“The RoseBouquet”

Okay, this didn’t happen at my home, but at my office, and just yesterday. It stopped me right in my tracks.

I’ve been spending my week-day afternoons here at the office, working on an assignment to get a grant application ready on behalf of Western Tract Mission. In November the Board had asked the director and me to start applying for grants for our big Impact Canada project. In December an email announced a brand new consortium of 12 Christian foundations pooling some funds to give out some big grants. The application period was to be between Jan. 3-31. I studied their website, strongertogethergrants.ca and felt that we would be a perfect fit to apply. I sent Arnold, our Director, the link and he thought we wouldn’t qualify because we’d have to have an annual budget of more than $150,000. I assure him that no, it said “less than.” So I got a green light.

Their specifications document was available on Jan. 3, and I went to work. Usually I give the mission one hour of my afternoon, but many times I went over to 2 or 3 hours in an afternoon. Last week was especially stressful as I had to get all our financial reports for the past two years and a budget for this year set up neatly.

I had set my heart on posting our completed application yesterday to beat the deadline by one day in case there were any complications. By about 3 pm yesterday I had gone over the whole 9 page document and cover letter with a fine-tooth comb, tweaking and perfecting it as exactly as I could.

But once I had registered and logged in and was answering the five qualifying questions I kept getting an error message that said, “Sorry, but you don’t qualify…”

What?! After several tries and checking on our gov’t registration number with two others, I finally emailed the person we were to contact if we ran into problems. With two time zones between us, I didn’t really expect an answer until today, but the man in charge replied quickly and asked me to give him the answers to those first 5 questions. I did, and a little later I had another reply from him. “Sorry, but you don’t qualify because your annual budget is less than $150,000.”

HUH?!! I went to read that part of their website again. Sure enough I had misread it. Oh no! My heart just sank. All this work - for naught? I’d pushed and prodded others for numbers and proof-reading last week, and I even got the required signatures on Saturday. - Have you ever had a cold flush just wash down through you?

Well, there were other deadlines to meet last night, and the Lord helped with those. Maybe it’s a good thing I had to stay up until midnight to get the first issue of Reflections ready for today. That kept me from having a pity party.

My work is not wasted either. The Board wanted me to really hunt down more foundations to apply to, and now I have all our “ducks in a row” to use a cliche. I have a free membership at Ajah.ca, which is a huge database of foundations, and now I’ll look for other individual foundations to apply to for grants.

No wonder professional grant writers make $100/hr. Whew! They earn it.

Winter has come after all! This morning I woke to hear Sheila Coles on CBC radio say, “You thought yesterday was cold?!” (Yesterday was not all fun for me!) They made a big fuss how yesterday’s -29C was beat by this morning’s -36C with a wind-chill factor making it feel like -46C! So I put my glasses on and looked at my weather station on the chest of drawers; it has a sensor to read the temperature right outside my bedroom wall. That read -29C. (The official temperature is taken at the airport where all the winds get at the equipment. Mine is sheltered by buildings and trees in the city).

However, as I continued to listen to the radio while I had my bath, I persuaded myself that it would be really smart today to stay home and not venture out at all. I could certainly write the RoseBouquet from home. True, the mission project I work on right after lunch is only on the office computer, but…I could something else in place of that.

You see, for some time now my car has trouble starting in the mornings. Having it plugged in helped, but we’d had a big dump of snowfall over Saturday night to Sunday, and the temperatures had plummeted down-down!

My car moaned and groaned but it did start in the morning, and again when I moved it to the parking area behind the mission building (Joe had been shoveling that area when I arrived). However, at 5 pm when I went out, hoping to do my banking, and some grocery shopping, it would not start.

After trying for about 10 minutes I came into the office and phoned the CAA. The woman said there would be about a 45 minute wait, but the big orange tow-truck arrived in about half the time. The young man tried boosting the battery, with his box n’ cables, and with the big truck cables, and no go. He gave up after about 15 minutes.

(Sigh!) I went back into the office and found a tangled yellow cord, so I plugged the car in and came back into my office and set about making myself a supper with a box of macaroni and cheese (from my emergency stash). I tidied up some shelves of computer/electronic parts too.

Finally, after about an hour and a quarter, I bundled myself up and in faith took along my purse and backpack, believing the car would start. It took about three tries and earnest prayer, and lo, it finally kicked in! Hallelujah!

