A new Beginning,

  Well its been a long time since we've visited but it looks like your still coming here,  So lets catch up.  Melissa, Christopher and I have moved to a nice little town in Northern Ontario.  We came here for the opportunity to get Christopher the medical attention he needed and to move back closer to family and friends.  I had accepted a job as a store manager in town with a national chain (Bargain Shop), however the job did not work out as planned ... at all.  
   We arrived and I joined my new store in April of 2012 and the store certainly was a wake up call, after two years of not having a manager the store was in poor shape and the company had made no efforts to clean it up or help in doing so.  The managerial neglect had left the staff without a clue of what should be done or how to do it and poor work habits had become so ingrained that they were insurmountable in many cases.  That combined with the 'helpful' guidance of Home office made the situation a complete nightmare.  First my sleep went away, then my eating, then my sanity.  I have never been so desperate to succeed that it was literally killing me.  I failed and eventually decided the only was I could avoid going completely nuts was to leave the position.
  I've never really had any trouble finding a job in the past and remained optimistic based on my last interactions with the south of a decade previous, if I had known what the last year would bring I might have made some very different decisions.
   Christopher is doing well and has been assessed and is being provided with many of the helping services he needs, so ultimately we made the right decision, however when you struggle to feed yourself everyday it is hard to accept this justification as being true in all accounts.

  When we realized just how bad the local economy was for our future employment, we needed to think outside the box.  We looked to our talents and how we could make work for ourselves.  Melissa fell into her artwork to distract herself from our troubles, and I found inspiration in her talents to move forward.  We decided to create a company that would create artworks based on our travels and the many things we saw and experienced to try and make our own living.  Here are some of the pieces that inspired me to trust in us.

  I'll share more of our tale of woe tomorrow,  Oddly enough writing this down is neither easy or cathartic at this point,
Take Care,
   Curtis