“The RoseBouquet”

As a teen I daydreamed a lot - (I still do!) - one set of those early meanderings became a major part of my novel, Ruthe’s Secret Roses, but it is only recently that I’ve seen how intuitively that solved some problems.

We are all dissatisfied with ourselves in one area or another. We don’t like how we look, or our clothes don’t suit the persona we want to project, or they don’t fit well. Maybe we don’t like our personalities. We want to be like someone else. Or, we don’t like our situation at all. We wish we were someone else in another time and place.

If we know about God and have heard that He made and loves us, we are convinced that He is no good - all because we are quite dissatisfied with ourselves. “If God is suppose to have made a mistake like me,” you may think, “then I have no respect for Him.”

But turning our back on our Creator is exactly the wrong thing to do.

There are some things about ourselves that we can make over. Shabby appearances can be as a result of bad health. So set a goal for building good health and make yourself over. Perhaps a hair and make-up makeover would complete the project.

No, you are not designed or destined to be over-weight. Let’s not blame God for that. You put the food in your mouth by your own choice. It may be a hard choice and you’ll need help, but you can choose to work at reducing that excess baggage in your body. Weight makeovers ARE possible!

If you are stuck wearing cast-off clothes that don’t suit you, or are too shabby, (sigh! I know it’s no fun), you can work towards a better wardrobe. Someday you will be able to afford or make good clothes. However, try to remember that there is much more to you than your outer appearance.

When your spirit shines with enthusiasm and joy people connect with the real you and don’t notice exactly what you are wearing. So work on developing the inner you, not just your wardrobe. Otherwise, they will intuitively recognize you for nothing more than a clothes hanger.

Keep in mind that though God put the DNA into the sperm and egg that became us, He still thinks of us as creative works and masterpieces in progress, and He’s giving us a chance to participate in the finished persons we are to be. On many points God waits for our decisions.

Are we going to pursue knowledge and understanding? Do we want to improve our mind and appearance? Where will we choose to live and work? Whom will we choose for friends and which ones will we avoid?

Now you are wondering how I worked all that into the novel as a result of my daydreams.

The plot thickened and jelled as I learned to know and understand the above points.

The Darlin’ Bonne’s Shoppe was started in the book as a way and means of giving a teen aged girl that Ruthe the heroine had rescued from sure death, a home and a way to support herself. The plan was for her to design and sew clothes, even though she had never sewn a stitch before, and to talk with her clients while she sewed, telling them about the transformation she had experienced in trusting Christ.

God divinely intervened and brought other girls into the shoppe and the plan developed as they learned to sew and design, and then some more as clients or patrons began to visit and use their services. Betty, a student nurse, came to the door, recalling a conversation she had overheard between Ruthe and Darlin’ Bonne. She was dropping out of her studies and wanted to join them. Then neighbour girls, Donnie and Louise came to see what the strange sewing noises from that green house meant. They begged to join too. Later, a social worker brought over Evelyn, who needed a home and a new career, after her last parent died. Another day, Ruthe brought over a runaway girl she had seen at dusk, escaping from a black market adoption.

Their good reputation grew as women and girls, and children too, came in to have new clothes made for them, and as they got to know the seamstresses like personal friends. While they planned and cut out and sewed up clothing for these people, the Darlin’ Bonne girls developed a sense for who needed an inner makeover as well. They learned to share Christ with them, and guided many to pray and receive Him as their personal Saviour and Lord and Friend.

Sometimes, as in the story of Phyllis Shulton, they would all gather around one woman, and sew a new wardrobe for a totally new look, and at the same time, lovingly counsel her to a spiritual makeover. These transformations gave me a lot of pleasure to write, and I trust they give readers a great delight too.

If you like makeovers, you will especially enjoy those scenes and chapters in my novel, Ruthe’s Secret Roses. If you would like such a makeover, you may pick up enough clues to know how to get one in your real life.

You may recall that I had a number of weeks of back and hip pain. Basically from about Mother’s Day in May to about mid-July. Then, just when I’d decided to go to my doctor about it, the pain lifted away. I felt almost foolish reporting the pain I’d been having in the past tense.

Mind you, I had started taking joint health supplements, and extra calcium, and I think it was taking effect.

