Andrea Mulder-Slater

by Andrea Mulder-Slater People often ask me... "Andrea, what do you like to do for fun?" Usually I'm too busy playing with my PEZ dispenser to answer. When I tire of the thrill of flipping the head off of a cartoon character to shove candy down its throat I tell them this, "Sleep... that's what I do... sleep." Although, since I found a new PEZ dispenser - it’s a transport truck, you flip the cab and candy pops out - I... oh never mind. Sleeping is my idea of a good time, which is why I'm such a hoot at weddings. I am the girl who always looks like she just woke up. I am the girl who people call at noon and say, "Oh, sorry, did I wake you?" I love the concept of morning. Watching the sun rise, sitting on the front porch with a warm cup of coffee, listening to the happy birds sing and watching the giddy bugs fly... All of that stuff appeals to me a great deal, in a very abstract way. For, I am the girl who sees setting her alarm for 7am as

This one is of the coastline on Navy Island, St. Andrews.

Another new painting. This one is of Cottage Craft and the old Men's Club at the wharf in St. Andrews.

Getting back into the swing of things has been slow going, but I'm happy to be able to post a new painting. This one is of the Point in St. Andrews. It sold before it hung on the wall. It is small - 7" x 9" unframed size.

by: Andrea Mulder-Slater It's been 11 weeks since he died. Now, the weather has turned to spring -- it's been rainy and warm (for the most part) with the odd cool day in between. The grass is a vibrant green and leaves have popped out on all the trees and plants. We even have tulips in the garden that are on the verge of opening. It's a bittersweet time. My dad loved this time of year because to him it signaled that even warmer weather was on the horizon. Mom and I always hated the rain but he loved it - he often said it was "cozy" to sit inside or on the porch and watch the sky open up. Really he liked it because it meant that the lawns would be lush and green instead of dry and brown :) Geoff is working on artwork for folks in Tallahassee Florida, Jan is working on Sunbury Shores stuff as well as trying to get through mountains of general paperwork. I've been doing Sunbury stuff as well as trying to keep on top of KinderArt. My daughter is busy

by: Andrea Mulder-Slater I've never been much of a camper - a fact that has been clear since the day I proclaimed, “I am not a camper.” I was five. From that moment on, my father (a man whose idea of camping involved steak and hermetically sealed trailers) and I shared a special bond. My mother on the other hand, feels right at home in the wilderness, which is why she was thrilled and secretly amused, when I married… a true camper. My husband is a human being who can travel on foot, a few hundred kilometers, through dense bush, carrying a mobile home in his backpack. He can sense the presence of an injured animal, stop and lead a lost bear cub back to his mother, prepare a meatball stew, and record the moment in a watercolor sketch, all the while facing North. Me, I prefer the comfort and safety of a sleeping park with hot showers, streetlights and an all night snack bar. Because my father and I usually won any family argument, any family camping trips took place not in

by: Andrea Mulder-Slater I have a love-hate relationship with my hair. I always have and I suspect, after recently discovering various shades of green at the nape of my neck, I always will. I’m quite certain it all began at the age of twelve; for it was then that I discovered, by accident… the home permanent kit. You see, my cousin Margaret had just enrolled in beauty school - a place I thought must certainly be horrific, given the devices that often fell out of her knapsack. Yet in spite of my mother’s gentle warnings, I offered to donate my head – temporarily – to the cause, mostly because at twelve, quite frankly, I had no real concept of what it meant to look good. In fact, rummaging through old family photographs, one might assume that I grew up in a house without mirrors, or reflective surfaces of any kind. It may have been the eighties but I know now that there is no excuse for a pre-teen girl to be wearing pre-owned brown tweed suit jackets. Back to the hair and the day w

by Andrea Mulder-Slater My husband called to me from the fitting rooms at The Gap. "What do you think?" he asked. I looked him up and down. The shirt was a lovely shade of blue -- baby blue. It looked quite smart and fit him well. "I like the shirt." I said as I started to shift my gaze lower. "The pants," he said, "what about the pants?" What about the pants... This was a loaded question - in more ways than one. The pants you see, were snug. Not snug as in too tight, but snug as in slim fitting. Now, I'm a hip and fashionably aware kind of girl. I know that skinny jeans are in. I know this to be so because fellas like Pete Wentz, Zac Efron and all of the Jonas brothers are wearing them. What I also know is that my Geoff is a baggy pants kind of guy. At least, he used to be. Heck, even his underpants are baggy. So it was with some surprise that the man was considering a pair of cream color, cigarette leg corduroy jeans.

So I thought I'd better get in on the blogging action. I figure I've resisted long enough. The kicker? My husband is blogging now. Because I like to do everything he does, I've hopped aboard the blog train as of today. Do I have time to blog? Hell no.