A New Year, new plans, retrieving old ideas off the shelf..

     Okay, here we go again. Another year, another chance to make things right. Another year to do what we've not done, to become a better person, to accomplish a dream that has been sitting on the shelf. To lose that extra 10-20 lbs...for GOOD this time!
      Don't you relish a new beginning? It's a fresh start. I completely believe in New Year's Resolutions, and make my list each year, in earnest. Some resolutions don't survive the year, and many do come to pass.... but only if I work to make it happen. Last year, I made 90 characters from my books using needle-felting and mohair. It had been on my LIST of  TO DO for 2015, so I DID it... and it was fun, but it was also took a lot of effort.

 That is the key: Only WE can make our plans a reality. More often than not, that requires determination, grit, perseverance
AND
knowing that good things come to those who work... yes, I grew up in THAT generation; the generation that believed  you had to work for what you wanted.

 I spent the last 3 days rewriting, editing and compiling the stories I had cocooned in my messy "notebooks" for the last 2 years. ( These are SO messy, I would never show the insides to  anyone!)
Two of these will become completely illustrated books,  by the end of 2016...that's my
NEW YEARS RESOLUTION
 When stories are neatly typed out and feel right, then I find myself excited about working tirelessly on the artwork. So the battle is halfway won.

  In addition, my dear little ducklings have grown  into gangling 3 week olds

It seems everyone wants to adopt them.
from peahens...

.

Doggies

 and nearly ever other chicken and goose on the property... strangely enough, their REAL mother pays them no mind at all. But methinks she has a very small brain.

On warmer days, they come outside to play in an enclosed garden, but at night they sleep in the mudroom inside a pen.

ALFIE, Zazu, CYRUS, Daphne and Fezzywig.
They will definitely have a part in one of the books this year, as illustrations.

 I've mixed and carded different shades of wool to make duckling as 3-d sculptures also.
Because ducklings change SO quickly from downy little yellow fuzzballs, to lanky pale yellow youngsters, and then to the fat, white adult Pekins, I am drawing and sculpting them in all their stages of growth.
THAT is another New Years Resolution.
 So, I have started my New Years off with a bang of ideas, plans and action.

 Now, tell me , do YOU make a list of things to accomplish in 2016?
 I would love to hear about it!