A Ho Ho Hoffman Christmas

Hey everybody!

I hope that you guys had a nice and peace-filled Christmas! We had a great day with no kids. Bill and I went to the re-enactment of Washington crossing the Delaware River. It is a lot of fun, with Revolutionary war cannons & dress. Then we went to Chinese Buffet for dinner! YUM!

Our kids came the day after Christmas and will be here til January 3rd. The airports were bad and Eli ended up spending the night in Washington DC and his last plane that got delayed and made him stay there, was so late that by the time he realized he was spending the night at the airport all the restaurants were closed and his ear had popped on the plane and he was in pain all night and feeling pretty yucky by the time he got here and then to top it all off, United Airlines, did not get his luggage or his snow board here when he got here and they knocked on the door to deliver it at 1:20 am the next morning! UGH! I asked a nurse and found out that warm olive oil (the warmth of a baby bottle) droppered down the ear feels better and extra strength Tylenol Sinus headache is the other thing that works if you ever have a bad popped ear from traveling!

I am working on throwing out junk and trying to get my house organized for the new year resolution, since I gave up alcohol, cigarettes, and 4 pots of caffeine a day, in years past, the only super bad habit (that bothers me) I have any more, is having such a hard time getting things together and cleaned and organized! YIKES! It is pretty crazy! I did not realize how crazy the stuff we have sitting around here is, til I decided to try and find a place for everything or get rid of it...

So today I packed up my Christmas stuff early. This year is the first time in my life, I ever had an artificial tree and it was just a little 3 ft table topper. Since the kids were not going to be here and we are trying to do the green thing, we decided to not cut down a tree at least this year. I have to admit, I missed the smell of the tree but I did not miss stepping on needles and trying for the rest of the year to clean them up. Also since the little tree sat on my table, I did not have to work all that hard to keep the dogs away from it. That was nice! And we have some really tiny ornaments that always used to get lost on our big trees so it was nice to just use a handful of those and have less to clean up. Less is nice. Also we got some little paper houses that were always too fragile to put under our tree with the dogs and we could not do a village or his trains because of them, so we just did a tiny paper house village on our table and it was BEAUTIFUL and it just now occurred to me that I did not take one picture of it. Dangit!

Do you remember paper Christmas village houses? They are my favorites! They were called putz houses. I do not know why. I attached a picture of some, so you get an idea of what they look like but mine are really old and have little trees glued on them and snow on the roofs and glitter and windows that the Christmas lights shine thru. But I was collecting those ceramic houses until I got the papers ones and they just can not compare to the old sweet ones! I am going to ask my daughters in law if I can give them my little porcelein ones, because I am not going to use them anymore.

Well that is about all that is going on here. Just trying to get everything cleaned and organized! I need to get out there at the first of the year and job hunt so I just thought it would be good to get the house cleaned first!

See you all later. I am going to work out my resolution list for 2010!

Look Out Girls! Eli's Coming

It is almost Thanksgiving and Eli is coming to spend the weekend with me so I am thankful for that! YAY!

blech!

so i am not the one who had the peanut butter and i am home sick today while bill the peanut butter eating 1 ply toilet paper guy is out running. ugh! so much for trying to live the healthy life! i mean we are all going to die someday anyway right?

weird fluctuating moods, anger, peanut butter and 1 ply toilet paper.

I HATE 1 ply toilet paper. HATE it. There is not much I hate but 1 ply toilet paper is one of the things I DO HATE. Bill is never allowed to buy toilet paper again. This is the second time in a row he has brought home the cruddy officey white 1 ply paper. UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

And peanut butter right now is under some sort of recall and I am in the process of cooking a good healthy dinner of baked lemon tilapia and steamed broccoli and so Bill comes home with his bazillion pack of white 1 ply toilet paper, a loaf of bread, and a huge jar of store brand peanut butter and starts eating peanut butter sandwiches.

I sure hope that when the salmonella kicks in, he learns his lesson about the 1 ply officey white toilet paper!

I will be going to the store next week or whenever the temperature comes up above below zero, and stocking up on tp because this can never happen again. It really pisses me off.

