Hip-happy New Year!

Sometimes it pays off to be lazy. Because I didn't keep up with the chore of dead-heading my rose bushes, I now have an abundance of beautiful rose hips. It seems that many people today are obsessed with having gardens that are neatly manicured; leaves raked up as soon as they fall (or worse yet, blown away with a loud gas-powered blower). As for me, I like my garden a bit on the wild side. (Too many readings of The Secret Garden can lead to this particular form of botanical laziness.) I suppose that in bygone days, people had more important things to do than to trim the dead roses, or perhaps they simply knew what treasures rose hips could be! I'd heard of rosehip tea and jam, but found all sorts of interesting facts when I googled "rose hips". My favorite is that chickens seem to love them and, as they're laden with Vitamin C, they're a healthy snack for them—and guinea pigs, too! I'm going to try some out on my hen Charlotte this afternoon.

I am behind in my postings from my weekly figure drawing meet-up; most of the drawings are too big for my scanner, so it takes me a bit longer to take pics. I'll try and post some this weekend, and then I'll aim to post some each Friday after the meet-up on Thursday. I noticed that one figure drawing blog that I was viewing had a warning of explicit material. I didn't even think about that—would you think that it's necessary? Sheesh, in a world where we have to be bombarded with images of a twerking Miley Cyrus, I think we can deal with a charcoal nude drawing or two.

For the new year, I'm trying out a new banner on my blog; the old one has been up there since I started blogging. In case you've forgotten, it used to look like this:

I'm still working on some other ideas; I'm thinking I might try to create four different seasonal ones or something. I'd love to have your feedback. And, since one of my resolutions is to get back to making regular blog visits, I hope to see what you're up to soon!

Happy New Year!