Gratitude..where is it today?

This is inspired by Kari and Christy trying to find something to be grateful in each day... Today, I am trying to find a tiny bit of gratitude in a very crappy day..Okay I need this today! I am normally a very positive person and can find the silver lining in every cloud. Well this year has started with a few bumps and potholes. after a whine I will get to the gratitude part....I will spare all the details, (maybe not..hmm)they have all either been resolved or will be, with some expense but more an annoyance than anything. This week with a paper deadline looming(the 2nd..yes that was two days ago..but got an extension and am uploading the last few files as I type) My computer broke, all of my files were one it, I was faced with starting all over....it kept restarting(it is now fixed ...i am typing on it) Okay so I am preparing to start the redo..hook up Salina's computer...was successful at fixing the problem I igonored for months...i couldn't get it up onto the wireless (essential for transferring digtal files to paper company), so then i began to load software for my printer and scanner so i could rescan everything...well, hers started to shut down over and over..*sigh* panic hits...Well nothing i could do..so i decided to go snowblow..made two passes on our huge long driveway and the snowblower breaks...I can't get my computer in the next day(the 2nd..deadline day, I still had Art computer to use if needed) if I have to let Art take my truck because he can't get his car over 12" of snow...and i just didnt' have the enrgy to shovel..although i probably would have gone out and done it anyway...the angels must have been listening..an hour later I look out the window and see a giant tractor with some young man digging us out...He was one of Salina';s friends and "happened" to be in the neighborhood...Okay so now i could relax a tiny bit...So the morning of the 2nd...it is cold in here..no heat..I call for repair..they are coming in 3 hours or so...so i go to the gym...first time in 2 weeks...Repairman comes..15 minutes later heat is fixed, no charge, under warranty, YAY! So i talk to Tara...the paper company owner...she said she could work on the rest of the designs first...so i got an extension..computer guy got computer fixed within a few hours..pick it up, don't have to rescan etc...So all is well...and then my washer breaks...I do up to 15 loads a week..I can't do without a washer for long..will have to make a trip today or tomorrow to laundromat...
The worst part...I have not been sleeping..and my attitude by today is dim. I am so exhausted I can't bring myself to work out..would be so painful and my heart rate is elevated..which can lead to panic attacks... I cried so much last night. I know what the biggest problem is..my weight..and Art isn't helping. Constantly he is saying things about it..he says it is only when i say something..it doesn't feel that way to me~, he seems to talk about it all the time! I am reeeeally starting to feel even worse about it. I went through a first marriage of 12 years that I was constantly reminded about how i would look so much better if i lost weight..oh i miss those days of when you were skinny...gees maybe the men in my life only want me for my looks..what is going to happen if I stay fat forever?..huh?..am i going to be alone again for the rest of my life?..why do i keep ending up in situations that support my fears and insecurities? Or is it my fears and insecurities that make me more sensitive to the whole thing. who friggin knows...then i have a mother that told me 'Oh look I am smaller than you" gees that made me feel good..not!...that was about a year and a half ago and it still stings..it used to be the only thing I felt like I had, was my little figure and cuteness...but with that gone, I struggle...Why is my self worth so wrapped up with what dress size i wear?..so if i lose weight, is Art all of a sudden going to want me more..is he asking me to lose wieght for me..or for him?.he seems to think about it a whole heck of a lot..it must be bothering him...What happened to "if you gain weight from quitting smoking..I would rather you be round and be around longer"...well shit maybe I should start smoking again..there are some little times I still miss it~nah i won't....but damn this metabolism...and now I have to sacrifice everything..no more wine if i want to lose, that is my last vice! and I enjoy it!...working out 4-5 days a week isn't doing it...I have bruised feet and am in constant pain..God help me! I don't think that he realizes how hard this is on me..right now I just want to run away...I won't, have I have my boys...my babies..and my big kids..they are what keep me going! They love me for me..if i am fat or not and bless Jonathon's heart...he tells me everyday that he thinks I am beautiful. His name means God's Gift..and boy he is that and more!

So for today...despite all of this whining..and tears streaming down my face..I can say I am ever so grateful for my children...they love me unconditionally...even when i can't love myself that way!

Happy New Year!

