“The RoseBouquet”

Our heat wave broke last week with some days of showers and rain. I’ve had several days now without using the air-conditioner. Sometimes I have turned on my fan for a while, but this is much more comfortable.

I’ve started inviting people when I think they might come on Sunday afternoon to see my garden. It’s not the best week to do this as I’m so busy with going to the missions conference in Waldheim, (though tonight is the last night I can see clear for me to go). It means I don’t have time to keep up with weeding the garden, nor baking desserts to have set up for my come n’ go visitors on Sunday. I will sure have to hustle myself on Saturday to get things ready.

Remember, if you are able to come, you are invited and welcome to come! My address is 903 23rd Street West in Saskatoon. (Quite close to 22nd St. and Ave. I North).

Last weekend I made several attempts to drop in on Sears Optical to see what was the hold up over my ordered prescription glasses. It was 20 days since I ordered them on July 4th! Well, Sunday after church I was finally able to get there when they were open, and discovered the reason for this long delay.

My Rx is so strong that the lab where the lenses are ground, away in Winnipeg, was not able to get them right. The woman showed me a tray with a pair in a frame, and two other pairs of lenses, but apparently they were all “not perfect.” So the lab in Winnipeg is trying again this week for the fourth time to get my lenses right!

She said that with lower grade Rx there is a bit of leeway but with the strength mine are to be they have to be exact. So this week I’m more patient and I’m trying to remember to pray that they’ll get it right this time. Up until now I was just trying to wait patiently - and running a bit short.

I once read some customer relations advice. People don’t mind standing in line and waiting if they know why. Get out there and explain WHY they have to wait and they’ll become much more agreeable. Let’s take that to heart in our own ventures.

Let’s see… of all my busy projects, what would be of interest to you today?

My mind is rather full of the last two evenings at the annual Waldheim Missions Conference, where Priscilla and I set up our display table for Western Tract Mission, Inc. This is the 59th year this has happened and people come from many surrounding communities to take part. Often 20 or more missions set up displays in the foyer and hallways and some missionaries are given short opportunities in the service to report on their work and present special projects. A special speaker is brought in and often special music too. The services are good, and the networking that happens before and after is great too. I have made a number of contacts with other missions and ministries that I hope to have further dealings with.

I am daring to take tonight off from client work to go ahead, but tomorrow I had better stay home and do what I’ve committed to do.

On my aloe vera site I have updated/changed the menu style. For my shopping site I have been researching how to shop for eyeglasses online. It has turned out to be a much bigger area of knowledge than I had realized. It may take a while to write up the pages that are going to be the result of this research.

I have - in little blocks - been trying to develop better skill at writing good ad copy too. These are intended for all my sites.

Ideas are spinning in my mind for more ezines/blogs to help some sites get ahead, however, I’m not going to announce them or go live with them until I am sure I have enough material stashed to make it easy on myself to dash them off in just half an hour each.

Some friends complain that they can’t keep up with all that I’ve got a finger in. Let me confess something; these days my mind nearly blows the over-load fuse just thinking of that I COULD DO if I could just work it in!

Last week it was time to write and publish the MHSS E-Updates for a client. It goes out on the third Wednesday of the month. Victor Wiebe, the archivist, who is my contact person told me of finding an article in the paper abut a Mennonite teen author and publisher. I looked her up, and was impressed with her site.

So I thought I’d repeat that note here, so you can check her out too;

Victor Wiebe noticed an article in the Star Phoenix about Rebekah Wall, a teen girl in Warman who has written a book, and publishes a magazine for girls. With a bit of research we have come up with these links for you to check this out; The news story -
theStarPhoenix.com/story_print.html?id=5112392&sponsor=

Learn more about Rebekah Wall on her own website;
www.ForSuchaTimeAsThisPress.com

Rebekah tries to emulate Queen Esther, who realized that she had come to her place of influence for just “such a time as this” - and she tries to help her followers understand and live that way too.

I tell you, I admire a girl like that!

We are into our second week of a heat wave. Now it is almost totally across Canada.

So far I’m able to cope, but some are growing very weary of it. The radio news reported this morning that further north of us, at Big River and that area, there may have been a funnel cloud and there were terribly strong winds and hailstones, some apparently like cluster bombs and the size of baseballs!

The weather report says that this kind of ‘climax weather’ is going to reach us tonight. Gulp! I’ve known since I was young, that when we have two or three hot days in a row, things build up to a climax up in the upper reaches of the sky, and we soon have at least a thunderstorm - and sometimes hail.

