a great idea for someone who lives their life in the procrastination lane...

We have had an eventful last couple of weeks. At the end of October, John had knee surgery. That was a fun day for me hanging out at the hospital where I couldn't get Pinterest to work on either my phone or John's, let's just say it was a loooong day of sitting. It was a nightmare, so many hours of pinning wasted!

John ready for surgery.

So then John's family came down that weekend to visit and we took my sweet niece, Sophie, to the zoo.

This monkey pictured above was having issues. The first picture of him is when he realized John's brother, Burt, had a giant pretzel so he came up to the glass and pressed his whole body against the glass. He then sat down and would smash his face against the glass. Sometimes his teeth would show. Of course all the other monkeys were looking at him like "Somebody needs to go get him, he's embarrassing us!" It was hilarious. Best trip to the zoo EVER!! Leave it to the Abilene Zoo to have "special" monkeys.


Then, last week we fostered a lost dachshund that some friends of ours found.  He was so precious but we just couldn't keep him. That would mean we would have 3 dogs. Just having 3 dogs for a week made me feel like an animal hoarder. I just couldn't take him to a shelter though because I have a sweet spot for dachshunds. It was a lot to handle but we finally found a sweet family for "Kudrow" That's what John started calling him because we didn't want to name him so we wouldn't get attached.  I think they ended up naming him Toby. So cute! I did get a little sad when he left, if we had kept him any longer I may have not given him up.

Excuse the pink and white polka dot collar. This dog is a male. He was having identity issues.

That was a lot of randomness but now I feel I can get back to procrastinating. So stayed tuned for November's events in December.

Pinterest Project #2: Yarn Letter

So this weekend I did another one of the Pinterest Projects on my list.  This time I decided to make one of these cute yarn letters I saw... (well so I thought I pinned it, but when I went back to find the image it wasn't there. I think I'm starting to mentally pin things now!)

Pinterest Yarn Letters - Pin It!

Sidenote: When I was growing up I would make collages of all these little images I cut out of magazines. I would put them all over stuff like boxes, notebook and whatever else. I would spend hours doing that, so naturally wrapping string around cardboard for several hours appealed to me! 

But anyways, here is how my 2nd Pinterest attempt went...

I first made a pattern by printing the letter with the font and size I wanted. I chose a serif font to give it a little interest. Then I traced the pattern on some cardboard I already had. I traced two since I made it 3-dimensional.  

 

I then cut the two S's out and used a thinner, more bendable cardboard (came as stuffing in a box) for the sides and assembled with painter's tape (any tape will work that just happened to be all I had).

I then wrapped the 'serif' ends first so that I could cover the outer edges of the 'serif' part.  That way when I started wrapping around the letter my yarn would all we going the same way (if that makes sense?). It only took me an entire Texas Rangers baseball game to wrap this letter (Note: I was not AT the game wrapping this letter...that would be weird)! Go Rangers! And here is the final product...

And here is where it temporarily sits...

This project only cost me under $3!!
Printed pattern= FREE
Cardboard= FREE (already had)
Tape= already had
Yarn= about $2.50 because I had a 25% off coupon from Michael's
TOTAL COST= $2.50

I really enjoyed this project! It made me want to wrap everything with yarn. I think I might wrap a word next or maybe I should wrap Jade. She could be a yarn-wrapped dog (a.k.a. Pinterest Victim) for Halloween.

Happy Pinning!

Pinterest Project #1 = Painted Curtains

So as I mentioned in my first post...I'm kind of AM addicted to Pinterest. There is just something about scrolling through all those wonderful images that is so hypnotizing.  So besides the fact that I have spent countless hours doing just that, I must admit I'm pretty proud of myself for actually doing a project I found there. I saw these beautiful curtains that had big horizontal stripes on them and fell in love. Then I read the caption, {Paint stripes on white curtains} So my immediate reactions were, "Why didn't I think of that!?!"(which is the usual response to things I find on Pinterest), "I need those in my life!" and "Where should I put them so I look at them and love them everyday?"

Well we have been using a sofa table, which I inherited from my grandmother, as our entertainment center, which was working out great other than you could see all the cords and cable boxes underneath which was driving me insane. So I just wanted to get rid of it and get something with doors or drawers or something more closed...until i saw those painted curtains and a light bulb came on. I decided to paint the wood dark brown and then add curtains to hide the mess underneath.

I bought an off-white curtain with a canvas texture and painted blue horizontal stripes on them. The paint was left over from one of the walls we painted in our living room so it matched perfectly. All I had to buy for this project was the curtain, a wooden rod and 2 eye-hole screw things (don't know what they are call). Those last two item were so I could assemble a curtain rod on the inside so that we could still easily access our cords and everything. The side curtain panels just got a hot glue gun taken to them.  So here is how it all turned out... (unfortunately I don't have any before pictures of my sofa table, I'll work on that for my next projects)

Pinterest Painted Curtains- click here to Pin
 

My Painted Curtains - (sorry the pictures aren't very good, I had to use my phone)

 Here's the line-up for my future Pinterest Projects:

1. Yarn Letter
2. DIY Milk Vases
3. Something with a Wooden Pallet, just don't know what that is yet.

Happy October!

Happy October and Friday from the Stephens!

These pictures are from the Dallas Arboretum where there were tons of pumpkins everywhere! So awesome!

What, no flip?

So anyone that knows John and I, is probably aware that we love our DQ Blizzards. Especially in October because it's when they have my favorite flavor, the Pumpkin Pie Blizzard! So the other day we made a pit stop at DQ since I am a member of the DQ Blizzard Club and had a Buy 1 Get 1 FREE coupon burning a hole in my pocket and when the girl handed us our blizzards, well, she didn't flip them! I didn't really think anything about it cause they were a little soft so if she did flip them, there would have been a blizzard nightmare all over the concrete. But apparently it bothered John because he brought it up again....

John: I still can't believe they didn't flip our blizzards.
Me: Well, they were kind of soft and they probably didn't want to keep remaking them because they kept dumping them on the concrete.
John: But it's their signature move. It's basically included in the price. We are paying for that flip.
Me: Um ok, next time ask them to flip it while I'm hiding my face from embarrassment.... hmm, can't wait for that.

...to be continued.

To Blog or Not to Blog...

Well that was the Question, but I guess you figured out the answer. I've been trying to decide if starting a blog is something I should do. I mean, do I really have time to update a blog when my clean laundry has been sitting on the couch for 2 days...of course I do!! {I must note that the laundry is folded, of course, but the longer it sits there the more my dachshund, Jade, feels it is her place for nesting...nothing a little lent roller can't handle, right?} So back to blogging it is...I decided it is time for me to have a place to document the things that are happening to me. A lot has happened to me in the last two years, I have become a MRS., bought a fixer-uper home and started my first "real" job so I feel it's time for me to start blogging.  I also wanted to have a place to share things that are inspirational to me. And thanks to my new addiction to Pinterest, the inspiration and DIY projects are just oozing out of me. But...WARNING!: Pinterest is a highly-addictive website and if you don't want to spend countless hours of your life staring at a computer screen, then run the other way. But if you want a life-time of happiness...and to become a hoarder because you see a DIY project in everything you look at...join Pinterest....and you're welcome! ...So "To Blog", that's my answer to the question and I hope that this blog can inspire in some way or just bring a smile...or if no one is reading this I'll at least know when I Google myself something other than my LinkedIn profile will come up...Enjoy!