The doctor sent me for an x-ray and some lab work. Then I was called in when the x-ray showed calcification of the left kidney. It seemed like a mistake because I was no longer in pain of any kind. This usually implies kidney stones, but can be something else too. Immediately, I cut back my calcium to just one dose a day, in case I’ve been taking too much.

However, the doctor wanted to schedule me for a CT scan to check this out further. That appointment took place this morning. I’m curious myself to know what this will show. I’ve taken both my Mom and my Dad to these tests, but never had to go through it myself.

I left home before 7:30 and walked the 8 blocks to St. Paul’s hospital, stopping several times to take some photos of the city’s huge bowls of flowers in the boulevard on 22nd Street. (It’s impossible, I’d noticed, to take those photos when you are driving by).

There was the admitting process and waiting in the Diagnostic Imaging department, where I tried to continue with my morning prayer lists. Then I had to drink two large paper cups of water with some medication dissolved in it. I was informed that it might taste metallic but I was just glad for the refreshing water; I noticed no off taste.

A very nice attendant explained everything, hooked me up for an IV and explained about lying very still on the table that slid in and out of a large circular piece of machinery, and that I would feel a warm flush for about 30 seconds. A mechanical voice told me when to take a deep breath and hold it, and when I could breathe again.

In a few minutes another attendant was taking out the IV needle and telling me I could go. If my doctor doesn’t call me with the results in a week, I’m suppose to call and remind him.

First of all, thanks for the various birthday greetings I have received since last week’s issue. There are still cards coming in the mail, so my birthday season is not over yet.

It occurs to me that I have been getting new web pages up on a number of sites, and I should give you a chance to check them out. There just might be something to appeal to you.

The newest client site up is, Spanish Evangelical Resources’ at www.recursos-evangelicos.org It has several pages although not all have a Spanish counter-part yet.

Here’s some others;
Manna for Youth

Generosity-Alive.org/Worthy/Gogo-Olive.shtml
(a new guest of the month initiative that uses a craft to make money)

MHSS.sk.ca
has new additions and updates in the book lists, obituary indexes, events page, and more pages of photos of churches in the Saskatchewan Valley area, linked from this index

WesternTractMission.org/Signs/Faithfulness Calendar

So you love clothes, eh?

I bet you’ll love Darlin’ Bonne’s Shoppe in my book, Ruthe’s Secret Roses. Ruthe helps a friend in need by sharing her dream of a dress designing shop. Oh the fun and experiences they have there!

You ought to order this novel!
e-Book edition
Softcover edition.

At about 10 or 12 in age, I fancied myself a seamstress and decided to practice with Mom’s remnants on our dolls. I held the fabric over the dolls, got ideas, snipped, and stitched by hand. Mom liked perfection, so she was not terribly impressed.

I’d get over it and in my enthusiasm try again and again, learning a bit about allowing extra fabric for going around some body parts. I got most discouraged though, when I came to Mom for help, and she’d explain with a lot of words - what I needed was a demonstration. Then she would get exasperated and retort, “Well, I can’t help you if you keep doing things upside down and backwards.”

“Mom! I can’t help it that I’m left-handed. Just show me where it’s suppose to go, and I’ll figure it out…”

Sometimes she tried, but when she saw me stitching from the left again, she’d exclaim, “Someone else will have to teach you to sew!”

That turned out to be me.

In my teens I must have been drooling over a pattern book in the store, when the clerk offered me an older, out of date copy - for free. What a treasure! I poured over it at home and soon my vivid imagination was making up stories about the sketches I studied as I sprawled across my bed. Some of the characters became so vivid and real to me that later they became the girls in the Darlin’ Bonne’s Shoppe in my novel, Ruthe’s Secret Roses.

I studied that pattern catalogue too, for styles and colours, and what looked best on blondes or brunettes, and how many seams and pieces were in each outfit. I got quite an education. I did not sew during that time, but just knew that one day I would, not only sew for myself and that well, but I would design my own clothes.

Right after high school, as soon as I had my first steady job as a telephone operator, I sent away for a correspondence course in dress design that promised to teach sewing too, taking nothing for granted. I knew I needed to learn to sew as Mom had said. But I would teach myself through the course.

