Sketches of a Small Town

I haven't written in a while.

Life is busy.

Good busy.

We're hosting another workshop for one thing.

This time we'll be using fabrics, photographs, quirky quotes, textured papers, song sheets, old love notes, concert tickets, buttons and other findings to create mini works of art on canvas.

Think decoupage meets scrapbooking (but cooler) meets the perfect little piece of art for your home.

I made this one for Clemmie:

You would think that as one of my loyal blog readers you would have an advantage as far as signing up for these things.

Not so unfortunately.

I sent the announcement out to my mailing list and WHAM BAM THANK YOU MA'AM we were sold out in 3 hours.

So we added a second night.

And POW! Sold out again.

If you missed out, I'm really sorry. There will be others.

But in the meantime maybe we should talk a little about why you're not on my mailing list.

Hmmmmm?

Another reason I haven't posted in a while is because I'm going through a little something.

I've been reflecting.

Feeling thoughtful about...well about stuff.

Do you ever just have moments when you just stop and think about your life? About how lucky you are?

I've been thinking a lot about this lately. I've been wanting to write about it too, but the topic deserved a quiet moment, and those are hard to come by sometimes.

I have a store you know.

My very own store.

Nobody tells me what to do with it, what to buy, how to display the stuff in it, how I should market myself.

I get to do all that stuff on my own.

Sometimes I forget how cool that is.

It is so rewarding to hear customers "Ooh" and "Ahh" as they wander aimlessly through the store.

I can't help but grin like an idiot when I hear a woman say to her girlfriends "You are going to love this store" as they walk through the door.

Also, it's pretty amazing that my husband seemly has no issues with the fact that I am extremely unreliable as far as finances go.

Honestly. The man never says boo about the fact that I haven't had a pay cheque in almost 3 years and sometimes can't pitch in on the groceries and, let's be honest, totally take the car with gas in the tank on purpose.

He's a much better person than I.

I wouldn't be anywhere near that understanding if he wasn't bringing home the bacon.

When I was interviewed by the Citizen back in December I remember telling the writer about a night when I came home to tell him what a successful sales day I'd had.

Roles reversed I probably would have said to him "Great! Maybe you can give me a little mortgage money this month."

Not Brad.

All he had to say was how proud he was of me.

I almost broke up with this guy after 3 months of dating because I thought he was too nice.

The 21 year old me was kind of a moron.

I can see that now.

Another thing I've been feeling thoughtful about lately is my girlfriends.

I am very fortunate to have a large group of succulent wild women around me.

Most of them I've actually known since high school, if not elementary school, a few are from college, but all of the are amazing in their own special way.

Having the same friends for such a long time has a lot of perks.

These girls are like my sisters.

We can pick our noses together on a couch and have a great time.

They know everything about me and I know everything about them.

Richer or poorer, sickness and health, PMS or just plain bitchy.

I'm learning, though, that I can't take these friendships for granted.

Like any relationship they take a little elbow grease.

They evolve and, just like I'm not the same girl I was at 21 (thank god), neither are they.

As our lives change, we are constantly having to adapt to one another.

It's not always fun, but it's always worth it.

As our lives get busier sometimes we forget how much we need each other.

And then someone turns 30 and we all get together for a giggle and won't shut up about how much we miss each other and how great we look and how we really should take a road trip to Toronto next month and pretend we're as fun loving and fancy free as we used to be.

So that's what we're doing.

Next month.

Can't wait.