Another Year Older

January is coming to an end and the sun is starting to shine for a lot longer when it does decide to come out. BOY is it ever welcomed!!  This girl is another year older and boy was I spoiled this year not only with an abundance of love and best wishes,  but with lots of lovely gifts. My awesome hubby ordered in Chinese so I didn't have to make dinner two days in a row. I received one of the things I miss most about the warmer seasons ...  beautiful colourful flowers!

 

Over the past couple years I have discovered that I really enjoy orchids and they enjoy being in my presence as they will often bloom for me the majority of the year. Oma & Opa gave me these two beauties.

 

My Dad always gets me fresh flowers for my birthday. Usually it's a bouquet of roses and I always tell him the bouquets of mixed flowers always last longer but he usually ignores me. This year surprisingly he listened. If you look close though there's a couple roses in there. I'm loving my 1 Gallon mason jar Hubby gave me at Christmas!!

My Sister surprised me with this adorable and fun birthday cake that she made all on her own.



It was delicious!

 

I am truly surrounded by such wonderful and amazing people!!

 

 

Enjoying the Little Things

Back in November we acquired this fancy coffee machine.

 

Isn't she a beauty? One problem though she was almost lifeless and on her way out the door... she was getting tired and not really working properly until Mr. Fix it (Hubby) came to the rescue. The frother had stopped working properly a while back and other issues were starting to pop up.   It belonged to Oma & Opa. They had already sent it away to be fixed once and just didn't want to invest any more money into it. We were informed Opa was devastated when it stopped working properly.  He loved this coffee machine like no other. Once they replaced it with a new one,  they asked Hubby if he wanted it to have a look at and possibly fix it when he had a chance.

We are so happy Hubby said yes. It has brought with it some simple enjoyments and treasured memories.  He literally took it all apart and gave it a good cleaning with the help of The Lil man just before Christmas ...

... and just like that we have been enjoying some fancy dancy coffee...  with frothed milk!

YES FROTHED milk!! Oma said, not even the factory repair people were able to fix the frother like Hubby did. I'm so proud of him!   It's been wonderful!!  The Lil Man now loves helping Dad make the coffee. We only have "special coffee" when Hubby is home on the weekends as we don't want to take away from it's specialness. {We may just have to buy one for ourselves when this one calls it quits for good as we are really enjoying it}.

 

We figured the fix would only last a couple days because it sounded really bad every time the machine started up, so we have been enjoying at least 2 cups of coffee per day. Much to our surprise,  here we are at the end of January and we are still enjoying this amazing coffee machine.  Surprisingly the machine is not as loud at start up.  It will be interesting to see how long it runs.

Shortly after the machine was fixed, we discover Mr. H likes the frothed milk.  So we put a little (milk only ... no coffee ... he has enough energy in him)  in a little toy mug and he was so happy.

He has since upgraded to a porcelain mug which actually belonged to Hubby when he was younger. He just loves it.

We kind of take our coffee breaks seriously around here. A milk mustache is a must! It's been wonderful enjoying a simple thing such as a cup of coffee with my boys.

 

 

Take a Minute

I must be honest,  I am not a fan of winter, mainly because I really dislike feeling cold and I do not really like many winter activities.  On days like today, however,  when there was a fresh snowfall over night  and the snow just sticks to the trees. It sure is pretty to stop and enjoy the beauty of winter.

 

Snapped this photo with my cell when I was out early this morning.

Life moves pretty fast if you don't stop and take a minute to look around you miss the beauty that surrounds us. So lucky to live in an area that is so beautiful year round ... even in the winter. You can't tell by this photo, but the snow was all sparkly and pretty.

 

 

 

New tool and side supports

So I was able to get a bit of time and I built the two side supports. The top bit is just open storage. The lower part is going to have two drawers (one support on either side of my tool box)for air tools, angle grinder, and other things I might want down and out of the way. I am going to build the drawers in the summer cause working in a cold garage sucks. Now it is just going to get a coat of paint and setup.

I also bought myself a new tool for this project, a kreg pocket hole jig. It's just a small simple one, but the wife now has a list of things she wants me to build with it. It's been a happy addition to my tool box, and I can't wait to use it more. I used it on my supports for the shelf and drawers. I am not a small guy and I was able to jump onto the shelf and she held on strong. Not bad for a couple 2 inch screws and 2x4's.

ManCave progress

So I got a little work done on the workbench this weekend between father/husband duties. Trip to home depot to grab some stuff, was going to do 3/4 ply but noticed a awesome deal on some Formica top material. So I am doing a double layer of OSB and some extra 2x4s for strength.

Bench is going to be 64 inches long and 24 inches wide. Could have went bigger but the dirt bike needs a home beside the bench so I can still park in garage over the winter. Going to lose the top of my current tool box and put the base under the new bench with dual shelves to either side. And the top will have 3 built in drawers. 2 at 15.5 inch wide and one 27 inch wide. All in all I should not lose any storage but gain work surface.

Was a little cold in the cave today.

And this is as far as I got it. Now to do the two side supports/shelves next weekend if all goes to plan.

ManCave makeover

Ok, so here is a little back story on what I am working with. My wife and I bought our house about 4 years ago, at that time we where thinking that we wanted a farm but it was not the right time for us. I did good on our last house with all the renos and such, only problem is the wife hated the mess. So we found a model home we liked and the builder wanted to dump it,  so after the awesome deal he gave us we moved in. This past summer we went and looked at a couple farms as we figured it's a good time to move. Then we started to talk about where we wanted to end up in life (we had a kid 1 year after buying the house) and the farm went out the window cause we like our current house that much (and the free time). I did a couple things in the garage, just to use up what I had around. Was always more about storage then a place to work. Now that we have decided to stay, I am starting to make my work space the way I want it.

So here is what I am starting with. A 20x20 attached garage that is 14 Foot high. 2 lofts already built. One is a 4x8 that is just for seasonal storage. Another 8x10 with steps going up to it. This one was going to be my little workshop, but its to hard to get anything up to work on. Also built shelves to store tools and bins of stuff across from big loft.

Loft did not work out as work shop also cause of the mess.

Seeing as its cold right now I am first working on my new bench / work area under my loft. I am keeping as much as I can under this area so I can put something around it and heat the area up when needed. So that's a new bench I am starting to work on already and inwall storage of tools and other stuff. Everything also has to be movable or in the right spot as my wife and I both park in the garage. This is how it is as of now.

So there is the start of what I hope ends up to be a really useful space for storage/work/parking. Please feel free to give input or suggestions, as we all sometimes forget about the trees while looking at the forest.

Byron

Happy New Year - 2015

Hard to believe the Holiday season is nearing an end and a new year is here.  As you can probably tell from my lack of posts, life  has been crazy busy around our place. 2014 was not  the worst of years but it also was certainly not our favouriteend and hope 2015 is a much better year.

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year! Hope it is filled with an abundance of happiness,  love,  peace,  memorable memories but most of all good health so we can enjoy these things.

2015 = 1 Story, 12 chapters, 365 pages. Should be another interesting adventure. Happy New Year!