Michigan, USA
Hello, Everyone! How are you all doing so far this summer? After such a long winter, I don’t dare complain about this lovely, sunny, hot weather we are currently experiencing so far this July!
Speaking of July, what or where did you find yourself on Canada Day? The Boss and I found ourselves at a business event in Michigan, USA. Yes, that’s right, we were not having a day off, we were busy learning on July 1st.
Operating a business is not a simple task — it is not just: “Have product or a service, open doors and waaahlaaa, piece of cake, I’ll do as I please.” Oh no! When a person attends these business summits, you soon discover it’s like listening to various professors with different viewpoints on the same subject and each listener has to decipher which would be best to implement into his particular type of business, if one can remember all that is said! We were busy learning from 8am to 4:30pm for a couple of days straight. It was encouraging for us to attend because there have been times over the years when we felt like closing up shop. There were some highlights to the event such as a photo op with the main speakers, a chance to win an ipad (no we did not win it), free mini-chocolate bars to help keep us energized and we could buy lunch at a food stand, walk out the doors and munch on lunch beside a river. A bonus highlight for the Boss was that he “got paid” to be there! Well, sort of…in a small way. It’s a story in itself.
While we were over in Michigan, we did take some time to do a bit of exploring and came across Grand Haven’s Art Festival www.grandhavenartfestival.org A couple of the artists’ work there caught our eye: painter Thomas Bauer www.tbauerart.com and Estella Fransbergen who uses mixed media www.estellfransbergen.com
We were happy to remember that back at the shop, our trusty employees were holding up the fort while the RCMP stood atop the Ol’ Wagon keeping an eye on things for us.