“The RoseBouquet”

February 22, 2006

The Birthday Celebration Dad Wanted

Filed under: At My Place... — Ruth @ 11:11 pm

I gave Dad a birthday card at breakfast promising to take him to that Ring Ranch south of Saskatoon which raises alpacas. This was something he’d been wanting and hinting at since before Christmas.

I’d phoned ahead and got directions. South of the city on # 11 highway, past the Grasswood Esso. We turned left at the Day Grow Nursery and went on for another 2.5 miles. (I was surprised at the lovely, expensive homes going up along that Baker Road. I now know that if I want to set some wealthy characters in a novel, I can give them an address there!) Ring Ranch was very attractive too, with a long drive, and nice fences, etc. Daryl Ring came out and met us at the gate to the alpaca pens and he was most gracious and easy to talk with as we went in to pet the alpacas and talk about various things.

Dad was glad for a new person to whom he could brag about all the sheep he has sheared in his youth, and the spinning wheels he has built, and how he spins his own yarn and knits his own socks and mittens.

I tried to balance things out by asking about their national champion alpacas and how they run the ranch.

After about an hour Daryl brought out a clear bag about the size of a garbage bag, and in it were several smaller bags of alpaca fibre. He explained the colours and which part of the animals each bunch came from. Then he put them back into the big bag, and told Dad that was a birthday present for him. We were amazed as Dad had prepared himself to purchase some even if it should cost him $100.

Our hands and feet were getting chilled through, so I eased us back to the car.

We went to my brother Tom’s apartment next. I’d brought along homemade chicken noodle soup, a favourite of Dad’s, and an angel food cake. So we had the birthday supper there.

I picked up my computer at CBit where I’d dropped it off earlier for repairs, and we headed home. Through the evening we had long distance calls from Dad’s three sisters, each wanting to wish him a Happy 90th birthday, and of course, we chatted with each for a while. Dad assured them that he’d had a great birthday. Exactly what he wanted!

(I did take photos but the film on the instamatic isn’t full yet. However, I’ve just found the mini-digital works now if I put a new battery in it, and have snapped a few shots of the alpaca fibre Dad received).

4bags of alpaca fibre close up of fibres - center grey ones are 5 inches long!
Note the center grey sample fibres, they are 5 inches long!

Dad's spinning wheels
Dad’s spinning wheels. There’s a dark one to the left rear of the blond wood one.

A Dad Theme Today

Filed under: What's New! — Ruth @ 11:05 pm

I’d picked up a new mouse on Friday, and it seemed to work on Saturday, but Sunday night - no go! I tired over and over again, and changed settings in Yast, and tried the old mouse again, and no-how would Suse recognize that I even had a mouse attached! I had to get a certain Sunday night email out, so by trying various keys and combinations, I was able to write it up and go post it online - all without a mouse. Since I’d planned to give up Monday to celebrate Dad’s birthday I packed up the computer and dropped it off at CBit for repairs, to what I was sure was a problem in the box. Turns out I had a wrong setting for it, and it works fine again. A $25 fix.

I’ve been doing more reno(vational) work in my sites, and make progress by a few pages a day, when not in the city, etc., but I’ll hold off major announcements until some sections are new and ready to go.

Last night I got to work on the next novel after weeks of giving up my Tuesday nights for other priorities. It felt so good. I sure do enjoy writing that story!

I hope you don’t feel you are getting too much on my Dad, but I’ve written a tribute to him for his 90th birthday, as that IS a special milestone. I wrote one for his 86th birthday, but have expanded and updated it for this issue. You’ll find it under Ruthe’s Roses.

Tickle Dad by Buying His Stuff

Filed under: Tips & Solutions — Ruth @ 11:01 pm

Would you like to order some of
Dad’s Cross-necklaces?

If you live in the USA and are interested in making them yourself to sell, you can check out the official web site;
Disciples’ Cross Necklaces They have an affiliate program too, so you can refer others to this site, and earn a commission when they sign up for the kit.

