Happy New Year!

I know the New Year doesn’t officially begin for six more days, but when I opened my new calendar for 2011, I saw that the first page actually starts with ...


... TODAY!

So I decided that, since putting things off is one of the things I’m resolving to stop doing this year, I might as well think of today as the first day of the new year, and go ahead and get started not putting things off.

Also, appropriately, this is Boxing Day (also St. Stephen’s Day) in the UK, Canada, Australia, and a few other countries around the world.
I say “appropriately” because, as I found out when I googled
“Boxing Day” (remember when we had to go to the library to
look things up?), it’s a day of expressing gratitude for our blessings
through generosity to those less fortunate, and is celebrated by being other-centered rather than self-centered; and THAT ties into another of my resolutions for this year: to be more aware of and responsive to others than to my own self.

And that’s all I’m saying about New Year resolutions.
Because, as Elizabeth McCrindle wrote a post or two ago on her blog, this year is going to be less about saying and more about doing.
Hear, hear, Elizabeth!

I would also like to echo her thanks to her blog followers; thank you all for your lovely comment here and on my paintings blogs!
I’m sure a lot of us blogging artists would agree with the way Elizabeth so aptly puts it:

Sometimes it can feel like it's just me and the easel
and then I come here and find that someone's been
looking over my shoulder.

It’s so encouraging to find out someone out there is really interested in
your journey ...

Happy New Year, everyone!

And happy painting!