I would like to wiosh all of my blog friends a Happy New Year!! I hope that it is a great year for each and every one of you! full of happiness, health ,peace of mind and the wildest successes you have ever dreamed of!
One of the latest things I have been doing is sewing. I have had a new obsession with hats! I spent a few pennies at Amazon and bought a pile of hat books..historical, pictorial and a couple of how to books! I found a new friend on flickr that has sparked even more of an interest and we both seem to be fascinated with tiny top hat versions! Well I was a bit stumped at how to make them the 'real' way. I dug around and located my grandfathers collapsable top hat and since it is old the lining had a bit of ftear in it and I could see how some of it was done. Cardboard for the top...hhmmm?...okay it had springs for the structure..can't recreate that..but i could use more cardboard. So i designed and created my mini version and even if my methods are not true to millinery standards...it is clean, neat and very professional looking in the end result...and I am now addicted and have plans on making more...I had already made this outift and the top hat i made was from the left over fabric laying on the table...voila! a fun New Years Outfit was born~ The corset belt was made from a velvet beaded vest..easy easy..it has pants underneath for comfort and practicality~!the bow was made on a pin so it can be removed..the hat could be possibly worn with other outfits that way.Mr. Snowman helping out with the chore of modeling..another reworked/rem,ixed outfit. Inspried by the vest turned into corset belt idea...i had the black pants..and after I made the vest i looked down and lo and behold was a gold shirt from Art that had abad collar and stains on the front..I took it somewhat apart and cut out new pieces...leaving the front button holes and pocket and reworked the sleeves...to make a peasant blouse. I dug through my buttons and found areal cool set of two buttons with a chain and switched out the rest for other silver buttons. The lace is vintage hand crocheted!
I have decided several things in the past few weeks. I have been on a dead run now for 6 months. We have had event after event on top of the normal everyday living with 4 kids at home and two older ones out in the world...along with a big house and all the activities and sports...so i am tired...I have had very little time for art and any art that i have done was for swaps or submissions. I seem to have lost my pleasure. I decided that this year I am going to make things for MY pleasure and let my muse guide me and see what I will make...for fun and to feed my soul. I used to get so excited and inspired and would create all sorts of new and fun things...experimenting and designing..but for some reason it all got lost this year..the fun and charm. So for me to be able to forge ahead and create new and exciting things....it is time for me to just stop with the swaps(except a few very thoughtfully chosen ones) and also not worry about submitting and what i might make that would be accepted...etc! I am going to play! So that is one of my resolutions for the year..and also to stop whining and dig in and finally do something about this weight...including giving up a bit more of my wine habit!

so there....my new years stuff....i also have come up with a new motto or two... 'If the journey through life is an adventure'...dress the part...and 'Attitudes are contagious..is yours worth catching?'
love and light to you all and I hope you find all the wonderful things in this new year!
angela

Belated Christmas/Happy Holidays greetings...

okay...some one opened the barn doors of busy and all the cows ran out to the pasture....I have spent the last two weeks trying to herd them all back in....on foot..with bare feet in the snow...up hill...both ways....KWIM?...yikes was it crazy...so lets see if i can recap a bit.
Office party on the friday 21st...was wonderful but spent half the week getting ready ..the other half jumping from childrens events and Christmas parties and such and also nusring a cold and stomach flu at the same time....I had two drinks on Friday...too sick for much more..it was fun and wonderful though! Art has such a wonderful staff....and the husbands/SO were sweet too. The girls got me a cute little gift basket with my all time favorite scent Bath and Body works stuff...Vanilla....YUM *scratch Here to smell*..ha ha jk...I am still waiting for "smell-o-vision"..wouldn't that be fun?

Art and the girls

I just love this picture of Art...he is so darn cute...okay yeah even after 12 + years I am still in love *sigh*

Saturday the 22nd..Turner and his cub scout troup visited a nursing home...they had made over 100 cards and ornaments to pass out to the residents. Turner was so sweet and gentle with the older people. I wish I could have captured his expression..tilted head and all when he was talking to them. I was on the verge of tears almost the whole time..bless all these peoples hearts~

okay i did splurge a bit and took some time off in between shopping on Saturday and Sunday...i needed it. MY feet have been hurting so bad for the past couple of months i seriously need time off of the poor things...Any way..my splurge caught up with me on Christmas Eve...i scrambled and finished my shopping and also picked Ashton up at the same time..arriving home close to 8...made home made pizza...and guess what?..i had to WRAP ALL of the presents still..around 12:30 i had a melt down and cried...and cried..Salina finally peeled away from her ex????huh/ WTF?...and helped me like she said she would hours before....so we finished around 1...i fell into bed. I did manage to sleep like a log and woke up with a much better attitude (PMS, wine and exhaustion just don't mix well) So Christmas was fun...the kids had a blast opening presents..the kids got us lovely gifts and it was mostly just us...I stayed in my jammies all day. this year i decided to stray from the norm and created a new tradition for dinner...surf and turf!! YAY! it was awesome~ NY strips, Crablegs(lobster tail for Art)hushpuppies, stuffed mushrooms made from scratch and no recipe, stemaed beans, dirty rice and shrimp cocktails...yumyum...a new tradition was born..we all decided it was awesome!

here are the kids after opening presents

the madness of unwrapping begins...it looked like Armageddon around here...oh wait..it still does..rofl~
Today..the house is a wreck and I seriously don't care......and we went to see Golden Compass...very, very cool movie~ I love the subtle hints of some of the madness we see in our own society..(especially the wacky controls of the Catholic Church..no offense to any Catholic readers..but hey..i am a recovering Catholic that suffered abuse from vicious nuns when i was a child...HA! any movie they recommend not seeing must have something good in it..like hiding truth from its followers....gees i am being quite political tonight huh?)..ha ha...any way the movie was refreshingly different and had beautiful visuals...I hope Art gets it in Hi Definition when it comes out so I can see the beauty in more detail, than what theaters offer now adays...I hope they can make the sequel..Daniel Craig is a great actor...and he was the dad...with potential for an awesome role in the next one...

