Happy New Year

Well well readers, it looks like 2008 is fully upon us. Are you ready for it? New year, new starts, new goals. I have yet to get mine in order for my Etsy shop (yes--the shop only--and goals only--I don't do resolutions!). Right now I'm sitting here waiting for some jewelry making materials to arrive, so my hands are staying busy by typing rather than wire wrapping.

It's snowing and cold in my little corner of the earth, and luckily I've been able to spend my day getting some things on the home front in order rather than being hungover! Haha. This year my husband and I kicked back and relaxed instead of going out for the festivities; the result was a fairly productive day. I took down my decorations, including my tree. I also got a fair amount of birdwatching done. We bought some books over the weekend, one of my favorites being The Backyard Bird Feeder's Bible, a lovely little find that has an A-Z guide for backyard feeding. Did you know those birds can eat just about anything? It's amazing what you can give them; not to mention, it helps to cut down on the amount of food that you put in the trash. The book includes tips on feeding, preparing for seasonal changes, recipes (all with readily available ingredients!), and is written so wonderfully that I went through it from cover to cover the night we got it!

Today was also a special day, as a Red-Bellied Woodpecker came to visit. I've never seen one before. I wasn't fast enough to get a photo, but here's one from Wikipedia.

Tomorrow is the scheduled arrival of my materials (that is, if FedEx Home Delivery decides to bring my package when they're supposed to--we won't even go there). Hopefully I'll be getting started on some more Beneath the Moon pieces, and some new brooches, too. I'm going to create the brooches similar to my Paint It Cherry Red brooch (posted previously), but with different color schemes, as well as create a "Paint It Cherry Red II" (since none of them can really be the same due to the mosaic technique used). I'm planning to stock up on the brooches, mostly because after Cherry Red got placed in a treasury, it was snagged up pretty quick. My plan is to push those and the Moon series for my advertising, which will hopefully attract folks to my shop for the browsing/purchasing of other items. We shall see.

Anyway, I'm going to step away from this computer for now and enjoy the rest of my day off. Tomorrow I'll be in '08 mode, ready for the new year, its upcoming seasons, and all of the surprises it will hold. I really, really hope it's a good one for me, folks. And I truly hope the same for you. Cheers!