No, really, I have no goals this year....

My friend Tina is taking an online class which involves doing a drawing a day for some weeks, not sure how long.  I'm not taking the class but thought it might be a fun thing to join in on -- maybe even try to do a drawing/sketch every day for the whole year.

But it's not a resolution or even a goal, I swear!  It's merely a fun idea and not exactly challenging -- although I didn't draw anything for many, many days of the past month or more.  Which, as you know by now, is because it's COLD outside, or GRAY and RAINY outside, and I prefer to draw outside rather than in.

Example:  on New Year's Eve, Tina and I hopped in the car, drove over to Washelli Cemetery, and sketched the outside from the inside in comfort, with the heater running.  I found this much preferable to sitting around sketching stuff inside the house.

However, this week the HIGH TEMPS will be in the low 30s, and even with the car heater going, I'm not that keen on venturing out.  So I figured this drawing-a-day notion would force me to find things to sketch from inside my house, which would be good practice for getting through the winter months when I can't (or rather, don't want to) enjoy the beauty of nature in the wild.

We shall see how long this lasts -- here are two little sketches from Day 1, yesterday, looking out my front window at the bird feeder.

Speaking of birds, some birders have this tradition of noting their "FOY", or First Of Year bird -- the first one they see upon looking/getting outside on January 1.  Some even see it as a "sign" of how their year will go.  Most years the first bird I see is a crow or a gull.  If I've got the feeder out, then typically I see a chickadee or junco.  This year, though, the first bird I spied when I opened the curtains was this one:

American Goldfinch!  I had no idea what that signified, if anything, other than having a golden year, perhaps?

So I did a Google search on "goldfinch symbolism", and got a lot of Christian stuff about the Passion and the Resurrection and so forth, until I realized they were writing about the European Goldfinch, a completely different bird that has bright red on its crown (thus, Crown of Thorns, leading to all that Passion symbolism).

A further search led me to a site about "spirit animal totems" that looked utterly full of wifty/New Age/crystal-thumping woo-woo nonsense, but it did list the AMERICAN Goldfinch, with this description:

It is a sure sign of exuberance, liveliness and enthusiasm in your current world. They are here to remind you to enjoy life and savor each moment for the joy that is in it. Perhaps it's simply time to celebrate who you are, your accomplishments or just for the sheer fun of it. You are reminded that life is for living – and that each moment you waste on sending forth negative emotions such as fear, hatred and anger are moments that are forever lost. Find joy in the now.

That actually sounds pretty good to me!