Happy New Year!
Here at the lake a foggy New Year's Eve ushered in a beautiful clear New Year's Day. What a wonderful setting for fresh starts. I will be making a few of those to this blog site and my painting portfolio site over the coming week so I invite you to check back in with me soon. Thank you for all the lovely comments about my December Journal project. It was a challenge to post every day, but it was a great experience for me personally and I hope a bit of goodness in your busy lives.

While I am challenging my design skills, here's a lovely quote from Mary Oliver's Winter Hours to enjoy over your coffee.

"Now winter, the winter I am writing about, begins to ease. And what, if anything, has been determined, selected, nailed down? This is the lesson of age—events pass, things change, trauma fades, good fortune rises, fades, rises again but different.

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Once I went into the woods to find an almost unfindable bird, a blue grosbeak. And I found it: a rough, deep blue, almost black, with a heavy beak; it was plucking one by one the humped, pale green caterpillars from the leaves of a thick green tree. Then it vanished into the shadows of the leaves and, in the same moment, from the crown of the tree flew a western blue bird—a little aqua thrush of the mountains, hundreds of miles from its home. It is a moment hard to top—but, I can. Once I came upon two angels, they were standing quietly, keeping guard beside a car. Light streamed from them, and a splash of flames lay quietly under their feet. What is one to do with such moments, such memories, but cherish them? Who knows what is beyond the known? And if you think that any day the secret of light might come, would you not keep the house of your mind ready? Would you not cleanse your study of all that is cheap, or trivial? Would you not live in continual hope, and pleasure and excitement?"