I had phoned my neighbour Joe, during my wait and he advised going to one of those Parts Source stores, and asking them to test the battery. I headed over there, but they had closed at 6. (This was after 7 by now).

I stopped for gas, and then spied an ATM for my credit union, so did my banking and then headed home.

Back to this morning. Through my prayer time, my attitude gradually changed from wanting to hole up at home and work from there, to thinking that I could go try the car again at noon, when it would be the highest temperature we’ll have all day, and then see about having that battery tested. I could go to the office after that. Then it changed again to thinking, well, I could start out about the usual time at 9ish and go do that, and if I had to buy a new battery, I would. Then I’d be fine the rest of the day and henceforth.

A woman/clerk cheerfully came out to test my battery, but found it doing fine. She figured it must just be losing charge. Maybe even just one cell was low.

I was heading toward the office, but dreading a repeat of last night, so I detoured around to Atomic, the taxi service station where I’ve found good mechanical services before. They are booked up for the next two days. So many are having car problems, but Scott, the desk man, took pity on me and when to find a mechanic who would come with me to the office, and drive the car back so they could check it for me.

He has already called once to say the battery really is fine. But they are looking at the block heater now.

We’ve had cold winters like this every year of my life, and I know we can’t make it go away by waving our hand, or any magic formula, so I accept it. The hardest part to bear is to have car troubles at these temperatures. Yet, once I accepted that my grocery shopping plans were cancelled last night I found grace and peace to deal with the situation at a sensible pace. I was reminded this morning too, from 2 Cor. 9, about “God’s abounding grace…” So I’m not in knots over these experiences as I have some other times. That’s good too.

AFTER LUNCH: A couple of calls and I got a ride to pick up my car. Turns out there is nothing wrong with it. Just deal with the cold by keeping it plugged in when not driving! Also - no charge! Amen!

Guess what Canadians love to do; talk about the weather. This January we have really had some interesting weather to talk about too! Over the last two weeks a number of records have been broken for temperature highs, some that were over 100 years old.

Normally, January is our coldest month of the year, when we tough it out at -36 or -40 below 0 Celsius. Over the last two weeks we have seen as high as +17 C in Maple Creek, a small town in the southern part of Saskatchewan. In fact, they were the hottest place in Canada one day last week, and I believe this week too.

We even hear that in Florida it is colder in the daytime than up here! Wow!

Most people can take this as a friendly joke, and remark that this is easier to take than spring flooding that wipes out all your crops and ruins your home’s basement. So if we are to have freak weather we’ll happily accept these warm temperatures, sometimes known as a January Chinook.

I’ve seen a warm thawing Chinook in February or March, but never this warm in January.

Ah, but even this is too good to last. The forecast is for a cold front to come in from the north, and our temperatures will drop this afternoon. By tonight we are to have snow flurries and a drop to -17 C.

I have friends leaving today for Hawaii. What perfect timing!

Yesterday I walked to and from the office for the first time since my fall in early December. Yes, all healed up. I really felt winded, but this morning when I weighed myself I had lost 4 lbs since Sunday. So I need to discipline myself to do that walk more often again.

Do you recall when you were in primary school, how the teacher would give each student a chance to show and tell whatever was special to them. This would be particularly interesting after a long weekend or holiday. Well, I don’t mean to brag, but I have some exciting gifts to show and tell you about.

(You may feel free to write me about your gifts too).

Do you recall in my last RoseBouquet before Christmas I mentioned getting some money in a card. Well, at lunch that day I gave some away to my co-workers, also missionaries here at Western Tract Mission, where I have my office suite. After work I went to deposit the rest and do some grocery shopping. When I got home just before 6 pm, it was getting dusk already, but I saw these aluminum pipes forming a frame over the spot where I park my car, just inside my back alley gate.

As I pulled into my spot and closed the gate I was busy looking around, taking in details and wondering…. All at once, Penny, my neighbour to the west side, came out their back door, calling out loudly, “Merry Christmas!” She confessed that they and Priscilla (all my co-workers at WTM) had pooled the money I gave them, and bought this tent garage for me, and they had been busy setting it up all afternoon, but they had not been able to finish it before dark.

Joe and Wayne, one of the Board members, went back the next afternoon and put the canvas part up and finished it up for me.

I spent the next few days grinning and giggling to myself, and murmuring things like, “Wow, I just can’t out-give the Lord!”

