Headin' North . . . but going south

I sorta know how this gal feels - in more ways than the obvious. Sometimes, the top of the mountain is just inches away but it takes everything we have to keep ahold of it.

Our new online store is getting closer to reality everyday. We've totally overhauled www.mikescovel.com and added new pages for Cow Creek Mercantile. It's looking great but it's certainly been a labor of - not love - more like a labor of . . . well, labor. Over the next couple of weeks, I'll start adding posters, etc. from other artists and pretty soon, we'll have a fairly large supply of inventory.

One issue with doing all your own website work is the chunk of time it takes out of your regular work week. Its a lot but it's worth it in the long run and the truth is, it's not that hard. Just time consuming.

This is the month Mike starts working on new Leanin' Tree paintings for next year. It's always fun to work with the folks in Boulder to come up with some fun concepts - then watch them transform into full blown paintings. When you've worked together this many years, your minds tend to move in similar directions. Mike often does a painting and send it in for the writers to review. The funny part is seeing all the potential captions that come out of it. Some can't be printed and some are just plain goofy but then there's always that one that just works.

I really like this time of year because we get to laugh - A LOT!

The fleeting joy of Indian Summer

The days are getting longer and we took full advantage of the extra daylight over the weekend. It was good to get away from the easel and the computer and trim some trees, haul brush and rake the algae off the top of the pond. It's funny how much energy you have for that kind of work after weeks of winter weather!

It was great fun but our backs and shoulders ached the next morning; a not so subtle reminder that we're getting lax about exercise. Thank goodness for Advil! Winter is making a comeback this weekend so we'll have ample time to heal up.

Mike has several paintings in progress and is going through photos for the book in between letting coats of paint dry. I'm working our his website, updating it with the new originals, new posters and the new Historic Downtown project information. I'm launching our new online store, Cow Creek Mercantile, this week as well.

I'm also giving some thought to restructuring my Artpro Marketing clinics. The one thing artists always complain about is the huge amount of information we cover in an all day clinic. So, I'm thinking of breaking agenda items down into 2 and 3 hour sections and offering them individually. That would give artists more freedom to take just the workshops offering the topics they're most interested in I also think it would be more effective than the all day clinics, which were almost an information overload. Those workshops will start in mid-March so I'm busy getting my handouts revised and reprinted.

"The" book is coming along but man, it's a chore! Just going through the photos, making notes and outlines, checking names and dates - well, it's a task, that's for sure. If we're lucky, we should have the first chapter done in the next couple of weeks. Once we get one done, the others should be easier.

Sometimes, I can hardly believe we've lived so many places and met so many funny, fascinating people. And the adventures we've had - my, oh my, it's a wonder we made it this far!