Christmas Prize Draw Update

This morning Jude and I drew three more winners for our P’lovers Christmas Prize Draw with Ocala Winery.  Since we kicked off the draw on November 20th, almost 120 people have entered to win bottles of local wine from Ocala.

Congratulations to the following winners:

• Bonnie Forman
• Carol McGavin
• Christine Sinyard
• Michelle Bjorgon
• Sarah Powell

We will be doing another draw each of the three remaining Mondays before Christmas, so there is still lots of time to pop into P’lovers and enter to win some great wine!

Also, congratulations to Nicola Brown — winner of a terrific gift basket courtesy of our friends at Soap Works in Toronto.

-Steve

The Season of Giving

This time of year truly is the season of giving. Christmas shopping has been going on in earnest for over a month now and is really kicking into gear. Every day we see our customers lining up with their selection of gifts for the loved ones in their lives. I’m thrilled to see the time people take and the joy they obviously get when selecting that perfect gift.

This is my sixth Christmas operating P’lovers in Port Perry and, every year, I am amazed at how peaceful our customers are when they browse our store. Perhaps it is the P’lovers ambiance. Perhaps it is the downtown Port Perry Christmas festivities – beautiful lights, colourful displays, horse & buggy rides, small stores, unique products. Perhaps it is simply the fact that they are not crammed into “the mall” with the rest of humanity that puts smiles on their faces.

Every year at P’lovers, we get into the Christmas spirit as well with little gifts for our customers to thank them for their patronage throughout the year. This year, we are having a regular draw to win bottles of wine from Port Perry’s own Ocala Winery.

With every purchase, you can drop your name into our draw and each Monday until Christmas we will be giving away a bottle or two. This is our little gift to you — keep it, give it away — it’s up to you. Personally, I’d vote for keeping it — it’s good stuff!!

-Steve

Nature Festival in Thickson’s Woods

One of my favourite events of the year is happening tomorrow in Thickson Woods in Whitby — the annual Birds, Beavers, & Butterflies Nature Festival.

For anyone of any age who appreciates nature in all it’s glory, this is a must attend event.

A few years ago, we celebrated our son’s birthday at the Nature Festival and we all had a blast. (editor’s note: while the festival was amazing, the angst of transporting several high-energy boys to the party still lingers, but that is a story for another time.)

The festival is a full-day affair and has a number of fantastic activities planned for the whole family:

• Bugs & Botany identification
• Bird Banding
• Guided Nature Walks
• Beehive Demonstration
• Magic Show
• Muskoka Wildlife
• Insect Safari
• …and loads more!

Plus, there will be food (courtesy of Lick’s and The Cookie Shop), a bake sale, and silent auction (where you will see a few items from P’lovers).

Event Details

• When? Saturday, September 20, 2008
• Time? 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
• Where? Thickson’s Woods, Whitby
• Cost? Adults $5, Kids $2, Family $10 (All proceeds support the Thickson’s Woods Nature Reserve.)

About Thickson’s Woods

Thickson’s Woods is the last remnant of old-growth white pines on the north shore of Lake Ontario. Once reserved for masts of sailing ships of the British Royal Navy, the towering pines provide a vital resting place for countless migrating songbirds each spring and fall. Galvanized into action when the woods was threatened with logging in 1983, a handful of naturalists formed a non-profit corporation and purchased the woods. Donations from hundreds of caring people, from as far away as England and Japan, raised $150,000 to pay off the mortgage. Thickson’s Woods became the first natural area to be listed in the Ontario Nature Trust Alliance registry. Today we face a greater challenge: protecting this tiny natural jewel from encroaching development. (www.ThicksonsWoods.com)

See you there?

-Steve

fitness conference

I spent this past weekend in the company of thousands of fitness enthusiasts like myself. It was awe inspiring to feel the energy at the Toronto Convention Centre last Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I was there taking part in the annual CanFitPro conference.

I take great pleasure in all my jobs, here at P’lovers, and as a teacher, personal trainer, fitness instructor and nutrition and wellness specialist. Imagine my delight when I arrive at the conference as I have been doing for too many years to count and see some major and some minor changes that greet me there. I was thrilled to see the Bullfrog Powered sticker in some of the venues and pleased to hear the thousands of presenters had made a conscious choice to go ‘green’. Rather than handout sheets of information at the workshops and lectures all of us energetic people would be attending they asked us to go online to get their handouts, if we truly needed them and would use them. ‘Great news!’ I thought.

Some of the workshops I enjoyed the most were dance based self expression movement type with the message that we are all unique, special and delicious in our own way and we all have something the world needs and to get out there and spread that message.

‘but squashed inside each delicious body is a beauty so large and a spirit so brilliant that it can outshine the world…help us make the dreams of our hearts come true.’

A quote from one of the Tree of Life cards here at P’lovers.

Imagine my joy when I enter the trade show, head for the books and find many of the titles we have here in P’lovers. Bringing body, mind and spirit together is now becoming a universal message. Again I felt my lives melding and it feels right. Some of the titles shared: What To Eat, Marion Nestle. How To Find Your Mission In Life, Richard Nelson Bolles. The Dance, Oriah Mountain Dreamer. Keeping Fitness Simple, Porter Shimer.

It is one more way the world is coming together and I feel so pleased to be a small part of this new balance. After this past weekend I am once again renewed and refreshed (along with the physical exhaustion and muscle that has set in big time!) ready to get back to my life and revitalized to Be the Change I wish to see in the world.

-Jude

Let the Juggling Begin!

Finding that elusive balance between personal, family, and professional priorities is an ongoing challenge for me; especially at this time of year – summer time!

For the next 9 weeks my two high-energy eco-kids are out of school and will be looking for lots of fun things to pass the time.

When I opened P’lovers in 2002, both kids were quite young and have grown up knowing that Daddy works from home, sometimes rather long and unusual hours.

My daughter, in particular, being the younger of the two, has spent a lot of time with me in the business. She spent very little time in daycare, instead joining me in the store, on visits to suppliers, the lawyer, accountant, and has made many trips to the bank.

Both kids are quite used to my schedule and understand when I have to take a phone call in the middle of lunch or run to the computer to send a quick email before heading out the door or that late in the evening “dash to the store”. They have learned to be patient with me and are not what I would call high-maintenance children.

There are many pay-offs for all of us. During the school year, we walk to school everyday and I pick them up afterwards. I rarely miss a school assembly or special event and am one of the few (usually only) fathers to volunteer in the classroom and have done so with both kids since kindergarten.

And then there is summer vacation – the most fun, yet the biggest juggling act of all!

Every morning starts shortly after 5:00, with me, coffee in hand, heading to work in my home office. It’s a wonderfully quiet and incredibly productive time before the kiddies wake up to handle administration, ordering new products, writing this blog, queuing up projects for staff, digging in the garden, anything that needs to be done.

After 9:00, the rest of my day (until my wife gets home at 5:00), for the most part, belongs to the kids. Swimming at Birdeye pool, trips to every park in town, riding bikes around the neighbourhood, digging in the garden, hanging out with the grandparents in Oshawa, day trips to Toronto Zoo – these are just a few of the ways they will keep me busy this summer.

The final piece of my juggling act is the sensational staff at P’lovers who, in my absence, make sure the store looks great and the focus continues to the stay on our customers. Without Catherine, Jude, Lisa, Natalie, and Susan, the summer months would be WAY more stressful!

-Steve