“The RoseBouquet”

Although I’ve often said that I don’t talk about the weather much, guess what is foremost on my mind today - yes, the weather! The nice temperature range we had last week in the 30s Celsius, fell to fall temperatures on the weekend, and cold, rainy weather arrived.

This morning while still in the bathroom I heard the wind howling and I thought, “Don’t tell me it is snowing out there!”

Fortunately not, but I dressed in a winter sweater with a big cowl collar and a fall jacket with a hood for my walk to the office this morning.

On Saturday I picked or harvested most of what was in the garden, but left the tomatoes, chard and carrots, and just a few pumpkins.
I had checked the temperatures on Sunday evening and it was only suppose to dip to 3 (above freezing) so I left my garden alone, hoping for warmer weather again this week. Then at lunch yesterday I learned that it had gone down to -1 over night.

Oh no! My tomatoes! I hurried home after 5 to check on them and I don’t think they were touched by the frost, but I brought out a big apple box carton and picked them all, green as well as the nearly ripe ones. I cut off and brought in the last pumpkins, and I harvested all the decent-looking leaves on the red swiss chard, which I washed, cut and put into bags to freeze.

All that’s left is the other row of Fordhook chard (I was too tired of stooping by then, and it was getting dark) and a few carrots. Then it is time to turn the waste green matter into the soil for fertilizer and let the garden rest until spring.

I’ll try to do one more wrap up photo story next week to show these various harvest scenes.

On Saturday I managed to get my front flowerbeds dug up, fertilized and I planted the rest of my 40 pink tulip bulbs and 40 daffodil and narcissus bulbs. Now I can daydream about how lovely they all will look in spring.

To tell the truth, much as I’ve enjoyed my garden all summer, I am ready for a break from that and to take up a number of indoor projects. Winter is not my favourite time of year, but I do like the changes of the seasons.

Are you enjoying your current season?

Barbara (of Barbara-Good-Books.com) gave feedback last week on my article, “On Second Thought…”

………….
I had a similar reaction to the woman writer you mentioned. The first sentence had me in full accord and after that I thought - ‘no!’ As I was reading, my husband produced a sheet of ’sayings’ by a 90 year-old in the States. Of 45 wise saying, the one grabbed me most was - ‘no matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.’

Another which was given me by my Crusader Leader in my teens and quoted again by my Doctor yesterday; ‘better to wear out than to rust out.’ He was referring to the pain in my leg which prevented me from walking too far. I’m keeping all 45 sayings for starting points for my writing.
………….

Yes, we can always find some sayings we can agree with, and Barbara is right, we can use them as starting points for our writing - even if, like I did, you use it to point out the wrong of something.

Well, I told you I had put the Thanksgiving tract on hold. The Director had a meeting with the Assistant Director and myself last Wednesday and urged me to complete it. So I was polishing it up yesterday, and hope to put suitable graphics with it this afternoon. If that works out we can announce it as available in our monthly “Praise & Prayer Report” that goes out by email on the 1st of the month. Otherwise it will be hard to publicize it in time for Canadians to order it for Thanksgiving.

By the way, I refer in it to the American Thanksgiving, and as it talks about writing letters of gratitude, it would be suitable most any time. We are just low on our selection of seasonal tracts; this is why the director is urging me to write more such tracts. Anyway, if you are one of my USA residing friends, you could order it to pass around to your family and friends at your holiday too. I should have more details next week.

On other business fronts I am pressing ahead as I am able in each project slot and inching forward.

I’ve just learned about a very interesting way to share testimonies ever so briefly and yet profoundly. It seems to have been going on for a year or more, but I first learned about it yesterday when I followed a link to youtube to see what “Cardboard Testimonies” might be. A whole bunch of people came to the center of a platform, sometimes in twos, and each held up a large square piece of cardboard with a few words in bold marker indicating what their life had been like. They paused long enough for the audience to read the word or words, and then they flipped the cardboard over, and there on the other side were words of complete contrast showing how their lives had changed. Each one waited just long enough for you to read their cardboard testimony and then they walked away and the next person came up.

This is quite a novelty because many people don’t share their testimonies thinking they can’t speak in public, or if they can, they get carried away with their storytelling. This is so simple it is profound.