Then there is my new hat. I had dropped some hints that I was looking for a warmer winter hat for when I walk to and from the office, and I got one from Anne Peters, who manages the office at the front of our building. but while cozy, I didn’t think it was quite thick enough for -40C weather, so I kept mentally planning how I would make one if and when I had time.

Then one evening while I was doing my bookkeeping, a strong impression came on me that the thick, heavily ruffled crocheted collar that Mom had once made for me, but which was way too bulky to wear under a coat as a collar - that might turn into a nice double thickness hat. I couldn’t help but jump up to find it in my scarf drawer and have a look.

Sure enough, there was enough material in it so that I could lay it double and sew it up the back with yarn, and turn it into a toque or hat! But since the crochet work with the yarn was so lacy with large stitches, I was afraid the cold winds would still get through it.

So the next day I went to Fabricland and bought a bit of arctic fleece, and a bit of wind-proof fabric, like that of which parkas are made. I sewed that into a a toque that fit snugly over my head and ears in less than half an hour. Then I saw that permanently sewing the crocheted hat to it was not going to work well, and it might be too warm some days. Ah-ha, then I’ll make it detachable!

However, it wasn’t until Christmas Day in the afternoon while I was waiting for the turkey to roast so I could take it to my brother’s place, that I finally had time to sew four white buttons on the toque part, put elastic in the brim of the crocheted hat and tried them out. Hey! Not bad, eh? I was rather tickled with the results.

What’s more, wherever I go. wearing this hat I get compliments. They usually say, “I LIKE your hat!” and I respond enthusiastically, “Yes I do too!”

What’s more, I’m finally using a gift that Mom made for me years ago, and I’m thinking of her more again these days.

When I get home from the office I come in the back door, drop my backpack and purse off on the pink chair, and march right on to the front door, and out to my mailbox. Every day there are other mail treats than just flyers selling stuff I don’t want/need.

Some folks only send a card with a signature; I’m grateful that they still count me as a friend even if it is only once a year. Others include a newsy letter, and I love reading them. Some include photos.

My niece Jalise sent photos of her two children. I stared and stared at them. Oh how they have grown since I last saw them. Wow!

Last night it was quite a handful of mail. It took me about an hour to read through them all! That put me behind in getting another batch of my mail ready to send out. Especially I was distracted with excitement when one card had a wee bundle of cash in it. Not just the ordinary bills but of a kind I had never seen before. I wasn’t even sure that it was real money, so I went online to check it out. Apparently our Canadian government just issued this new kind of bill last month that is made of plastic, and has clear window panes in it, and several holographs for security. Beautiful, actually! Wow!

Of course, I made a phone call to say thank you.

I realize not everyone gets such mail treats, and my heart aches for them. It’s very lonely to feel so ignored and neglected. (And yes, I have family members who do not send me a blessed thing, not even a card with a signature).

That’s why this morning as I was praying I began to get ideas for where to share my bounty. I was just writing someone yesterday, who was begging for help for their family, that I would if I could, but I just didn’t have extra funds. Well, I wasn’t expecting this windfall, so maybe it is a test from God to see whether I really will give or hoard for myself. I may keep a tenth for myself, but already I have a list of those who are in need, and with whom I will share some of this ‘out of the blue’ gift.

Last Tuesday, walking home from the office, I had a hard fall on some ice.

I was only a little more than two blocks from the office, and I had just been praising God that the people on the second block had cleared their sidewalk so well, that it was totally dry and free of snow and ice. I could stride along freely. I crossed a street and on the next block that was not the case. In a split second or less, my feet went forward and up, and I landed on my backpack (which I think saved me from a broken back!)

Totally winded and taken by surprise I just lay there for a minute. Finally I rolled over and gingerly got on my knees. I was able to stand up, and then I realized that the muscles below my tailbone had got the brunt of the bang. No bones seemed to be broken. Every step forward for the remaining 11 blocks was painful!

Believe you me, I went slow and paused to consider every icy patch I came to along the way, looking for the best way around it.

Our weather the last few weeks has been mild enough so that the sun melted the loose snow, but has not been able to clean up the icy patches. At any rate, I’ve decided that I’ll drive to and from the office for a while. Although, those walks were my exercise plan. Now I wonder about growing weak and flabby.