GRRRRRRRRRRR!

long time no blog here

i was busy setting up my no kill animal rescue blog and playing on the new myspace and facebook groups. things are looking good and 2009 is going to be a fabulous year in animal rescue in my little town.

so i have the most fabulous news. my new grandbaby who is due to arrive in april, is a boy! his name is chan! i am so excited and i can not wait to meet him in person! his mother is this tiny little peanut. when chans mom and dad were at the dr the other day, the sonagram people told them that he is a little bit bigger than the average baby at that many weeks gestation.

anyway so here is a very cool sonagram photo of chans little feet! arent they awesome!

couldnt you just kiss them! i always think you have to hurry up and kiss those baby feet before they learn how to walk and step into dog poo!

why i rescue dogs

i used to try and rescue drug addicts, alcoholics and mentally ill people. they did not like it at all. so i knew i needed to find something to do with me and my codependent need to save somebody. so i got all these dogs out of the pound that were going to get killed there. and i fell in love with them and now i can not part with them and they are all old senior dogs that will be spending their lives with me forever til time for them to go on to heaven. and i guess that is probably the coolest thing ever. they love me so unconditionally and vice versa. they are actually grateful for me making decisions about what is good for them and what is not. you should see them take their vitamins and glucosamine and garlic pills! they love that stuff. they love being groomed and bathed and kissed and touched. they are so much cooler than any needy human i ever tried to rescue.

i started a no kill rescue group. so far i have posted my idea for no kill monroe county on facebook and myspace and 77 people in addition to me and bill and eli have joined!

this could really go somewhere!

about goals for 2009. well one goal is to make damned sure that less than 44% of the dogs and cats that go to the shelter are murdered this year. and i am going to make sure that i complete at least one semester of classe this year. and i am going to get my closet cleaned out and organized and get a top and bottom pole put in and some shelves so i can throw out these broken dressers that take up room in my bedroom, where bill and myself and 8 dogs sleep. see we need all the room we can get! i wish i could have a bed big enough for the big dogs to come up with us too, but they are happy on big sleeping bags on the floor all around bill and myself. i also have a goal to get some writing done this year. and to visit my friends in new jersey and new york.
hopefully i will be able to come closer to opening up a senior dog sanctuary so that i can get more old guys and gals off the row.

maybe a goal should be to get some sleep. it is late and i am fighting keeping my eyes open. must be time to sign off.

ipod shuffle

ok so earlier i posted that i got flannel pajamas and that was the best gift ever. i had not opened my gifts from dak and eli yet! dak gave me a clip on tiny ipod shuffle! so i have it clipped on to my flannel pajamas and i dont know how i ever lived without it! i can not hear dogs barking at passing cars or anything but my music! no headbanging and drumming upstairs, nothing! just melissa etheridge singing damn i want to be your lover with sophie hawkins.

of course the trip to visit with damien went well and look at how big he has gotten! that is his other papa in the photo with him. he really got a bunch of christmas presents and he loves to play with cars and he is going to be 4 january 29. what a big tall boy he is! he looks a lot like his dad. his dad and him are pretty good partners.

in other grandbaby news promise and preslie had christmas with their dad, my son david, in kansas city. i did not get to be there for their christmas but their paw paw david's new girlfriend made an sd card of christmas photos of their christmas and sent with eli for me. that was pretty awesome. a nice gift from a nice future ex of my ex instead of that stinky old ex of my ex and her nasty hating the first ex crap. or something. wow that was confusing huh. in every photo promise is making this exact same face. i asked eli what was up with that and he said she is saying cheese so her face looks like this in every photo!

here are some photos of the fantastic eli original artwork that he gave me for christmas! eli did this awesome picture of a soldier statue at the korean war memorial and he created this soldier's entire face from words. it is amazing. he turned it into his art teacher for a grade and got 100 percent on it and there is no doubt it is 100% work and i am not just saying because he is my artist but because it really is that good! totally awesome!

and finally ralph and suzie are coming soon! cant wait til they get here! it is sort of cool when you have kids coming and going because then the holiday drags on longer and you have something still to look forward too. eli is really excited about ralph coming so he can hang out and go snowboarding with him. i just want to see the baby bump again. so exciting to get another sweet grambaby!