Laughter is ALWAYS the Best Medicine!

It is once again that time of year when the blues starts creeping in around us. Not enough sunlight and too cold to be outside, unless you don't mind your nostrils freezing together everytime you try to sniff away a runny nose because it's so freaking cold!

I tend to go the way of the blues in the month of Jan. and Feb. and haven't yet been able to escape to somewhere sunny during this time of year but I'm always hopeful that it will happen!

I'm leaving tomorrow for Toronto for the big gift show, which is combined with the toy show and a few others. My mission is simple, run around like a maniac to the 4 shows find all the cool unique things and buy, buy, buy but don't over spend! Oh did I mention I only have 3 days to do it in?

Thankfully my girlfriend is on the same mission for her newly opened gift shop Sacred Circle so we get to drive together and share a hotel room and catch up and lots of girl gossip. This way we both have a sounding board for what we think we might be acquiring for our businesses. It's a bit scary just jumping into this arena and all these helpful salespersons and their helpful suggestions of what else I should add to my order that would be fabulous!

So the list is long with "have to find these", "try to find something like this" and a few "does anybody make these?". The hard part is the booths are all gorgeous and professionally displayed that it is completely distracting and you end up looking at stuff that is completely not what the shop needs! But it is so fun! It's probably a very good thing you can't actually buy the items on display to take home for personal use or it would be very dangerous.

I do like going and seeing my funny sign lady and her husband since we do a whole lot of laughing and she always shows me all the newest signs. I also share with her some other sayings and funny signs I've seen around so she can go on the hunt to carry those as well.

I also think this line of vintage images with Anne Taintor adding in her brilliant lines are beyond hilarious! Anne Taintor you have a wicked sense of humour and I would love to have coffee with you someday! You are, I bet a fun person to hang out with!

For updates, Tim is now diligently pursuing his favourite thing to do, illustration and graphic design. This is a link so you can check out some of the things he has worked on. If you need anything along these lines created for yourself or business we would love to work with you. Long distance jobs are easy to do with the joys of the internet, anything is possible.

I'm also working out the details for the 2nd year of the Galloping Goat Art Camp for kids. We are going to have the camp at Mt.Tabor so we will have a better space to work in and a playground to use! There will be 4 weeks (Monday to Friday 9 am to 4 pm) this year with each week a different theme, which at this point I haven't exactly figured out yet! The cost has gone up a bit since things like insurance, summer students and renting a space have all become a factor. The good news is we have some way cooler art projects in the works! $180 a week plus GST, with 10% discount for any sibling also attending the same week. After July 1st payments will be subject to HST (13%). I need to do more research in regards to the HST and the camp fee but I think this is how it will work.

Carol Rutledge is partnering with me in the running of the art camp and bringing along her amazing skills in music and theatre to add to the art mix so it is going to be so awesome! Carol has worked with kids, for years and worked with the Mummers drama camp, directed a number of plays, like Annie, Cinderella's Christmas and tonnes more whose names have currently become lost in my head. Not to mention she is a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to working with her!

I have actually started a list of names of kids that already know they want to attend Art Camp since last year we ran out of spaces rather quickly. If you want to add your child's name to a week email me your contact info and I'll add them to the list. Please email your info instead of phoning, phone messages through my kids end up being a bit of a muddled mess sometimes. I will also email you all the specific details of themes in the next couple of weeks. I'm hoping to have all the details worked out before March break so I can hand out flyers to all the afterschool Art Clubs that I teaching.
Go and play in the snow if you can, it helps make it a bit less annoying! Not to mention it's a serious workout trying to haul yourself up the hill you just went flying down on your sled!