“The RoseBouquet”

A friend asked recently for more news of my life. I tried to explain that I have so many things going on that it is hard to explain all of it to anyone. Even of all the things I was into on the weekend, it is hard to summarize neatly. Sometimes it bothers me too, that I rattle on and on about myself. But hey, I have range of friends that want to know what goes on with me!

In the last couple of weeks many trees have had their leaves turn to gold. On Saturday I raked up a heap on my back patio area, and I buried them in my garden. Sunday morning it was raining golden leaves on my head, and I walked through thick layers of fallen leaves on my steps, and down the path to my car. I noted a crisp crackle-crunch under my feet. Even a delicate tinkle as the leaves landed on me and the ground.

At the car I turned around and - marveled at the golden tree that is more than twice the height of my house. I got back out of the car and took this photo. Just in case it would be naked later in the day.

Yesterday I felt like I was wading through several inches of fallen leaves most of the 13 blocks of my walk to the office, but by this morning they had been trod down quite a bit.

This morning it occurred to me to take out my camera. It has a video setting but I have usually ignored it because I don’t think I understand how to use it, but I thought it might record the sound for you.

Turns out that it recorded the pictures fine, but no sound.

I’ve just put the videos on the computer, and studied the camera, but I still don’t know how to turn on any audio feature.

Anyway, I’ve decided to try putting a short video of my walk on the blog edition. If this works you’ll find them at the RoseBouquet in the At My Place… section.

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When I checked out this Magnetic Sponsoring venture (Magnetic Sponsoring) I learned that Mike’s main secrets to greater wealth are good ad copy and getting a strong mailing list going. Then you advertise your main concern to that list. I’ve head that before, and decided that I’d try to work at it in relation to several sites. But knowing how much time I give to this RoseBouquet on Tuesday mornings, I wanted to set each one up in such a way that I’d streamline all the steps.

By getting a steady supply of regular articles for each one, and fitting in the info and the ad related to what each site is promoting, it should only take about half an hour each week to do those ezines. I would also prepare four issues ahead of time, so that if anything interrupted my pace, I wouldn’t be left scrambling to write a new issue at the last minute.

My biggest concern right now is getting subscribers to sign up so the first issues will actually go out to real people.

I have an ezine almost ready for the aloe vera site. I don’t have the subscribe form ready yet, but probably next week.

Another one, Effective Prayer, should be ready to go later tonight. It is for PMC-Ministries.com

The third one is set to go out on Saturday night if I can get some subscribers by then. It is for the site; Revival-Time-Ministry.info and I’m using my 180 Joy Gem devotionals as the weekly articles in that one. The subscribe page is up already at Subscribe to Joy Gems

For sure I don’t want to ask you to do anything you don’t want to do, and those last two ezines will not be about my personal doings, rather good devotional material, but if you would be interested, I’d be thrilled to see you go and subscribe.

As with any and all ezines I run, there is always an unsubscribe link at the bottom of every issue, so that you can bail out and unsubscribe without having to deal with me face to face. No questions asked.

Are you in a networking kind of business, where you are suppose to recruit new reps and distributors to sign up under you? It may have sounded easy when you were recruited, but it turns out to be hard work, doesn’t it? You are not the first to discover that!

Mike Dillard did too, and had to subsist as a waiter, and eating mac n’ cheese in an apartment without furnishings. Until he figured out how to do it painlessly. Now he shows you with his videos and material how to attract NEW Reps and Distributors who are often ready to pay you for the chance to talk to you and learn what you want them to sign up for.

I recommend however, that you don’t use your main ‘good’ email address to sign up for this. You will soon get a lot more emails - more than you may want to handle! Set up a separate one first.

No, not the kind where I describe health problems or surgeries with my internal organs - per the usual joke with organ recitals. But my mind is filled with an organ story just now, so that I can’t think of anything else, so I might as well tell you this story.

My friend Anna was moving from a duplex to a situation where she will be a companion to an older woman friend who has been widowed. This meant she has been trying to sell and give away her furniture - as she simply could not take it all with her, to where her personal territory will be one bedroom.