However, this morning I was trying to find the link to give you and it seems to be lost. Instead I went to Youtube.com and just entered into the search box the words, “Cardboard Testimonies” that brought up a long list of such videos! I was surprised. What I thought was done just once, has been done by quite a number of churches and Christian groups.

If you haven’t seen this yet, I suggest you do a search too, and see how you like it. You might want to suggest it to your church or small group of believers.

Ah, here’s the first link I followed; Cardboard Testimonies

In my novel there is a young Metis woman who is the oldest of twelve children. At eighteen Ann has become the mother-figure in the lives of her siblings. She’s rather pretty with a stunning cascade of natural brunette curls, but doesn’t have time to fuss over herself.

Ann’s mother once won a Native Princess competition for her beauty. A handsome German with strawberry blond hair saw her in her tiara, courted and won her in marriage. However he had a severe drinking problem, often raping his wife when he stumbled home.

As the babies kept coming, Ann’s mother began to be so ashamed that she took tranquilizers and slept away most of her days. This left Ann as the oldest to watch over the younger ones.

Ann became a very good caregiver too. Although she dropped out of school at sixteen, she made the other siblings of school age, work hard at their homework, and she encouraged them in their dreams of what they would do and be when they were old enough to strike out on their own. Barry wanted to be a world trotting journalist. Glenn, a laconic thirteen, had a part-time job in a supermarket and vowed that one day he’d own the whole chain of stores.

Marion, age sixteen, comes after Ann, has the dark, native look of their mother, and is dreadfully serious. Pansy, fifteen, is also a dark brunette like, Ann, but even prettier. She is sensitive, thoughtful, writes rhymes and draws sketches.

There’s also Sara, a chubby and clever blonde; Chris, who only lives for fun; and Eldon, also mischievous but a red-head, unlike all the rest before him. Then there is Bradley, the ever crying three year old, Wendy, a toddling two, and Karin the most recent baby was just about one.

Ann has her hands full, but she organizes her day and has worked out a system whereby the older ones would help her out by watching the younger children so that she could go out for walks in the evening.

It was during those walks that she met the young man in a Mustang whom she saw as her prince charming and a ticket out of poverty and shame. Only she loved all her siblings, so she plotted to take them with her.

You will need to read the novel, Ruthe’s Secret Roses, to find out whether she got her way, and what unique surprises came into her own life.

To be introduced to the novel, go to this web page; Introduction to Ruthe’s Secret Roses

To go straight to the order page for purchase and an immediate download of the e-book in either the HTML (.exe) format, or the .PDF click on this link; Purchase and download.

The closest we’ve had here to summer has happened in this very month, September. Even so, the signs of autumn are everywhere. The leaves are falling and the breezes, even in the sunshine, feel cooler, with a taste of winter to them.

I’ve already harvested all that there is left of the zucchini, the beets (I gave those away), the corn, and I’ve picked a whole laundry tub full of spaghetti squash. That’s about 20. I left three on the vines, because those vines still looked green, like there was life in them yet.


I’ve left the pumpkins and the tomatoes and the swiss chard out in the garden yet, but am watching for hints of frost.

I haven’t had time to cut and freeze the swiss chard but I plan to put the last of that away in the freezer to make borschts in the winter time. Oh, and the carrots.

The pumpkins need all the time they can get on the vine in the sunshine so they grow bigger and riper. Yesterday I saw one getting golden in betwen the green lines!

My tomatoes are doing the best! In the past my tomatoes were always slow to ripen and I had to usually bring them in green and lay them in boxes in the sunroom to ripen after harvest. But this year, my tomatoes are ripening on the vine. At first two or three a day, and then five to seven. Now I take a box along and pick 10 or more at a time! I’ve brought some along to the office to share but last night I made a nice cabbage/chicken and tomato borscht in the crockpot all evening. At bedtime I ladled it into jars and Tupperware containers for future meals. Yummy!! I also baked a kind of tomato/chili bread in a squares pan. I think I’ll double the recipe and add a few other veggies and things the next time I try that. It tastes good but is a bit on the dry side.

Well, with fall upon us now, I need to hurry up with my outdoor projects because once the snow comes, I’ll be restricted to the indoor jobs. I had two main goals on Saturday; finish the pantry shelf unit I’d started the Saturday before with some cast off shelving I had been given, and to dig up my front flowerbeds and plant some tulip and daffodil and narcissus bulbs I had got at a good deal.

