December?

Wow... Christmas in less than 3 weeks...
The boys are very happy to be home for Christmas this year (we were in Yucatan for Christmas last year). So far December has been rainy and warmer than usual, Toronto is still well above freezing temperatures. It would be nice to have some snow for the Holidays, the kids are also looking forward to a full winter experience. I just started my shopping, a bit reluctant... one of the things I appreciated about our 3 month trip to Mexico last year was that we were in very remote locations and far from all the commercial madness - Christmas and all. No TV, no billboards, no paper, only the occasional Facebook update. I think everyone should experience that for at least a month every year - we enjoyed 3 months of being disconnected from 'daily and in your face marketing'. I loved it.

On the health front, my cold was nested in my right ear for about 10 days - plugged ear... but now it made a merry come back for another round of sneezing and sniffles. It's war - and I am determined to claim victory.

Work is settling nicely, all my clients are paid-up for this first trimester and I started to invoice for January. The next 2 weeks will be fairly busy, I am ending two series of workshops - one for Kindergarten and another one for grades 4, 5 and 6. The last 2 weeks of my series are pretty much all about evaluations, and when I am finished the teachers have what they need to put a mark of the report cards. Here in Ontario, the first report card is issued at the end of January.

I am contemplating the summer already, and I think that I will take the plunge and finish my Orff Pedagogy certification at the Royal Conservatory of Music. It will be a lot of hard work, but it will be very good for me. Nothing like a good intellectual challenge! One of my teachers will also attempt to register in the Music in Early Childhood program this summer, it was cancelled last summer because they didn't get enough registrations. She is excellent, a natural. With that certification under her belt I would like her to lead some teacher trainings in French - we talked about it and the plan is to get out of the city to provide trainings in the many French communities of Ontario. I would cover the elementary school grades 1 to 8, and she would cover early childhood educators.

I have a lot of marketing work ahead of me between now and March break... I am merging both businesses, probably incorporate, and deploy my long planned positioning sweep to enlarge my zone of operation.

Okay... 8:30am and a full day ahead of me... let's get to it!