She offered her Lowery, two-keyboard electric organ to our mission, and in an effort to help her out, I persuaded our Board that we should accept this offer. Even though some feared that the tuning bill would be sky-high. So last Thursday evening I rounded up some of those Board members, (one couple having a truck) and we moved it from Anna’s place to the mission. She also slipped me a donation to use towards the tuning she thought it would need.

A friend here in the office, Anne, had tried it out last week, and said it was in tune. It just needed a good cleaning.

Well this morning I called a man who advertises that he tunes pianos and organs, though his web page shows lots of church organs that he has built which have pipes reaching way into the rafters. This man, Bill, would charge $76 to come have a look, or if I could give him the model and serial number he could look it up. Since I was on my cordless phone I went downstairs to read the information off to him.

I couldn’t read the fine print on the label under the keyboard, so Joe got down on his back on the floor and read them off to me.

With that information, and a talk with Anne down the hall, Bill was able to tell me that it would cost $400 to clean about 300 wires (or whatever) that had got corroded. Basically he would have to de-solder them and then solder them on again. Very time consuming.

My heart sank. But then Bill made a suggestion. He has a smaller working Yamaha organ we can have for $99 plus taxes, and he’ll take this older one if we deliver and pick up the other. Anna’s tip will cover this plan nicely. Now, let’s hope I can persuade the Board members to make the move/exchange! Then we all win!

Next time we have a public meeting downstairs, we can actually have accompaniment with our singing.

This morning I got to thinking about so many opportunities that I can’t take. One would be to befriend and help the many new immigrants arriving here. But that would take hours and - well, would have to be a full-time venture. So I better not go there. Aside from my Sunday morning help in the ESL class we have in church where I am happy to help.

Then I hear about the various children’s’ ministries needing volunteers here in the city, and remembering how much I used to enjoy running Pioneer Girls and AWANA clubs in churches for decades, a part of my heart pulls that direction. But I know I’m older, and don’t have the stamina any more needed for that work. Nor all the time for follow-up of the individual kids.

Next my mind turned to the work I do now, and realize that God has worked together my personality and interests, with new skills, so that I’m doing valuable work that is very unique. I know of no one else doing the kind of websites that I build, with a good grasp of both the message to get across and the people we want to reach with it. Even the years that I’ve spent on this ezine/blog, The RoseBouquet, is coming handy as I prepare ezines for other missions and ministries.

I get to work with pictures and page layouts too, and have plenty of room for my creative juices to flow.

Ha! I guess I’m doing exactly the work I should be doing at this stage in my life! It’s different from what I used to dream I’d be doing, but it fits like a well-tailored soft leather glove. I’m wiggling down into it with contentment.

By the way, sometimes I get some nice affirming feedback from readers as well.

My poor neglected novel, Ruthe’s Secret Roses, (which got me online in the first place) gets a backseat in all my busy life right now. But it is still available both from Booklocker.com and from my own website. And a time will come when I can really promote it, and write the sequels that ride

It’s about the kind of friend that I’ve always dreamed I’d be. Very busy with making friends and helping those she has already met. I couldn’t do all of that now in my current life, but I’m glad I wrote it. It does have a good, encouraging message to those who wish they had a close friend who would drop everything to come to their rescue.

Right at the beginning, Ruthe, my heroine of my novel, dashes away from her own high school grad when her new friend Muriel calls. Do you pine for a loyal, caring friend like that?

If so, you should buy and READ Ruthe’s Secret Roses.
for the e-Book edition, or go to my publisher’s site, for the softcover edition.

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Whew! Fall is here! Last week and the week before we were having nice warm temperatures in the high 20s and low 30s Celsius in the daytime. At night they dropped to double and single digits, but every morning the sun was up and warmed things up. Great harvesting weather for the farmers.