To visit Ring Ranch virtually; Ring Ranch

A Tribute to Dad on his 90th Birthday

Filed under: Ruthe's Roses — Ruth @ 10:56 pm

He grew up on a prairie homesteading and didn’t get much of an education. He attended a one-room country schoolhouse nearly 8 years, and learned to read and write, and to do a rather stumbling math. His education was mostly in riding as a cowboy, and in fixing machinery in his father’s little workshop shed on the farm.

So no, my Dad is not used to sending valentines, or giving gifts, and expressing his affection. But that doesn’t bother me any more like it used to in my teens and as a young adult.

He does sometimes make something useful and give it away, but in an incidental style. Dad just doesn’t understand the etiquette of relationships.

That doesn’t mean, I’ve discovered, that Dad has no inclination to give or be kind. He simple doesn’t know how to do it in conventional ways. But he is very interested in people, and especially things he can make with his hands. I used to be ashamed of my father’s limitations, lowly jobs, and ignorance about worldly things, I have come to appreciate and even love him for who he is since I came home to care for my parents in September of 1983.

Since Mom died in 1997, I’m here to look after Dad’s practical needs. Sure, it has been humbling in some ways. Enough time has passed though, so that I can see some benefits.

Dad’s a storyteller in his old age, much as his father was, and though he sometimes mixes up the details when he retells them, his storytelling shows what is really important, and going on in his heart and mind.

A couple of bearded old men once came to talk of old times with Dad. I don’t recall what set him off, but he began to lecture them about something from his grasp of theology, and he sounded like a preacher. This amused me a bit, because I know Dad couldn’t really pull off a sermon, but as I thought about it, I recognized that his thoughts are often on spiritual things.

With age he is losing his grasp on non-concrete concepts, but that evening it was clear that he’s committed to believing and honouring God; and his heart is on guarded against evil and lies - the best Dad knows how.

He actually has quite a creative, engineering mind, as becomes obvious when he putters away in his workshop. When I first moved home to the the live-in caregiver, there was one time when Dad was fixing somebody’s tall white boot with a soft vinyl upper part like a long sock. He sat and studied for for a while, and then he found a way to fix it. I remarked, “Boy, Dad, you really are creative!”

“Are you swearing at me?” he asked defensively.

I quickly explained what “being creative” meant.

Over his years of work, Dad has sheared sheep (the story he tells most often these days), herded cattle as a cowboy, worked as a farm hand, a service station mechanic fixing farm machinery most often, but also delivering new and used combines to farmers. He owned and operated a Dray business in Hague and Rosthern for some years. It still had that name because deliveries from the train station to the stores and homes were first done by horses with a big flat wagon. By the time he got
into it, horses were no longer involved. Instead he used a small tractor with a flatbed wagon, and a rickety old truck. The job included the pick up of garbage once a week, and the unloading of a train car full of lumber and delivering it to the lumberyard with a deadline of 48 hours. (I remember having to help hand out the sappy boards and 2×4s, and then riding on top of the load to the lumberyard to hand them down).

My sister Elsie remembers having to go along for the gathering of garbage, and how Dad sorted the recycle-ables from the waste on the truck box. He was into recycling long before it became popular in it’s present form.

Dad’s last job before retirement was seven years spent in a tire shop, changing tires of all sizes. It was hard physical work, but it provided a regular pay-check, something that self-employment could not guarantee.

When he retired, my brother Ernie brought him a shoe repair sewing machine and a metal last on a stand, and other odds and ends. Word got around and for the last 25 years or so, Dad has done various shoe and leather repair jobs - when people bring them to the door and ask. He doesn’t know how to do any bookkeeping, nor charges enough, but it gives Dad a sense that he’s still got work to do.

He’d always been interested in puttering with small motors, talking them apart, and re-building them, and in gardening, and in working with raw wool. So between the repair jobs, and the odd wool-carding job for others, when he’d had his afternoon nap, Dad has usually found something to do.

There are times I’ve seen him problem-solving in action, creating something that solved it, but didn’t exist before. Inventing. Sometimes I wonder what he could have done if he’d had a chance at an education beyond grade eight.

