“The RoseBouquet”

Last week my student was asking about how to order ink cartridges online. I showed him how to find sites that sell such things, and then how much cheaper they are when you have a PowerMall and can shop at one of the ink stores there. We did some major comparison shopping and in the end, he signed up and was able to order a package of four at InkGrabber for $200 less (about 50%) than if he bought them here locally for his business printers. On top of that, there is the 17.5% rebate coming yet.

He sent out 30 emails to friends and already had a great-niece signed up under him.

Stories like this are multiplying every day. You will be doing yourself a huge favour if you check it out, and “accept” your free mall too; MyPowerMall

P.S. I think I’ve won some free airline tickets for recruiting him…!

When you visit or drop in on a friend, what do you think about their housekeeping? Do you notice the differences? I do.

Rarely do we have friends whose style of home-making is the same as our own. Because of the friendship though, we overlook these things.

When I was a teen my Mom insisted that I do the weekly cleaning on Saturday. That habit is still with me. Unless something special comes up, I tend to leave my housecleaning chores until Saturday. The rest of the week I just live there. I can’t say I love cleaning, but I’ve learned to discipline myself, set some sequence of steps, and when I think I have more time I get distracted by settling down to thoroughly organize one desk or cupboard, or whatever. I guess I prefer the sorting and organizing stage best once I get into it.

My home always seems cozier and more inviting at the end of a Saturday cleaning binge. I wish friends would drop in about then!

The homes of some friends look like works of art. Everything neatly in place, and placed just so-o, with no more than one or two attractive objects on any furniture surface. No sign of a project in process or any mess whatsoever. I enjoy looking at such a place, but feel a bit out of place. This makes me a very careful, polite guest.

Then there are other homes which go the other extreme. Risky piles of stuff stacked up everywhere and every which way I look. Naturally, I try not to embarrass my friend by commenting on all this, although I’m sure I have trouble hiding my thoughts.

I don’t know about you, but the craziest yen rises in me to come in there and do a major clean up. The other morning I caught myself visualizing how to do this while I was in the bathtub.

Let’s see… we should dedicate a week to it, and the friend and I ought to work at it together. I would bring a stack of boxes… no, better still those plastic bins - colour-coded even! I’d also snap out some packages of coloured garbage bags.

I’d say, “Here. We’re going to look at every item and you decide; is it garbage? Then it goes into these black bags. Is it something you’d like to sell at a garage sale or give away? Then into these clear bags. Is it something to keep for an heirloom or treasure? Then it goes into one of these bins, and you label it. Only what you actually use on a regular basis gets a place in a bin in the closet, or a home-spot in your house where you can see and find it easily.”

We’d also have cleaning rags and buckets and cleaning products and as we’d get to the surface underneath we’d wash the surfaces, and also vacuum or wash floors.

Oh yes, and we’d start at the far back room, maybe the bathroom, and work our way around, room by room, until we end up at the front door. Once we’ve cleaned a room we don’t stash any of the filled bags or bins there. They have to keep moving behind us towards the door.

Having been through this kind of cleaning last year in Dad’s house, I know that you have to allow extra time. Like a whole half day to a room, or maybe two days on a large one.

There’s just one problem with such a daydream. Such friends have daily living habits that will put their home in exactly the same state in a short time. Who am I kidding?

Do I really want to invest that kind of time in someone else’s home?

I thought I had my fill of it last year, but… what should I charge if I were to land a job doing this for an estate where someone has died, and there is no family to do the clean up? (The woman at Dad’s trust company said I had saved his estate a lot of money by doing it so she wouldn’t have to - hmm - how much?)

[Okay, Ruth. Come back to reality. You’ve still got a lot of work like that to do down in your basement. It must be time to start if you’re in a mood like this!]

Yessir! As soon as I get caught up on some small jobs for others, I will tackle that basement! Every Saturday this spring and summer until it looks wonderful!

Some friends and relatives have been asking about my little house in recent days. Slowly the wheels of progress on my reno projects grind forward. As I’ve mentioned the inspector came about mid-January, and I’ve been accepted for the government RRAP plan. (The provincial and federal gov’ts go together to pay for basic repairs needed for a low income home-owner).

The inspector warned me that the hardest stage was ahead for me, as now I have to find at least two contractors for each of the jobs he okayed, to give me quotes on the work and supplies they would need. I have to send these in within 6 months, and then when he has notified me which contractors to call, they have a year in which to get the work done.

