“The RoseBouquet”

Do you back up your computer regularly? It’s like paying for insurance. For long stretches of time it seems like a waste, then suddenly you are in need, and all at once you’re very glad you faithfully took that precaution. No matter how careful or experienced you are with your computer, accidents can happen - sometimes through your own slip-ups, or often through the actions of others.

1. Work out a plan for your computer situation; set aside diskettes, CDs, or DVDs just for this, set aside a regular time to do the chore. Once a week at the least, or if extra busy, once a day.

2. Keep all the documents and files you create in folders inside one main folder. Consider them as your family treasures in one suitcase, ready to grasp and run when disaster strikes. Making a clone of it regularly ensures a better chance of escaping with all your photos and original work in tact. That’s your intellectual property. Something you might leave your heirs.

3. If your heirloom stash cannot be copied or backed up on something outside of your hard drive, then go online and do a search for “free + online storage.” Yesterday I quickly found a number that offered 1 GB, 5 GB, and even 6GB and then one that promised 25 GB free. One catch though, was that I was suppose to upload them file by file. I did not have patience for that just then, as I was dealing with a 3.6 GB bundle!

The point with most of these sites is that you can give friends a password so they can download files that might be too big for emails.

I consider these a last resort, when you are unable to put your files on a removeable disk, or USB drive, or another computer. If you do need them, plan to upload files right after you’ve saved them, and make it a continuous habit.

Instead of an article today, I’ve prepared another photo story for you. (Seems I always get the best feedback for those).

You’ll find this one at A Gift of a Garden Shed

Yes, we got to see my sister Elsie, and her daughter Jalise, and Jalise’s young children, Calvin and Elise on Tuesday. In fact, we had a picnic supper at the Kinsman Park, and Tom joined us. (He ordered in the Chinese food for the picnic).

This park, which is Tom’s backyard, he says, has a merry-go-round, and a small ferris wheel, and small train that goes twice around a track in a large enclosed area of the park. Jalise has happy memories or going there as a young girl, so she wanted to take her kids there, and they enjoyed it tremendously. Calvin, (6 in Oct) is going into grade one, and he loves trains. A child can bring along an adult free, so for his last right he insisted I come with him. (Together we took quite a few pictures but I haven’t had time to process them). Elise, on the other hand loved the merry-go-round, and had numerous rides on that.

We all went to see Tom’s apartment and as I had expected, they were all taken with his huge collection of diecast cars and trucks and farm machinery. Then in the evening they came to visit my place for about an hour. Then they blew out of our lives again.

On Saturday I managed to finish wallpapering my kitchen. It’s a very small kitchen, but I lost extra time on my idea of a quilted look. Since I hope to get a totally new kitchen one day, I think of this one as okay for experiments. But patching together a design like that takes longer than just plain papering the wall spaces. By the time I got to the last two walls I wished I had just gone ahead with the plain beige tiny print pattern wall paper I had. The last corner I ended up patching with pieces from the previous collage effort that I had tossed into the garbage. Those pieces are curling up now, so I may have to do it all over another time! (When I can afford decent wallpaper).

I didn’t take photos of the work process, but if I have time I’ll slip in a shot or two of how it looks now.

P.S. Just got a photo story page slapped up. Kitchen Wallpaper

That new income stream I was trying is a bust. I gave it up yesterday. Suddenly I was flooded with offers to buy, BUY! Nor did I make any money. Seems you have to prove yourself for a while first, before they give you an invitation to the serious paying surveys. So I had another half day to consider and pray over it yesterday and decided that since I now have an extra hour disciplined into my life, I’ll spend it on writing short articles instead.

I learned last year already, that if you can write good short articles and if you post them on article directory sites, you will soon be established as an expert in your field, and people begin to come to your site to check you out. I did start with that last year, but got distracted earlier this year, after Dad died and I had all that extra work to do. I literally gave up my business hours in the mornings for packing and sorting.

If you’d like to sit in on this morning’s brainstorming session as to how to use this writing hour, see the article below in the Ruthes’ Roses section. Maybe you’ll give me some feedback?

I bumped into several opportunities and checked them out. I KNOW I would make a good mystery shopper, as I’m quite observant and make detailed notes, but you have to pay a fee to get started, and then they expect you to jump up and go whenever they call with an assignment. Another woman’s account of nine bad years with multi-level-marketing (MLM) programs and her discovery to focus on marketing instead of recruiting was another confirmation of a key insight. Namely, that I need to learn to market the sites and programs and products I already have set up. I usually master the things I set my heart on learning, so this is my new goal.