For many years he’s gone on long morning walks and collected discarded bottles and pop cans as he went. A couple of times a year, he’d hint that he needed to go to the brewery to sell his empties. He would load up the trunk of the car and the back seat, and I’d take him there. Usually he cleared from $30 to $50.

However, over the last few years he’s begun to ease gradually into less walks and work and more naps, morning, afternoon, and evening as necessary Partly that’s because his knees feel weak and unreliable. Partly because he has a sleep apia which means he wakes himself often at night from his snoring. He simply needs to make up his sleep hours with some in the daytime too.

In recent weeks he’s had some teeth pulled in stages to prepare for dentures. This means he’s only eating soft foods, and the dietary changes are chasing his blood sugars up, so we are more aware of his diabetes at the present.

However, Dad is not ready to lie down and be old yet. Between his naps he likes to get up and do things. Last year he started making cross necklaces out of horseshoe nails, and he really enjoys that. I have to order supplies for him, and take him around to stores to see if they will carry them on consignment, but he accepts that.

He loves to go shopping or to meet people. So long as I’m nearby to make sure he finds his way out again. He does get lost easily.

Which brings me to the acceptance of him that I’ve had to learn. In fact, I made up my mind to learn this way back when I first moved home, and though I’ve had to remind myself of it occasionally, the fact is, I had to resolve not to be ashamed of Dad in public like I was as a teen. Sure he says and does embarrassing things at times, but what is that in the light of eternity?

In return the Lord has given Dad liberty towards me so I can run my online business ventures right here from the living room, while I keep him company. I’m very grateful that he allows me the freedom to spend my days on the computer looking after a business he cannot understand to reap rewards he cannot see. Nor does he complain when the house only gets cleaned on Saturdays, and the meals are quickly slapped together. We are really quite compatible with one another. This is divinely coordinated, for sure!

For his 90th birthday I granted his simple wish to go visit an alpaca ranch south of Saskatoon. We got chilled hands and feet standing in the pens, but the owner was very gracious to us, and explained many things, and then gave Dad a big bag of fibre as a birthday present.This thrilled him to piecess. He has big plans to spin and knit up that material.

There are long-livers in Dad’s family tree. His parents both reached over 90 when they died, and they were sickly. He is not. His uncle John got to be 104 in a nursing home. Dad’s not ready for a nursing home yet! So if the Lord tarries, he may easily be here another 10 or more years.

Age 90 is a special milestone and I’m trying to pay Dad a special tribute with this profile of him.

(For photo story pages with Dad in them, see the index at my Author’s Patio)

February 15, 2006

Preparing for Dad’s Birthday

Filed under: At My Place... — Ruth @ 10:48 pm

Dad is going to be 90 on Monday. Now he’s not keen on parties and cake, etc., but he’s been saying for months now, that he would like to visit an alpaca farm again. I took him on an afternoon excursion two years ago on his birthday to see one, and he was so taken with it all, that now when he has heard of another alpaca ranch he wants to go.

On Monday, his one and practically only friend, Jona was here, and he responded to Dad, “Well, then you should go look for it.”

That stopped Dad in his tracks. He’d like to, but he knows he’d get lost. All he can do is talk about it, hoping I’ll take the hint and organize such a trip. I’ve already done that, but am keeping my mouth shut to save it as a surprise as long as I can.

I’d thought of inviting Jona to come along, as he did that other time, or perhaps my brother Tom would go. However he is in a wheelchair, so we’d have to handle that in and out of the trunk several times. If we end up tramping around on a snowy yard would mean he’d be stuck sitting in the car.

On Sunday night I got an email from Uncle Bill, of Toronto. He is Dad’s youngest and last surviving brother. (He has three sisters yet), and in the email Uncle Bill talked of coming to Dad’s birthday party. I wrote back and explained my plans, but haven’t heard from him since, so I’m not sure if he’s really coming or not. If so, then he gets to come along to the alpaca ranch.