The shelf unit was rather frustrating at first. Especially when I got the electric Skil saw into a thick pressed sawdust with a black veneer on either side, and it got stuck and the saw seized up just two inches from the end of the cut. Yucck! Frustration! Neither of my neighbours were out in their yards or handy, so I went and found a small hand saw of Dad’s and I “sawed away” at those last two inches with sheer will-power until I got through.

I had already screwed little ledges on the inside of each of the tall side boards which formed the walls of the unit. The first shelf board fit in as it was. I’d cut the second one and I decided that the third one could lie on top and overhang a bit. No other cut needed. I carried them all inside and placed the two tall end board beside the fridge and the wall, a gap of 30 inches. Then I put wood glue on the ledges and one across the top of the tall boards. Now I laid my shelf boards in place, made sure everything was snug and in place and went on to other work.

Hours later I came back and found everything holding well, so I wiped them down, and started loading up the shelves. So there! Conquerored that!

Digging up the impacted flowerbed beside my front steps was another case of hard work. It was hot outside, and I was only able to get about 3 x 6 feet dug up, working around the irises and mint already there. Before I got the bulbs planted, peat mixed in with the dirt and shoveled back my lower back (must be my T6 vertebrae) was screaming at me! I managed to finish with sheer determination, but once I had cleaned up my work from that section I decided that the rest of the flowerbeds on both sides of my sidewalk will have to come in stages. It will take more than one Saturday. Hopefully before the snow flies though!

I had meant to write my seasonal missionary prayer letter for my supporters the last two Sundays but I ended up resting mostly, besides going to church, so that project is still on hold. Aren’t you glad too, that God wants us to rest one day a week?

Often I forget to share the feedback I get to my RoseBouquet issues. That may cause you to feel that you are the only reader. No the case. I just have so many irons in the fire - and work on so many layers to my life, that when I’m working on the next issue I plumb forget that I had feedback the previous week.

I do recall today that there was some feedback from David in the UK on the garden tour at the beginning of September. I will share that with the rest of you today;

David wrote:
“Quite a photo-tour indeed. The garden looks great and becoming quite established now. All the time-investment and hard work is bearing fruit. You must be very encouraged. Living in a complex of some 50 apartments, I do not have a personal garden. The grounds look good and are well maintained.”

Janice liked the pictures of Snowflake last week too. She wrote:
“Thank you for sharing a bit about Snowflake… That was cute  He is getting big, not fat, just big…

Glad you don’t  have anymore mice right now & hope you don’t in the future either… They are cute, but nasty little critters…”

Work-wise I have lots on the go, but hesitate to say too much as I don’t want to blurt out anything about my special project until it is ready and I’ve tested it. That is much on my mind though.

Of course, I need to protect the privacy of my clients too.

I was working on a Thanksgiving tract the last few weeks, but last week I showed it around the WTM office and although I got positive feedback from some of the women, a few others (men) said that it was too feminine. It’s about how to write a letter of gratitude.

So I asked what they thought goes with Thanksgiving. One said “hunting” another said “football.” Well, I feel stumped. What godly message can I write about Thanksgiving in relation to hunting and football. They just coincide the same weekend.

Therefore, while I’m sighing for ideas, and our Thanksgiving is only three weeks away, I have turned to doing some research assignments that came out of last week’s committee meeting on our Scripture Signs.

Lack of work is not my problem.

If you have been in my bouquet of roses a few years you will recall that my Dad had a profitable little hobby in that he made necklaces out of horseshoe nails and coloured copy wire. I helped him find a couple of stores to take them on consignment. Both of them still have a few necklaces left, but I have told them several times that Dad is gone and I don’t have time to try to make them.

Then just a few weeks ago I suggested once more to my brother Tom, that maybe he’d like to take up the making of these necklaces. He agreed to see Dad’s kit and to look at the instructional video. It caught! He is now busy making them, and I’ve agreed to be his courier, taking them to the stores and bringing back any income when they sell. (He’s in a wheelchair, remember?)

It occurs to me that you might want to order some as gifts. If you want to write me about that, I’ll forward your email to Tom and you can pay him $7/each by PayPal. I’m not sure if he’ll need to ask for a bit more for the postage. We’ll have to ask him.