I know I am fogetting a whole lot of goings on...and am so behind. I participated in two AWESOME 12 days of Christmas swaps and took some pictures..but then life got out of control and never had a chance to take picvtures of all the beautiful gifts. WOW1 it was such a treat every morning to open a couple of treasures from my art friends...and also somewhere in this madness a nephew was born..a week ago I think. Ryan, my little sister, gave birth to her second child..a little boy named Sawyer Beckett Keay...here he is 4 days old with his big sister Sydney...yay! more babies ....love love babies~Here is my last remix outfit...a thrifted brown knit dress....oh my it is comfie...with red leggings from forever ago...brown Nine West shoes from Good will and hand made rag ball necklace and earrings...just right for finishing up Christmas shopping on Christmas eve...christmas was jammie day..no pics for you of that..rofl!

okay so now that the holiday madness is over, i am hoping I can have a really nice boring couple of months...here's to winter and boring~ *clink clink* wine glass lifted to my little world here...rofl~

Crazy but better week....if I didn't have the crud

Okay first off....good news about Bob. We got the biopsy results back and there is no liver cancer and no cancer markers in his blood. As far as they can tell he had a fatty liver from his high cholesterol levels...but all of that is treatable. He has a couple more spots that are being checked before he is completely out of the woods. But, compared to having less than a year to live..well, we take it as very very good news! Some one needs to smack that doctor for scaring all of us so...

The drive through the blizzard in Ohio was right on top of my to do list....I think that will do me for another 20 years or so..phew! that was pretty scary!

So we got the tree up Tuesday, thanks to two 20's and bribing Ashton and his buddy to help me..it is now fully decorated along with the rest of the house...phew! finally!~
and this morning...well the sniffle and bit of body aches I have been fighting the past couple of days, hit me full blown..bleh...along with some other unmentionable symptoms..I think though, the aspirin are kicking in and the body aches are subduing a tiny bit....wish me luck..i still have to Christmas shop for the kids..and get little gifties for the two little one's Christmas parties at school this afternoon...

WEll not to leave you on a downer here is a bit of cheer for you in the meantime...off to go blow my nose...my elf name is:

Your Elf Name Is...

Baby Ho-Ho-Ho

What's" Your Elf Name?

baby ho ho ho...rofl!

what a week of good news and some bad news...

This has been such a full and crazy week....go get your cup of tea ...this is going to be a long post! Just to get it out of the way..I will give our bad news first. We got a phone call fromArt's sister Judy about Art's (Art is my husband) brother Bob...Bob had gone into the hospital to get his gall bladder taken out and while in there doing the surgery the Doctor saw that his liver was fully spotted. His guess was a full blown, advanced case of liver cancer. Ugh! We have been such a state of shock~ Bob is only 57 and has never had any health problems his whole life. We got a glimmer of hope today. The doctor told Judy that there is a 20% chance that it could be something else...non cancer...some sort of scarring or something. So we won'tknow for sure until the biopsy results come back. So please any of you reading this say a prayer for Bob! He is a sweet man and it would be nice to have him around a while longer. We are making a fast trip over to Pittsburgh this weekend..leaving Saturday morning and coming back sunday night.



Okay to cheer things up now....I subjected Oscar to some Christmas cheer..they say laughter is the best medicine after all....he is probably thinking...."why mamma?..why do I have to do this stuff?..it itches" he also is telling you Merry ChristmasSo lets see what has been packed into this whirl wind week...Ah tueday night the Christmas program at the kids school...Turner is way in the back on the right side...5 kids over without his hand to his head...
I had gone to good will last week and found all sorts of fun things..lots of thing ready to wear and a pile of things to alter into things to wear. With all this extra weight on me...that i do cry about at times...leaves me frustrated so much...But, I have decided that I am going to play with my outfits and look as fun and nice as I can....I have gotten caught up into this craze over on flickr called remixing..remix outfits are usually with some sort of vintage or thrifted piece or two or twenty. Here I am also wishing every one a happy holiday~oh I made the earrings out of buttons...modeled after a pair of off white ones I found at Salvation ArmyHere is my fun plaid skirt..that cost around $3....with a top for $2.50...layered with a sweater from Goodwill from many years ago...leggins from target and fun striped socks underneath..I actually got a tiny bit of art done...my cover of my RR book...My story is about a child vampire named Amelya...this is her journal she has kept for the last 200 years. I have the backgrounds done..just need to add my artwork...
Last night was cubscouts..they had their Christmas party and Turners troop had to do the flag ceremony to earn one of their badges. Originally the party was for tonight..but we had bad weather last week and everything got switched around..so at 4:15 yesterday I found out that the party was moved from our school tonight to the other elemetary last night..ACK!!!! I had to make 4 sashes for the color guard and his scroll for his part, Turner had to make his flag and I was still smelly and sweaty from the gym earlier...we had to be there in 1 1/2 leaving 15minutes travel time...so in 40minutes I made all of this:These are the times I thank God that I am good at what I do...