My garden is looking so good now that it would be a shame to see it all chopped up. I showed it off to two ladies who took me out for lunch on Sunday at the Granada House restaurant across the back alley. I expect to be busy at the Waldheim Missions conference this coming Sunday, but I’m seriously considering the idea of having a Open House Garden Tour on Sunday, July 31.

With that in mind I spent time this past Saturday in cleaning up my back porch, and the patio area, (although that sure could use some development!), and I also did some weeding and cutting back on those energetic squash vines. They have no shame or “please” and “may I?” in their behaviour at all! They just waltz over the other plants in their way.

If that date doesn’t work out I suppose I could try for another Sunday in August. That would give some of my slower flowers a chance to get into bloom.

Even for a “Come N’ Go” event, you almost need some finger foods and drinks ready to offer. So I need to think that through too, and figure out just when I’d get that ready.

The sooner I know for sure the sooner I can start inviting people, right?

My glasses? I don’t know what the hold up is, but so far they have not called to say they are ready for me.

You may not always want to know all the details of my business matters which absorb me. So let me mention something else. I work certain mission projects into my business schedule as a matter of course.

At least one hour each afternoon is for WTM. Besides working on preparing tracts for publication, I am now working at sorting a box of old, historical photos for a history book project which has a deadline of 5 years, to be ready for our 75th anniversary. Eventually the photos are to be scanned, etc., but right now it is fun to sort them and guess at the people and what they are doing in the photos.

This is rather an adventure for I’m not sure where this project will take me yet.

There is another development with Pastor Gervase Masanja and his church in Tanzania. I recently put nine projects volunteers could help them with, on their website, pmc-ministries.com/volunteers/ An international ministry based in the USA, known as World Race, is sending 14 international volunteers to work there from September 2 - 30th. There are some excited emails flying back and forth as I help Pastor Gervase decide which of the projects can be accomplished by those volunteers in that month. Some amazing things could be started then and there!

Maybe some of their great financial needs will be met too. Again, we’re on the brink of exciting possibilities!

Last year in January I bought my second SBI site and got one free. I gave it away to someone who had done me some favours, but that person didn’t recognize the tremendous value it was and let it slip through his fingers. If you are smart enough to know what a huge deal SBI is you won’t let that happen here.

They weren’t going to offer the 2-for-1 sale any more, but our dear Dr. Ken has decided that a certain milestone calls for a contest with a prize as great at the 2-for-1 deal.

facebook.sitesell.com is nearing 25,000 Likes. You have to “Like” that Facebook page and then stay alert for when they hit the magic number of 25,000 Likes. When they do, for a very short time the 2-for-1 sale will come on. Only those who have “liked” the Sitesell page on Facebook will be aware or have a chance at that sale, and only for a limited time period.

Now if you are not sure about how great this deal is, you want to go here to explore all the tools that are included, - especially the NEW features.

Just want a quick tour? Try this; Quick Tour
Or, the full tour in a number of sessions has more detail; Video Tour

Last week was our first “hot” week of this summer. Since summers are fairly short in this part of the world I try not to complain, even though I’m a shrinking violet in the heat. Some years it feels like we only had one or two weeks of real hot summer weather.

The crazy thing was that my old window box air-conditioner that Dad had bought second-hand about 15-20 years ago was NOT cooling off my house. I noticed one evening last week, that the fan was drawing the hot air from outside into the house. What was the point?! I shut it off.

I decided that I’d have to make do with my other regular fan. At least I could angle it so that it’s breezes would dry and cool my skin. (On the other hand, that makes my eyes dry and itchy too).

Well, guess what I found in Friday’s mail when I got home; an early birthday gift from my uncle and aunt who recently sold their home after 50 years. In the note, my uncle wrote that it was for something I had hoped for but thought I couldn’t afford.

Ah-ha. I made a list. The next morning I went shopping. At Home Depot I found a small air-conditioner for under $100, and also a new garden hose and Y coupling. (With all that heat my garden needed watering and my old hose was no good. I had nearly carried out all the water in my rain barrel).

I also stopped at a deep discount store and came out with a few things for birthday gifts to send away, and an LED porch light, and a few smaller things like that.

At home, I could lift the new a/c, box and all, a few inches at a time, and I managed to assemble the loose parts. But the old one was the problem. There was NO way I could budge or move it out of the kitchen window. So I called Joe, my neighbour. They had company but promised to come later in the evening.