The other night I got a forward and my first impression was, “Sure, I agree!”

But the next morning soaking in the tub, and getting my mind geared up again to think, I recalled it and decided that, no, that is not Biblically correct and not the way I really feel.

Now I want to assure you that this person (woman writer, I think) has every bit as much a right to describe how she feels about things as I do. Her friends have every right to forward it to their other friends if they so please. But if you know me well, you know that not only am I a glutton for hard work, but I also like to sit quietly and think things through and discuss them in prayer with the Lord. It occurs to me that some of MY friends (the crowd I’m addressing here right now) might like to see how I react to these sentiments in this forward.

Not for a minute am I suggesting that you have to think just like me. Gossips talk about other people, intelligent people discuss ideas. Perhaps you’ll have a response for me as to what YOU think about these things. That would be nice!

[Note: I'll indicate the quoted paragraphs from the forwarded email with dotted lines].

……………………………………….
I would never trade my amazing friends, my wonderful life, my loving family for less gray hair or a flatter belly. As I’ve aged, I’ve  become kinder to myself, and less critical of myself. I’ve become my own friend. I don’t chide myself for eating that extra cookie, or for not making my bed, or for buying that silly cement gecko that I didn’t need, but looks so avant garde on my patio. I am entitled to a treat, to be messy, to be extravagant. I have seen too many dear friends leave this world too soon; before they understood the great  freedom that comes with aging.
……………………………………..

Me: Okay, I’m with her on the first sentence because I agree that we need to be grateful for what we have, and stop measuring ourselves against others, and being unkind to ourselves.

But I think the things she describes further on are rather self-indulgent and since I try to live my life in the light of God’s Word, the Bible, I see a contradiction. Jesus said to take up our cross and follow Him. That means that sometimes we do have to deny ourselves little pleasures that are only for our own delight, and that will soon lure us away from the work at hand. It is possible and commendable to enjoy our work and delight in that - or rather, in the Lord, who is a good task Master. He will not abuse us. Our true rewards are yet to come.

……………………………………
Whose business is it if I choose to read or play on the computer until 4 AM and sleep until noon? I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of the 60 &70’s, and if I, at the same time, wish to weep over a lost love …I will. I will walk the beach in a swim suit that is stretched over a bulging body, and will dive into the waves with abandon if I choose to, despite the pitying glances from the jet set. They, too, will get old.
…………………………………

Me: Oh-oh, this woman is really giving herself permission to enjoy her indulgences. This is beyond accepting the unavoidable.

……………………………….
I know I am sometimes forgetful. But there again, some of life is just as well forgotten. And I eventually remember the important things. Sure, over the years my heart has been broken. How can your heart not break when you lose a loved one, or when a child suffers, or even when somebody’s beloved pet gets hit by a car? But broken hearts are what give us strength and understanding and  compassion. A heart never broken is pristine and sterile and will never know the joy of being imperfect. I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair turning gray, and to have my youthful laughs be forever etched into deep grooves on my face. So many have never laughed, and so many have died before their hair could turn silver.
………………………………

Me: Notice that her excusing of herself now makes her philosophical? Broken hearts means loss of loved ones, in her mind, and it is these broken hearts that give us strength and understanding and compassion. Is that really true? Do you really have to have a broken heart to be pure. Suffering does generally make us more understanding of others who suffer, but I don’t know about the joy of being imperfect. Does she really believe that or is it a cliche she’s picked up somewhere?

Personally, I believe that it is God’s Spirit who makes me strong on the midst of suffering. How I respond to that suffering is going to determine whether I mature or not. We are like teabags; put us into hot water (trouble) and only that which is in us will come out. However, having to struggle with troubles over a longer period of time gives us lots of practice in turning to God for help, and in that sense He uses the troubles to mature us.

Purity or holiness does not come from never having a broken heart. It is a gift from God, received by faith. I have done a Bible study on my own of 180 verses about JOY in the Bible. (I hope to publish them yet). I can safely say that joy does not come from being imperfect. It comes from praising and worshipping God. I’m learning that another fringe benefit is increased faith.

Now I do agree that it is a blessing to have your hair turn a natural grey or silver, and to have laugh lines etched around the eyes. I don’t know any stats on how many have never laughed, but I am convinced that a deep, settled peace and knowing that I am loved by God is a greater joy than giddy laughter at jokes.