I will give my 8-9 am hour to writing, but then my 9-10 hour to promoting, except where my blogs like this one preempt that hour, so I’ll try to get it in later. With a special two way thrust of marketing by articles and then by ads as well will pay off soon, I hope. I’ve been praying about everything else and seeing God’s helping hand, so surely I can pray about this too, and find blessing and prosperity in this.

My inheritance is suppose to come soon. I already got most of it in a loan which I used for a down payment on this house. But I think there will be enough so that I can buy myself an SBI site. I have become convinced through visiting the forums for that affiliate program, that the people who build an SBI site DO succeed financially. Often within 3 months or so, they have an income of anywhere from $100 to say, $3000 a month from their site. I’d like a chance to test that for myself. I’ve reserved a spot 3 mornings a week to work on that.

… if you learn to use just the Right ones for Net-writing!

Got an idea for an online business, but not sure if it would work? Find out! Got Questions?

Just for fun, if your computer lets you watch movies online, you might want to look at this Breakfast in Texas

It’s September and I’ve resolved to dedicate one hour a day to writing. Just now I’m brainstorming. Would you like to look over my shoulder?

First of all, I should point out that these days intelligent marketeers are saying the most effective way to sell anything is to write interesting articles on your topic of interest, and to make them available to others’ websites.

Lucky me! I enjoy writing! I just need to discipline myself to actually get to it. So I’ve cancelled another project to clear space in my schedule to work at my writing. I’ve always known I could be prolific - now I’m going to prove it.

A few years ago I wrote an article on how to write mini-articles for exactly this purpose. You can learn more about these patterns in that article in my Sharing Library on my site.

Today I’m getting more specific. I think the ones I will focus on are;
Problem-solving articles, both the full articles and short fillers that allow me to soft-sell my site and products. Personal experience, both the testimonial and inspirational types. Devotional, Bible study one-pagers.

I’ve never been known for my humor, though I do laugh at a good, clean joke. (Some people think I’m funny because I talk so fast, but I avoid sarcasm and foolish puns, so I’m known more for being a smiling serious person). Therefore, I’m not sure I should even try to write a humorous article, but thematic? Sure, I could try those too.

Supposing that you also would like to carve out some serious writing time, I’ll go on to brainstorm how I should actually spend that hour.

I have small booklets with article ideas scattered in various drawers. I need to gather them all in one place here, and provide a way to keep jotting down more ideas at other times of the day. That will eliminate the matter of getting ideas during this hour. Otherwise I can see my mind seizing up with writers’ block most of the time.

It won’t hurt to plant booklets or small cards and pens in all my purses and coat pockets, and to put some by my bed, and by my dining table, and in the bathroom.

Once before, I see in my notes, I made up an agenda for such an hour;
DAY 1 - brainstorm and research keywords DAY 2 - write one article and edit/polish another. DAY 3 - post articles on article sites (& offer to ezines?)

But as I recall, that didn’t work so well. The rhythm of writing on a daily basis didn’t develop. That’s why I’m thinking it would be better to sneak in the brainstorming ahead of time. I may need to allow a bit of time to research the keywords I want to include in an article when I am hoping it will be a soft sell, or pre-sell for a certain product or web site. But I hope to spend that fast-zipping-by hour in writing as much as possible.

There is value in letting an article cool for a few days and coming back later to edit and polish or improve it. So I think I will save all first-time articles in a draft folder, and only move them to one that is ready for publication once I’ve had time to do that polishing edit and spell-check. Hmm… I guess I could do that whenever I feel too dull to write a new article, but sometimes I’ll be needing an article and will just have to take time to do that then and there. Or should I schedule time for editing?

Hey, maybe Friday morning will be when I polish up whatever I wrote the earlier four days, and see to the posting of them. Of course, since I have several blogs, some of my articles will be for them, and may be used right away. Still, it would be smart to have one day to assess and to file and record what I got written.

If I should freelance them and get paid, I will for sure need to keep track of which was submitted where, and when, and whether I sold all rights, or just first rights, and retained all others. Okay, I better start a simple database. (Here’s hoping that doesn’t get to be a headache!)

I do want to work in some variety, but I’ve had people subscribing to and hinting they want me to start producing my daily devotionals again. I have some series written. I just need to polish them, so perhaps I’ll give a couple of weeks to preparing those first. Since I can slip an ad into my P.S. those can be subtle marketing tools too.

Now, if I could just brainstorm up a regular time slot to work on my next novel again! Well, if the article writing flourishes I should be able to buy myself some time for that too.

Have you got a writing time, place and plan? Have you got any tips or advice to offer? Does my plan look feasible?