You’ll get to hear about it all next week. :)

RoseBouquet Place

Filed under: What's New! — Ruth @ 10:47 pm

I give praise to God; last week I spent a few sessions at it, but solved the problem of the CUPS system which runs my printer. Now it is working nice and smoothly.

Remember my Letter to Jane last week? Well, I’ve developed that into a much longer letter on health and healing and how I understand God’s principles related to this. It has become three long web pages in my new RoseBouquet Place, and has just gone up. The area of my site, Ruthes-SecretRoses.com which used to have the ezine, RoseBouquet, and all kinds of close ups on my personal friends, became sort of redundant when I started up the blogs sub-domain. The ezine edition still goes out to those who prefer that and who subscribe. But all that I write for all my RoseBouquet blogs is automatically archived for me on that sub-domain. So the old folder level RoseBouquet/ was standing around like a deserted house or apartment.

Well, I decided that area could be renovated to be a place where I put webpages on how to make and keep friends, and also some letters to specific kinds of friends, who have certain needs of encouragement or wise counsel.

I still have to link to this area from all the other 500 + pages; what a job! You are the first to know that you can access this area through a separate index for it here; RoseBouquet Place. Any new pages going up, will get links on that page.

Make Money on Your Writing

Filed under: Tips & Solutions — Ruth @ 10:39 pm

Do words come easy to you? You should be writing-for-the-Net to make money!

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You can LIVE WELLoff your words - if you learn to use just the Right ones for Net-writing!

Fiction is fun and for pleasure, the big money lies in writing how-tos and knowledgeable non-fiction. Want to make a living in this internet information age?

Make Your KNOWLEDGE Sell! is THE BEST manual to guide you through brainstorming, developing and marketing your info-product.

That, and Make Your WORDS Sell! will give you all the training you need. The rest is up to YOUR mind and will-power.

Anything you know well (ie. your book?) can be digitalized! Sell it!

God, Give ME a Friend!

Filed under: Ruthe's Roses — Ruth @ 10:36 pm

It was Valentine’s Day yesterday, and each time I had the radio on in the kitchen it seemed each host or hostess was focused on - not true lovers, - but those who hated the day because they were alone and so desperately lonely. One host after another featured the misery of the unloved and friendless.

Whoa! I knew it was a problem, but wasn’t aware that it was so huge!

Last night and this morning I’ve been thinking. There have certainly been times when I’ve been idle and loneliness camped on me. These days I’m too busy doing things I love, that I feel are meaningful, so I seldom think of myself as lonely now.

Then I got to thinking how many of the characters in my novel, Ruthe’s Secret Roses, have a problem with loneliness?

Oh my goodness! This many? They don’t all have it in the same form or degree, and they don’t all cope with it the same way, but let me start a list;

Muriel, the girl Ruthe found crouching nude under a clothes rack was desperate for a boyfriend,

Ronnie, her brother, went to some lengths to find a girlfriend when Ruthe rejected him,

Ian O’Brien, their father was very lonely after his wife died,

Granny O’Brien bitterly sealed herself off in a bedroom overlooking her son’s home and spied on them,

Lloyd surrounded himself with buddies and loud music to drown out loneliness,

his uncle committed suicide over his loneliness - as far as they could tell,

Gord appeared lonely because he said so little, (he’d been found in a car, no trace of his parents),

Phyllis had been lonely ever since she was raped as a young teen; she hid in books and education,

And of course,… Ruthe herself! She smothers her loneliness by talking continually with the Lord, whom she feels, or assumes is with her at all times, and because the heals her, she keeps reaching out to others who ought to find the same answer in Christ Jesus.

I’m sure if I go down the list of characters further I’ll find more. Besides, I don’t want to give away the juiciest details.

But I think it would be good for us to take a head-on look at least three different kinds of loneliness and how best to cope with each.

There is that longing for a mate to share secrets, commitments and eventually marriage intimacy with. It comes to all of us because of how our bodies and souls are created. But some have a much harder time with this because they feel so needy for love. Someone to accept, approve and appreciate them. For those who have no friend at all, this fantasy that a boyfriend or a girlfirend, or a sexual partner will solve all these problems in one fell swoop can get very strong.