Maybe that’s set in already. I’m discovering this winter that if I’m up on my feet for more than a couple of hours, even if I’m not doing hard labour, then my back begins to ache. Fortunately, the pain is gone when I wake up in the mornings. For years I’ve felt a younger age in my mind than my true chronological years, and now I’m having to shift my “mental age” up a notch or two.

Oh - and about that extra fur coat? Well, I got it on Sunday night when I arrived at church for our Potluck supper and then the Sunday School Christmas Program, but it was put in my car right away.

When I got home I tried it on, and found it too tight or small in my shoulders, but it does look very handsome and lovely. I know a friend who may accept it, so I plan to pass that one on.

Hey, I hope you don’t have any falls this winter or Christmas season. If you do, may the angels cushion you.

As you must well know by now, I have a very full schedule throughout my week, and usually only manage to keep Saturday and Sunday for my own projects. Sometimes special events will preempt even that personal margin. That means that something like designing my Christmas letter and story (gift) and card drags out over many weekends. I tried to start in mid-November and did not get much further than having an idea or two.

This last weekend I began to make better progress. I put other things on hold, except for starting to bake my Peppernuts, and threw myself into designing the graphics for my Christmas mail. Ideas began to multiply! My graphics skills on the computer had grown this year quite a bit, and though I discovered some new tricks on the weekend, I could see that I still have a long way to go.

Well, usually I get a lot of good feedback from my Christmas mail, so I hope it will be worth it all.

Although I don’t make an effort to decorate my place much for Christmas, I did have an idea a few weeks ago for an easy to make table top Christmas tree with a piece of wallpaper from a sample book. My WTM helper and I had made a batch a couple of weeks ago, taking photos of each other doing the steps, so that I can create a how-to craft page. Last week I had another helper, and so we did some more.

Finally, last night, I got the photos ready, but it will be this afternoon before I get the instruction page done up with the illustrative photos. Meantime, I thought I might toss in a few photos here to show you what fun this can be, and they do look rather - pretty, eh?

If you want the how-to page you can check this sub-index page later or maybe tomorrow - if I get it done.
WesternTractMission.org/KK/crafts

Last night’s Board meeting was over by 10 pm instead of 11 or so. I got home and felt a bit at loss to know what to do. I didn’t think I was quite ready for bed, and there was this Christmas craft on the corner of my desk that needed more work, there was my usually Monday night work load that I should tackle, I could do a bit of mending from my overflowing box of sewing projects, I could get in some reading, or, how about some research on the item that I need to buy for a gift project? So many things all vying for this surprise bit of time.

As I weighed my options I lost half an hour and then 40 and 45 minutes went by. Finally I decided that the thing I was most inclined to do was sew on some buttons. My pajamas and two blouses each needed one button sewn on and then they could be removed from the to-do box of mending/sewing projects. I decided
that all I had time for any more was just three buttons.

But then I had to go on a hunt for the missing buttons. Have you ever played, Button - Button - Where’s the Button? It’s a children’s hide and seek game where someone hides a button in the room and all the others have to come in and find it. It’s been eons since I played that, but that’s what I was thinking of last night as I went on my hunt.

I remembered that I’d picked up the PJ button somewhere and put it in the pocket of my black skirt. Sure enough, it was still there.

I hunted through my plastic shoe box sewing kit and found an old film canister which had assorted missing buttons. One of those would work nicely for the one shirt. Ah, but then I discovered that the factory had sewn a spare button on an inside seam. Nice. Thank you!

But the third one was suppose to be small, flat and white with a gold rim. I couldn’t find the missing button. Finally I solved that by moving a correct button from the bottom of the blouse up to the gap, and sewing the
other white button I’d found in the film canister at the bottom, where it would not be so noticeable.

Do you know that feeling of accomplishment when you’ve slipped something into your schedule that didn’t have a place before, but that needed doing? That was my feeling as I got ready for bed.

Now I’m wondering… if I could close off my usual evening’s agenda by 11 pm, maybe I could plan to spend 15 minutes at a little mending or sewing job before going to bed.

(Sigh!) Ah, but I’m suppose to find a slot to research foundation grants for the mission, a new job the Board added at the meeting, and I was going to look for a spot or two each day to add maintaining my Facebook pages to a daily routine. - I think I need a Prayer and Planning retreat before year’s end!

Last week our weather got considerably colder. Here in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan we can take the single digit temperatures below 0 Celsius (freezing point) in stride. Naturally, it’s winter! But when they get to -20 C and then colder when you add the windchill factor, some of us get more careful about decisions to go somewhere, and if we do, we bundle up in layers of warm winter clothing.