Here’s a few other advantages to being grey/silver-haired;
1. mothers let their kids wave at and greet you in the park - you seem safe.
2. young men with dirty minds slow down and avert their eyes when passing you.
3. motorists often wave you to cross the street even though they have no stop sign.
4. kids believe you more readily when you tell them something.

Oops, I better finish what I was doing here. . .

……………………………….
As you get older, it is easier to be positive. You care less about what other people think. I don’t question myself anymore. I’ve even earned the right to be wrong. So, to answer your question, I like being old. It has set me free. I like the person I have become. I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here, I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be.
………………………………

Me: If you are more relaxed about yourself, others will reflect that more positive attitude back to you. That happens at any age. I know one woman who will only hire people as her employees if they honestly like themselves, because if they don’t, she knows soon she will not like that employee either. This writer above seems to have accepted herself at last and is rejoicing in the sense of freedom that gives her. I’m glad for her. It will make her life more tolerable.

I am prepared to allow for the fact that she was just blurting out her thoughts and feelings without analyzing them as deeply as I have here, however, I reserve the right to not identify with her 100%.

…………………………………
And I shall eat dessert every single day if I feel like it.

MAY OUR FRIENDSHIP NEVER COME APART ESPECIALLY WHEN IT’S STRAIGHT FROM THE HEART! MAY YOU ALWAYS HAVE A RAINBOW OF SMILES ON YOUR FACE AND IN YOUR HEART FOREVER AND EVER! FRIENDS FOREVER!

Forward this to at least 7 people and see what happens on your screen. You will laugh your head off!!!
…………………………………

Me: Okay, let her have dessert every day if she wants. I see it as self-indulgence and I do it sometimes too. (I guard my peanut butter and cheddar cheese). But I know better!

The parting blessing …. well, I can let her have that too. She doesn’t have to be a carbon copy of me.

Only I will NOT forward to 7 people and if I did, I would not expect to laugh my head off at anything I see on the screen. My head is well attached. Laughter will NOT remove it, thank you very much!

Aren’t you glad I don’t do this every time I receive a “cheery or funny” forward?

I really don’t take enough time to play with my cat, but he seems to be able to entertain himself most of the time. The other evening I looked up across my desk and saw him eyeing and then reaching for the light switch by the front door. Fortunately my camera was within reach!

My friend Janice has been hinting that she’d like to see more of Snowflake, so I thought I’d share this little scenario today. (I intend to do a bigger project some time, but other things seem more pressing and urgent. Or when I Snowflake does something interesting the camera is out of reach.)

I made a pleasant discovery last Thursday evening. I was checking STATs on various sites, and found the list of 404s (page not there errors) a bit confusing. So I thought I’d have a look at this KLinkStatus program that I have on my computer. Maybe it could do what I used to do with Xenu a link checking program I had on my Windows 98 computer years ago.

Sure enough! It did a great job. So I checked for bad links on three or four mission sites that I look after, and was able to fix those quickly because I could easily see which page those bad links were on. I just had t enter the main URL of a site, click on the Search button, and in five minutes or less, it had a complete list of the links for me, with the bad ones in red. Then I tried it on my huge Ruthes-SecretRoses.com site.

Oh-oh! That has over 700 pages, so it took quite a while, and when it was finished some of my windows that I had open on the computer seized up. That usually means that my RAM (memory for things that can be open and running at the same time) was full.

That was on my computer at home, so yesterday I tried it again here at the office computer and had no problem, except that it took about 25 minutes to check all the links on that great big sprawling site. Then I saw that I could set it to just show the bad links, or 404s, and not mix them in with all the good links. Ah, now it didn’t look nearly so terrible. I got a lot of links fixed yesterday, but will have to continue for a few times yet to finish it.

Now I’m wishing I had discovered this program ages ago. If I stopped to check and fix links once a month like I check the STATs, I could keep all the sites current and in good working order. I must try to make this part of my routine now.

Of course, with more than 21 sites to check STATs on, it seems to scatter throughout my month instead of happening quickly at the beginning. Oh -well, sometimes we just have to keep plugging away, doing the best we can with the time we have, right?

But I sure am grateful for this efficient little link checking program sitting here all this time.