There is also the intense loneliness of someone who has had a very close person to love and live with, even have a family together with, for many years, and then that spouse or family member dies. That cut-off feeling, like being personally dismembered can get very cruel with the pain of bereavement.

Another kind of loneliness grows out of feeling rejected by family and friends. Bitterness sets in, and an inner anger seethes and boils away, creating an odorous stew of hurts This type of aloneness eats away at the body, making it sickly and older in a hurry.

Do you need a friend? Are you wishing for just ONE loyal friend who would stick with you through thick and thin? Sometimes you feel quite friendless, right? Even though you might have had close friends in the past. In fact, those good times in the past may make you more aware of your aloneness now.

However, let’s note that being alone and loneliness are not one and the same. It is possible to be totally alone and quite content and at peace with yourself, with God, and with that distant world out there. I know; I have experienced both.

So, if you were to cry out, “Oh, for one loyal friend! God, give ME a friend!” and if you were really tuned in and able to hear His answer, what might it be?

I can give you some of the basic answers He would give you, same as He gives to everyone who searches in His Word, the Bible.

1. Jesus, God’s Son, would say, “Turn to Me. I died for you, but I’m alive again, and ever so eager to walk and talk with you all day long!”

2. God has already said in Proverbs that whoever wants friends must first be a friend. So He wants you to reach out to other lonely people, and be a friend to them first. Just like Ruthe, once you know the Lord Jesus as your continually present Friend, you just want others to experience Him too! As you bless them in little ways, they begin to look up to you and befriend you.
Soon, like Ruthe, you’ll have more friends than you can keep up with!

Of course there are many little ways to win friends and to cause them to respect you and become loyal to you, but those are for another page. When it comes to overcoming loneliness, the above two steps are about all you need.

Well, one more thing. You could just humbly pray every day, “God, give ME a Friend!” Just don’t be surprised if He turns out to be the very first friend He sends your way. Next He’ll send you lonely people who need you to be their friend.

To read sample chapters of my first book online, start at Online index

To order the e-book to download and read on your computer; Order epage
(or if you email me, we can make a deal and I’ll send it to you on CD).

To order the softcover paperback from Booklocker use; Booklocker

February 8, 2006

Some Menu Changes

Filed under: At My Place... — Ruth @ 10:32 pm

We’re eating more soft foods and drinking delicious meal-in-a-mug meal substitute drinks.

Dad had his second batch of teeth extracted yesterday. The first four came out two and a half weeks ago. He has two more appointments to go, and then he’ll let the gums heal thoroughly before he goes to have dentures made.

Naturally, since Dad doesn’t have good chewing teeth any more, I’ve taken to serving more soups, mashed potatoes, and things I can prepare in the Vita-Mixer. When Dad complains that something is too hard for him to eat, I get up from the table, pour it into the vita-mixer and buzz it. Presto. Baby food.

Since we both could spare a few pounds of weight, when we are not exactly hungry, I even give us some meals-in-a-mug with this milk shake replacement. It doesn’t seem like a full meal to Dad, so I will add crackers or buns and peanut butter on the side.

Seems we’ll have to add more exercise to the plan - ’cause so far I have one teasing pound that hides and pops back up again.

Printer Woes

Filed under: What's New! — Ruth @ 10:30 pm

Here’s wishing you a great Valentine’s Day next Tuesday, and that you know you are loved. Even if no one else does, you can have underneath you, the everlasting arms of God.

I’ll keep this brief today. I’m slowly making progress in my reno projects in my sites, but last night discovered that my software to manage my printer is not working. This will mean some time spent to research and solve the problem.

I have Annual reports that are over due, but need to be printed first, so this is getting to be a front and centre problem.

Funny, isn’t it, how after coasting for a while without computer problems, (remember last year?) I now act as if I’m wronged when I have a problem to troubleshoot? Do you ever do that too?

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