They did too, right after their guests left. Joe was able to pull out the old A/C, install the new one, and carried the old one out to the trunk of my car. (Yesterday I delivered it to a steel recycling business, and let them lift it out and drop it on the forklift’s scoop.)

That gift money has been slipping through my fingers pretty fast. I had to remind myself this morning to slow down. There’s still a thing or two I want to do, but it’s amazing how fast I can become a spender.

By the way, we finally got some real downpour showers on Sunday and the temperatures are quite nice and bearable right now. The new A/C is getting a rest. So are the new garden hoses.

My glasses? I thought they might call yesterday as it was a week since I ordered them. Maybe today?

Part of running a business, whether online or in a store made of bricks and mortar, is that you must advertise to make a profit. On a website that is fairly easy. Or it can be if you choose the most common method. You sign up for some affiliate programs that appeal to you and go with your website’s theme, and then you copy and paste the code for their banners into the spaces where you want them to show up. That can even be rather fun.

But my favourite web business advisor, Ken Evoy of SiteSell, says that those banners are not as effective as text ads. The other day I was checking my income STATs at some of these affiliate programs and chagrined to see that the new banners really don’t bring in any income. Visitors just don’t seem to click on them very readily.

Keeping in mind what I learned again more recently about writing good ad copy, I realize that I need to tackle that with a fresh vigour. I have in the past written up a bunch of text ads and put them under a column I called “Tips & Solutions.” I’ve never really studied the results to see how effective they were, but I think I’ll be more thorough this time.

Practicing good copy-writing will involve a learning curve though!

I got a note on the weekend from my publisher, Angela Hoy of Booklocker.com They are moving their family to Florida and offering a deal to their authors. A bit too steep for me, unless another big gift comes in, however, she included a link that has some great advice to self-promoting authors. Since there are a number of writers reading my RoseBouquet I want to pass this on to you.

It’s called,
One-Shot Book Marketing Does NOT WORK - But THIS DOES!

But here’s an extra treat. In that article Angela has a link to a series of articles she has written to help authors promote their books effectively. If you are in earnest about getting your book out there (and how I wish I had time to do that for mine), then you’ll want to study that series of articles too.

This last one (XI) has links at the top to the ten articles that went before. Online Book Marketing That Works!

I got my circular flowerbed finished and seeded this weekend, but noticed by Sunday evening that some vandals had walked over it with big heavy shoes.

Besides that, I’ve been preoccupied with shopping for new eye glasses. For me, this is a big deal. I try to let as many years as possible pass between these purchases. You see, my prescription is so strong that it is hard to find any optician that will quote me a price under $500 for the Rx lenses. Frames are getting quite cheap nowadays, but the killer part of the bill is the lenses. Sometimes though, you find a good special price.

I missed the half price sale at the first place for lack of funds, but could have had the lenses and frames together for $418. Other places I got quotes for $520 to $580 for the lenses alone.

A week ago Sunday, some friends at church said they’d help out if I found a good deal, so doubled my efforts, and also tried to find some online. I learned a lot! On some sites the prices were too good to be true, like $38 a pair of glasses, no matter what my Rx said? Or three pair for $99?

There was a small hitch though. They needed my PD number (Pupillary Distance), which my optometrist’s office said I could get wherever I bought the glasses. Which cannot be done online. That brought me back to having to shop locally for at least one pair of glasses.

A new flyer for the first place said they had a 2 for 1 sale, so I thought I’d ask if I could have just one pair at half price. No. But the very new attendant there mentioned that another customer had said there were sales on at The Bay and Sears. I wasn’t aware that they sold eye glasses at all!

Naturally, those stores were closed for Canada Day on July 1 (our country’s birthday), but I walked downtown on Saturday and checked them out. Yes! Success at last! Sears has an optical shop near the far exit doors, and there I found a knowledgeable woman who helped me narrow down my choice of frames, and told me that my total order, with their half price sale would come to $382. and some change.

So yesterday I went back and placed my order, settling on the more dashing frames with the rust/red lights. Of course, they had to send away to their lab in Winnipeg to have my special lenses ground, so I’ll have to wait until they arrive here and get the call to come get them. But - my decision has been made and I can stop chasing the best buy in glasses.

Well… I do know my PD numbers now, so maybe when I’m feeling more flush with funds, I’ll go online and order some cheap computer glasses and sunglasses.

By the way - the peonies are in bloom!