New Year

I didn't accomplish my goals last year. I don't call them resolutions, just goals. Actually they're more lifelong goals than just yearly ones. So, I'm going to list them again because I refuse to give up.

• Grow my hair out (I cut it really, really short last summer, liked it for about a week, maybe less). I love long hair and I intend to get mine long. It will obviously take longer than a year especially since it's starting from such an extreme short cut. I told Bill that I was growing it out (again) and he said to go for it, why not, if that's what I want and it is. Don't worry about what other people think, actually most people are too worried about how they look to care about my looks.


• Stay with the gluten free diet. I fell off of it several times and suffered for it. I've been gluten free for 2 months now and I'm determined to keep it up the rest of my life. Gluten free makes a major difference in how I feel, it's worth the inconvience.


• Lose weight, I did lose a couple of pounds. They say you should lose weight slowly but that's a little too slow. I didn't gain any, that's good.


• Work on my art. That wasn't a goal last year but it definitely is one this time. I love art but I've always lacked the self confidence to pursue it. But, I don't do it for a living, just for fun, so my work doesn't have to be perfect. I'm having a good time with it.


• Bible study and prayer. I think I'm doing pretty good on that but I need to make sure I don't let up.

We stayed home on New Year's Eve. We haven't been to a party in years. We're just not party people. I went to bed early and Bill sat up and watched TV. New Year's Day we took a little road trip up north of the Refuge, just driving around looking for things to take pictures of. They seemed to have gotten more snow than we did. There were some really big snow drifts out there. The temp got to around 50 degrees so it was a pleasant trip. Today was a lot colder, I don't think it got out of the 30's. We just went to the city park, Bill fed the ducks while I walked Sassy.

Today was the last day of our time off, sigh. The normal work week starts tomorrow. We'll have to get used to working full time again.

I decided to do something with my colored pencils. I have a really good set of them that I haven't used in a while. I found a blog where the artist uses colored pencils, beautiful stuff, inspired me to get mine out. Here is the picture that I came up with, the photo was taken looking toward Elmer Thomas Lake from the top of Mt. Scott.

I took a few photos on our road trip yesterday and here are some of them.

Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Romans 6:11