Happy New Year, friends! I woke up with a nasty cold on the 1st of the year and have been feeling pretty bad ever since. Last night I declared that I would feel better today, but I woke up feeling even worse. Not a great start to the year but it has given me plenty of time to read book four of the George R. R. Martin series, A Song of Ice and Fire. I'm really enjoying those books, the characters are so well developed and the world that Martin created is so rich it has been hard to tear myself away to go to sleep at night.  

I have also been experimenting with some materials I don't normally use and decided to try using oil pastels on wood for some portraits. I like the way the wood grain shows through, but overall I'm not a into the way the pastel sits on the wood. 

I have another experiment in mind involving wood glue but I'll wait and see how that turns out before I write about it. 

I have some other half finished posts for you as well but I'm waiting on some feedback before I post those. Hopefully I'll get them up soon, but if not I've got lots of fun stuff on my todo list for this year. 

Now, I'm going to make some herbal tea and get back to my stories! Happy New Year!  –S.