I resorted to driving and making some shopping expeditions to look for a better hat. Sometimes I’ve felt downright chilled at my office desk which is in front of a window (though there is a heat register in front of my feet). I keep an extra light parka jacket nearby and I also have a thick siwash sweater - but it is a pull-over and it is always a struggle to pull it back over my head when I want to take it off.

So I had hinted a few times that I should go to Value Village or the Sally Ann to find a second-hand fur coat to huddle in. I had not gone through with that yet, when on Thursday one of my elderly supporters phoned up to say that she had a fur coat to give me. She had no clue what I’d been thinking.

But I took the car on Friday and went to see Betty, this dear ol’ lady in her 80s after office hours. She gave me this luscious-looking deep pile mouton fur coat that she’s had since 1963. It is so heavy it is hard to carry.

I took it home and after a belated, quick supper I sat down for my evening’s work at the computer. A chilly draft from the window made me realize that I ought to try out my fur coat right away.

So I put it on, and guess what happened!

As I snuggled down inside it I fell asleep! It was the oddest sleep too. I
could hear myself snoring and I knew I wasn’t getting to my bookkeeping, but I couldn’t seem to wake up. I was zonked right out. It was after 10 when I managed to pull out of it, and get my most basic bookkeeping work done by midnight. But no time for the GA site I meant to work on.

Yesterday I brought it to the office, and almost the same thing happened. I don’t know, but I may have to be very careful about how often I use it.

Anyway, I thought you might want a peek….

[Notice that I don't show you the frayed sleeves or worn down buttons, etc. It's not for wear in public - just for my own warmth, just what I needed!]

Oddly enough, today our temperatures are back up in the single digit negatives again. Much easier to cope with.

After a long frustrating Remembrance Day at the office, trying to install the newest operating system on my computer three times, and each time booting into a screen full of messy gray lines, and then having to install the previous version again - the next day was full of blessing and a big surprise.

It was our annual Day of Prayer here at Western Tract Mission, where I work and have my office. We invite others to join us and then we go through each dept., having one of the staff report on answers to prayer in the past year and give us new ones to pray about. We send for pizza at lunch and then carry on until we have thoroughly prayed about everything.

What was different this time was that right after Arnold had made the opening welcome and prayer, Joe brought forward a big box wrapped in gold paper and bright orange ribbons. He presented it to me - from the mission. He didn’t say, but implied it was for giving more than 100% of myself.

Everyone watched and waited while I opened it. There was some teasing about which of my desires/prayers this would be an answer to. (We’d recently been talking over lunch about my need of a garage for my car - but all could see this would not be a garage). From the size and shape of the box I was thinking an LED flat screen monitor, and that was something I’d been thinking I would buy for myself if I get any Christmas gifts of money.

Everyone here knows that I usually take others castoff computers and fix them up and use them as long as I can make them - and my friends are often amazed at how much life I can squeeze out of oldies. Well! It was a Toshiba Notebook laptop. Brand new with a 3 year warranty!

I was floored. So I set it aside on the end of the table I sat at, and we went on with our meeting. I eyed it from time to time, and wondered if it wouldn’t fit into my backpack so that I could carry it back and forth with me. Which would mean I could keep all my emails in one place, for instance, instead of forwarding them back and forth between home and office and sometimes losing them.

When I got home at three I shoveled my walk (until Joe came over to finish for me - shoveling still wakes up the stitch in my side), then I cleaned house and did dishes, etc, until 6. Then, as I sat down to eat supper at my desk I opened the laptop, answered the basic questions, and then explored it for a few hours.

It had Windows 7 on it, and it didn’t take me long, even with a very open and curious mind, to decide that I like my openSUSE far better. And because it has 500 GB on the hard drive, I knew just what to do. First I followed Joe’s instructions for charging and discharging the battery fully, and then on Sunday just after 6 pm I started to install openSUSE 11.4 on it via a NET install. It took much longer than the efforts at the office on Friday, for it worked on and on through the night, and finally finished Monday morning at 9:45 am. I was waiting for it with my parka and boots on, so that I could unplug it and take
it to the office.

Yesterday I started setting up some of my email addresses. There’s still more to do, but if this works out I should be gradually changing more and more of my work to the laptop, and have my work machine with me where ever I go! Just give me another week or two to get things smoothed over.