Happy New Year

Hope you are having a wonderful day - how exciting that it is the first day of a new year!  And with the word exciting, I want to say that I am not selecting just one word for the year; I am selecting a letter: the letter "E".  I had thought to use the word "explore" for this year as I want to explore in many ways - travel, painting, pastels, books, cooking, language, poetry, crewel embroidery......but then I thought that one word isn't enough (that's another E) as I want to evaluate, eliminate, edit, embellish, embroider, embrace, emerge, experiment, exaggerate, encourage, energize, and that's just the beginning!  So this is the Year of E - for ME!

Above is my first pencil sketch for the year (also posted on the Sketchbook Challenge flickr page) - sweet Hana posed for me - and then I just had to do a quick watercolor sketch of her also.

I exceeded (another E) my 2012 Goodreads goal of 100 books - I read 103 but this year I want to paint more and read less so my goal is 80 books.  I have also joined the http://warthroughthegenerations.wordpress.com/  book challenge and plan to read 4 - 10 books that are related to the American Revolution, some fiction and some nonfiction.

I don't think that I mentioned that a friend loaned me season two of Vera, a British mystery series - I loved it! The series are based on books by Ann Cleeves and are only available in the UK but another friend of mine who used to own a mystery bookstore has three of the books and mailed them to me.  I am so excited and can hardly wait to begin reading them.  I will return the books to my friend in April when Dan and I go up for a short fun trip to Jacksonville (where we lived for 10 years).  Dan is going to play golf while my friend and I discuss the books at PF Chang's - fun fun fun!

And by the way, my main Christmas present was a Kindle Fire HD - yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! I love it! I also received lots of dark chocolate, some pastels, a giftcard to Starbucks, and I will be receiving the second season of Game of Thrones when it comes out in February - I am such a lucky girl and so very thankful! And I won a Basic Grey kit from Paperissues - thank you Cassie!

Hope your day and year are filled with joy, and thanks for stopping by.  I have a pork butt roast in the crock pot with sauerkraut, and I made some Texas caviar with black eyed peas so not only will we have a delicious meal but we will be stoking up the luck for the new year with every bite!
Chris