so after that I showered and sticking to my fun clothes pact to myself, I came up with this outfit..inspired by the shoes....and the cool skirt I had found on my trip to GW...you know it is about the shoes..always the shoes...

see the cute owls on the side!
tada....here I am...nut case aren'tI?..rofl!...i see Oscar is making off with something..
This week also came with one of the most exciting things ever...I had been asked by Stampington.com(publisher of many many cool magazines including my all time favorite Somerset Studio) to create a project with two of their new products. I created the project withing two days...and turned around sent it back...they used it to introduce their new product of the week...Originally it was to be featured in their weekly smaller Creative Impulse newsletter..but when i emailed a preview and scans they asked me to overnight it to include in their monthly huge newsletter...I am their featured artist...WOW!!!!! I amstill blown away by this~
Project of the Month"ATC Calendar"by Angela Hoffman
Angela Hoffman’s magnificent artwork has been featured on the pages of many Stampington & Company publications. As our Featured Artist for this issue of Post Script, she has created an “ATC Calendar” that will keep you inspired all year long! Her beautiful calendar was made with brand new products from The Shoppe at Somerset, which are being offered exclusively to our Post Script subscribers at a 5% discount before their official release on December 14th. Click here to see the instructions for Angela’s project, and to purchase the featured products before they become available to the general public!
actually click here for real


oh some days...when life is just hectic and out of control...you find a moment of Grace...a quiet moment, when something in nature gives you a tiny touch of God..where you just have to stop and take a deep breath and say "AH!!! this is the miracle of life"...this was one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen~ the contrast of the deep blue with orange horizon just took my breath away...i was pumping gas on my way to Turner's pack meeting and turned around...and WOW!!!~

here is Turner fulfilling his color guard drill sargent duties..I was so proud of him! and one last giggle...Oscar revisted in his elf costume...he cracks me up!~
and to all a goodnight!
xoxox
angela

working on some projects...

I am about 3 weeks behind on one of my projects..I am hanging my head in shame..it is an RR book for a dark themed altered Book Round Robin...i have been working on it finally. I got stumped at my initial starts..something was wrong..i hated it and couldn't get past that for a while and have let all of the other things take higher priority..although in some ways they were more pressing and urgent. I finally realized the main problem..not the concept but my main character..i wasn'tconnecting because i needed a better main character. I have picked the theme of vampires as my subject...and i for somereason was having a hard time until i came across the "littleest Vampire" and decided my story was to be about a little vampire..with other child vampires as her friends and characters in my beginning story. But i had used modern images for the intial character...and hated it...so i kept coming back to this one photo I had come across and it was perfect.. I found her and cut her out as my main character...and now I am rolling...lots of details in the book so it may take a day or more....but! I am over the hump and block and am on my way....Now since I am the hostess...if I caused any problems I do have the power to extend any deadlines..lol!

I was also working today on trying my hand at some new techniques...so many artists create these gorgeous collages with painted faces and figures on top...i have been wanting to do this for ages...DJ Pettitt is one of my favorite artists that has inspired me over the years...and now I see more and more...i really would like to get into this...it is a whole new territory for me...i very rarely have painted people...so it is new and a bit frustrating because it isn't perfect..but like anything else new..I have to start somewhere~

just a quickie hi..

am creating some today...cleaned up my studio a bit yesterday and then surfed blogs last evening...totally wasting art time. But when i am tired it is hard to get motivated. Today i am working on a bunch of projects simultaneously! Ha ha...tell me something new! Any way i didn't want any one to think i fell off the face of the earth..i am still here!

Last week I created a snowflake fairy rider...i might get ambitious soon and create some more winter fairies for a new collage sheet..but in the meantime I would like to share her with my devoted readers...
you know, the one or two that I have...lol!...please feel free to grab her and use her in your art!

til later..have more to share but need to go into a picture taking mode first..in the meantime back to my art...the photos are done printing...xoxox
angela