“The RoseBouquet”

Lest you think I only work hard on Saturdays, let me assure you I’m busy all day every day through the week.

My mornings are full with devotional journaling, writing, a promotional hour, and some renovations on my own sites.

My afternoons are for answering emails, although lately I’ve begun to think of that also as my time when I deal with my clients, potential customers and friends. My public relations section of the day. When one of my clients emails that they’ve found some typos on their site, I stop and quickly correct that, or whip up another page for them, or whatever. This means that I rarely get all my emails answered each day.

On top of that I’m trying not to get too peeved when some of these ‘clients’ send not just one but four or five emails at a time! Some folks can only think one thought a time, and they dash off an email for each one! I know if I answer each one, the emails will multiply like amoeba, so I take the extra time to combine them somewhat. But then often, these people answer only one point and ignore the rest.

I realize this kind of thing happens sometimes, but when it becomes a normal pattern… I have to resist the temptation to be a bit sharp.

Monday, Wednesday and Fridays, I drop my work at a certain time, bundle up warm, sling my backpack with lunch on my back, and walk for 25-30 minutes to spend an hour with the staff at the Western Tract Mission office. Sometimes I can help someone, but if nothing else, it helps me feel part of the ‘family.’ The actual work I do for the mission I do from my computer at home.

Oh yes, my evenings are generally dedicated to larger clients’ sites. However, I try to reserve Tuesday evenings for correspondence and friends, if not preempted, and Friday evenings for bookkeeping and paying bills, and administrative stuff.

You may be scratching your head wondering, when do I ever take time for a social life?

Well, I learned years ago that if I sit around waiting for friends to have time for me I will get antsy and frustrated. So I made a schedule to keep myself as busy as I can stand, and when a friend wants to connect with me, I just have to bend or squeeze my schedule to make room for them. That doesn’t happen that often, so I have learned to delight in small connecting moments, even if only by email.

This is probably the weakest part of my life. In depth relationships take work and both quantity and quality time! But I’m also dealing with a need to support myself and earn enough to be a generous giver - my goal in life.