Then we began to hear what was coming this week. Since my plants were drying off and dying in the garden, I started digging up potatoes and bringing in various things. I got most of the potatoes dug up last week, but have about 3-4 plants left. Sunday night a cold wind blew in, and the leaves started to fall. Tonight there is to be a frost, as the temperatures will drop below 0. So yesterday after I got home from the office, I went out and harvested my watermelon crop. (The one I took to church on Sunday night was delicious!) I expected to find 10 more, but discovered I had 16. Nice.

My squash harvest comes to 22. I had cut those on Saturday too.

Last night I also picked and pulled up my tomato plants. Except - this morning as I was rushing out to the car, I gasped when I saw that I’d forgotten the yellow tomatoes! I’ll have to bring those in tonight.

There’s still some carrots, a bit of parsley, and some long yellow kind of thing in the row where I had sown pumpkins. And the yellow tomatoes. And those last few potato plants. Then my harvest will be in.

At any rather, I thought I might tuck in a picture here for you of my ‘crops’. If the weather turns nicer again next week, as some say it will, I’ll be able to tidy up the plant waste and turn it into compost.

All that extra work in the garden has helped me lose a pound or two. I’ll have to see if I can keep that active with my indoor projects now as we gear into our fall and winter mode.

Business-wise I tend to spend many hours sitting in front of the computer. I’ve noticed recently that my posture, often propping up my elbow on my chair’s armrest or the desk, has shifted, and I now have trouble sitting up straight. It takes real effort. My osteoporosis seems to have shortened my spine as well, so my internal organs shift forwards.

Oh no! I had resolved as a young girl that I did NOT want to grow to look like my Grandma Friesen with the humped back and protruding tummy. How did this happen after all?

I feel like I should try to shout from the housetops to all the young girls who think they will always be lithe, and nimble and will never become little ol’ ladies - “Work at good posture and exercise to keep all your body parts at their best as long as possible!” It may happen to them anyway, but perhaps they can minimize the effects.

While we are on the theme of health, I seem to be getting my reputation for aloe vera plants again, as I had in Hague. Three people here at the office have come to me asking for aloe vera plants in the last week. Fortunately, I was hoping to get rid of some that I had set up in the front porch over the summer. I know they will freeze there when the winter comes. So I’ve been bringing them to the office.

But I also have people contacting me through my aloe vera site, asking for plants, so I keep telling myself that I need to figure out a good way to market them and send them out. I know that I can’t send them over the border to the USA with dirt on the roots. I just need time to research this and figure out a workable plan.

It would be easy to insist that the only good aloe vera is straight from our own plants, as fresh as lettuce picked for this next meal’s salad from your garden. Unfortunately, (sigh) it isn’t that easy for everyone. Some have no time or place to look after aloe vera plants. Even if you did, you’d have to grow lots of it to keep up with your own needs or that of your family.

Fortunately, there are companies out there finding ways to put aloe vera into products that you can buy and keep on hand. You can drink them as tasty juices, or put them on your skin as lotions and ointments, and you can even wear them as makeup.

So I’ve been studying and researching these companies, and so far I think the top one is Forever Living. It is a big company with representatives in many countries so that almost anyone can get access to these products.

On top of all that, if you learn to really like them, you can sign up as rep yourself, and buy them at a good discount. If you really get enthusiastic about the products, you can sell them to others and make a profit!

Hey, it’s hard to lose with Forever Living! (Maybe the only way is to be too lazy to check it out Forever Living!

Whew! I’ve just finally finished - not only one, but two photo stories for you. One is a tour of my garden at the end of the summer season. Many plants are dying off, others are busy bearing fruit. It is time to start working towards cleaning up my garden for the winter. You can see the August, and now the Labour Day weekend photos here; End of the Garden Tour

But there’s more. On this long weekend, a friend invited me to come help myself to his fruit trees. Apples, crab-apples and plums galore. I’d had other plans, but decided to go see. Maybe I’d pick for just one hour.

Well, I took a little more time, as there was such abundance! I was too busy picking and then putting up the fruit when I got home, but I did get a few photo shots for you.
Gift of Fruit

I had a busy Labour Day weekend, labouring, or working. How about you? Did you do that too, or did you celebrate the blessings of work by resting?