Happy, Happy New Year!

January 1st of the New Year - a time to look forward and a time to look back. Last year - 2013 - was a wonderful year. And there is much to look forward to in the coming year, but when I tried to think of one word to focus on for 2014, "NOW" is the word that came to mind. As someone far more poetic than me once wrote (or words to this effect), yesterday is gone and tomorrow is but a dream, but today is the day we have to live in whatever manner we choose. Which doesn't mean we can't take the lessons from yesterday forward with us - things like learning the value of working in a series, or that time spent with family and friends is the richest of times, or that the important thing is not whether you succeed in your goals, but whether you have the courage and strength of character to pick yourself up when you fall down or change direction when it's shouting at you that change is needed. THIS is today and "now", and in this coming year, I want to put aside my multitude of excuses and "just do it", which means being open to whatever presents itself, whatever lies ahead. On

a more practical note, this means that I am slowly down-sizing Kitambaa Designs, so that I have more time to do my own work. And it means that my commitment to the Bitengye Designers is stronger than ever, and that I will do whatever I need to do to help their cooperative and business grow. It means that the time to become more active is "now", and the time to pay more attention to heating healthily is "now". It will see me blocking off chunks of time to work in the studio and making those times inviolate (unless, of course, there's some dire emergency). It's already meant shedding myself of so much stuff, in recognition that living in the "now" is so much more successful the simpler my life is, and the less clutter surrounds me. These are some of the things I'm pondering this New Year's Day. Thanks for listening. And thank you especially to those who have kept in touch via email of Facebook or by commenting on this blog over the past year. It has meant a great deal to me. To each of you a Happy, Happy New Year, full of adventure and quiet times, creative times and times of "moodling", full of friends and family and all there is to experience in this wonderful world in which we live!