Happy Valentine's Day

It's nearly Valentine's Day! I'm all for any sort of holiday I can get with the freezing rain and slush and snow everywhere, especially if it involves chocolate. It's particularly busy this time of year, with Chinese New Year, Family Day (an Ontario statutory holiday mid-February), Valentine's Day and a made-up "Red and White Day" at Caleb's pre-school for the Olympics. Valentine's Day is a day meant for love, so make sure that you spoil that special person in your life. If you haven't sorted out a Valentine's gift yet, you might want to take a look at some Hong Kong Flower Delivery options, especially if you've left it way later than you should have. If you've got a little more time to prepare and you'd like to make sure love is in the air later on, then you could take a look at lovegasm.co to see if you can find the perfect gift for you and your other half to enjoy together. Many of the items on there have been deemed very satisfactory! Personally, I'm desperately trying to think of things to do with the other half, especially as I fancy doing something totally different this year. In fact, I've had my eye on going punting along a river because it just seems like such a romantic thing to do, and I've heard that the best place to do it is Cambridge. These are the best we have found for punting in Cambridge; if you're been inspired. Caleb's pre-school sent home an email with instructions on Valentines for his class, which was terrific because I had completely forgotten that Valentines were a thing for young school-aged kids. Perhaps I didn't realize I had a young school-aged kid, so confused am I with the concept of babies growing up into small humans that attend school. In any case, instructions received, and scrambling ensued. We made some Valentines for his friends. We used some Gotamago gift tags and while I addressed them, Caleb added "drawings" and stickers and washi dots and washi tapetape to the fronts and backs. If you look closely, I used one of his sticker faces for the "from" for the non-readers of preschool. We haven't normally stocked these gift tags in the past, but we have a few in the shop now, including non Valentine's Day/heart related ones. It turns out Caleb requires quite a bit of encouragement to keep at it. He was pretty excited for the first two or three, and then it died away to, "I need some heeeelp." I certainly have no intention of finishing these for him (my stamina is only marginally better than his), so I hope no one is comparing valentines in the classroom. It's endearing and hilarious and heart-breaking to hear Caleb talk about these little kids that I don't know - Charlie this and Hunter that and Izana got a new backpack. Sometimes he comes home with really crazy stories, and I can only assume someone has an active imagination and everything is rolling on wheels at his preschool. In particular, he has learned some pretty wild table manners, like chewing with his mouth really wide open while saying "YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO EAT LIKE THIS."

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In equally frivolous news, our latest button is out, although there may still be a few Pen Nut buttons kicking around through orders. I was pretty excited about these - who doesn't love a good pun? - until basically everyone one of our staff, upon first seeing it, said: "sheep....e?"* I thrive on a delicate balance between encouragement and the fire that burns in me from the skepticism of doubters, and the team really knows how to keep that flame going.** I had hoped to get these buttons out for the release of the Vibrant Pink, but what do you know, Germany beat us to it. *It's a baby sheep. **Just kidding. Everyone said they liked the button after I explained the joke to them.