He’s right. Getting contractors to come out has been hard. There is a building boom of NEW houses in this area, and most of them are booked up a year in advance, and some others admit that they would rather not do renovations on an old house. Too much bother. New houses are more fun.

However, on Friday afternoon one friend, Dave G., came around and spent a couple of hours measuring things and asking questions. He’s going to bring me a quote when he’s done all the pricing and math. This has been very encouraging to me.

Dave gave me the names of some others to call, and I want to do that tonight, and I am praying daily that the right people will have the time and be willing to come look things over and give me their quotes too.

Since the roof leaks into the living room and bathroom when it rains, I would really love to see the roofing job done before the spring rains come. The water heater has a seam that looks fit to burst and so replacing it is a priority too. My natural gas bill (for the furnace) has almost doubled every month through this winter, so for sure - I want a new furnace in by next fall! There are 16 specific jobs the inspector wrote up, and I’ll tell you more about them as this all comes to pass this year.

Some of them require a plumber and some an electrician so one man alone won’t be doing all of them. There will be a parade of trades people coming through here yet!

My classes in Computer Basics are off to a slow start, but there may be wisdom in that.

I had promised one friend some lessons more than a year ago. A lot of stuff happened in between, but I finally got to it this last Saturday.

Another friend took my offer of the one week of afternoon classes for this week. As of yesterday, Lynn was the only student. (Another friend has crazy shift hours, but said he’d try to come when he can). It works out to Lynn’s favour though, because he has a page long list of things he wants to learn, and problems to be solved with his own computer and printers. I am now able to focus on his specific problems. So instead of paying some techie to come to his house at a rate of $60 - 120/hr, he’s paying for a week long series of lessons and trouble-shooting for just $75, my starting up special price.

At the same time I get to see how long it takes me to explain or teach certain topics. I can get a better feel for how much to cram into one 3 hour session. If I had four students this week that could be overwhelming.

However, this means I have next to no time to spend on promotion and recruiting students, so I really need to pray that more students will come next week.

I must say that I’m enjoying teaching. It makes me feel fulfilled and unique.

By the way, I did get some kind comments about Snowflake’s photo story last week;

Janice: Snowflake is a delightfull kitty. Reminds me of the days of having my own kitties… i truly enjoyed the pictures & what you had to say about her <-smile.

Connie: We keep dreaming of the day when we can go back to Florida AND get ourselves a pair of kitties. It’s so great that you have one though. They make such great companions, and you’ll be amazed how attached you’ll get to her too. She sure sounds like a real gem. May you both be totally blessed!

Shirley told me in person that loved the photo story and thinks my Snowflake is beautiful!

When I can work it in, I’ll have to show you some of the mischief she gets into.

I have received two translation jobs in the past week and must work in time for those among everything else. Last I checked there were only three of us on the net offering to translate German from the hand-written Gothic script to English. With how busy I am and how much effort that takes - I’m wondering if I should close that offer. Hmm?

Do you know that you could join all kinds of mailing lists (often known as groups) for no charge? As you read the emails of others, and correspond with them, you can learn many new things. However, in that sub-culture there are some rules of etiquette so that you gain friends and don’t get people “flaming” you. (That’’s telling you off in ugly language). A site that has a number of useful tutorials on this topic is - Netiquette

I read of a woman who has written a collection of 800 poems and she wondered how she should get them published. What would you do if that was you?

That’s prolific! I’d like to see the quality of the poetry and the range of topics, but if you are able to produce poems that liberally, maybe you ought to check into publishing them too.

Have you come to the conclusion that marketing poetry is something of a euphemism? There are few commercial outlets, and few readers will buy a book of poems. Even poet laureates have a hard time making a living.

Most of us would like to have our poems printed in handsome form in a book, and be able to give copies to our dearest friends. So why not self-publish? It’s an ancient and honourable way to do it. Today, with the advent of e-books and Print-on-Demand (POD) it has never been easier or cheaper.

Note that a printer prints, and a publisher makes copies of the work public, and offers it for sale. You may hire a printer or a quick-copy shop to make up your book, but don’t expect them to sell it for you. That’s your role if you self-publish.

You don’t need anyone’s permission to publish. If all that’s holding you back is the know-how, then let me outline the simple how-to right here.

Let’s cover print publishing steps first, and then electronic, but remember you can do both at once.

[Read the rest of this article online in my Sharing Library: How to Publish Your Poetry]