One of the first purchases I made with my salary was a brand new Necchi sewing machine, and a left-handed scissors.

Working around my shifts as an operator, I took time to do the lessons carefully, and then started to haunt the remnant bin in the basement at the Bay, a large department store that I often entered at one end and wandered through to the other door, on my way to work. Those were the days when polyester was just coming into use. In brilliant colours, no less! It was 60 inches wide, and that fabric just never wore out. A one-yard remnant might cost .99 to $3 or $5, and it was enough for a dress for me!

Finally, I was done with cast-off second-hand clothing, and I was designing styles and wearing colours that I had chosen myself. Whoo-hoo!

When I had paid off my car, I packed my Necchi and most of my worldly possessions and drove to London, Ontario, where I settled down and lived for about 12 years. There I continued to sew my own wardrobe, and more; uniforms for my Pioneer Girls club girls, baby quilts and teddy bears and other stuff animals, and also dolls. Often they were gifts, but sometimes I got orders and was paid for some items too. (I have one large, heavy red photo album full of pictures of crafts and toys I have designed and sewn in that era).

I had to sell and leave behind the ailing Necchi when I moved back home to care for my parents in 1983, but I helped choose a sewing machine and a serger for Mom - who could not sit at them to sew without turning green - so they were at my disposal.

These days my life is full of things I do on the computer, and Mom’s machines sit covered on the sewing desk, so it almost seems a lifetime away, but once in a while I get a yen to sew, and it’s like an itch that MUST be scratched. I cut out a stack of nine items of clothing on my birthday recently, and I’m gradually snatching half an hour or an hour here and there, to work my way through that stack.

Sewing is a skill I will always be grateful for; it has blessed me many times already. The dreams of the dress design shop were not wasted either, but I think they have an unfinished destiny yet.

________
Read about my novel here
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My computer opened this morning to my Facebook page, which I have totally neglected and ignored since last Tuesday, and lo, and behold, there’s a bunch of birthday greetings for me! That must be what my brother Ernie referred to on Saturday night when Penny and he called to wish me a happy birthday.

How did I spend it? Well, like I keep telling everyone, my birthday is a season that lasts from when the first early birthday card arrives until the last one comes tumbling in the mail. I know there are more coming in this week, so it is not over yet.

Still, I did have several mini-celebrations already. On the third Wednesday of the month the mission staff celebrates all those who have birthdays that month. That’s once. Then on Friday at noon, the staff that were present for lunch celebrated again with a chocolate cake and pumpkin pie and a gift of a sweetheart rose plant. (Unfortunately, I forgot that it would need watering over the long weekend so it’s looking a bit droopy here today). That’s the second time.

Then I took off the afternoon to go visit my dear prayer sister, Kathy, about 40 minutes out of town. Our birthdays are just days apart, so we always try to get together to celebrate. We had a lovely couple of hours together, exchanging gifts and she made a light supper for us both. That’s the third time.

I had internet problems at home, so on Saturday I had to wait for the techie to come visit, but aside from that I had promised myself a sewing binge day. I put all my reno and gardening projects aside and treated myself to something I’d had a yen for quite a while. So I went through my stash of fabrics and cut out one outfit after another. Let’s see, a night gown, an eyelet print blouse, a two-piece blue print set, a beige pant suit set, a green silk skirt, - that’s all I can recall at the moment. However, by the time I had those cut out about 4 pm, my back did not like the idea of leaning over the sewing machine, so I’ll have to sew them up as I can snatch a half hour here or there. I did have the satisfaction of finally getting started though! By the way, I often design as I cut out.

You notice that it doesn’t take a big party or lots of food to make me feel like I’ve celebrated, right? Small pleasures will do it for me.

It was a good thing that last week I had cleared my evenings through Wednesday, so I could attend the missions conference in the town of Waldheim (also about 40 minutes drive north). That meant I wasn’t working at home in the evenings, but I was still struggling to solve my problem of no ethernet connection at home. I called my ISP twice and the fellows assured me that the modem was fine. It had to be a problem in my software.

I applied all my resourcefulness at problem-solving, including bringing home a different computer from the office, installing a newer operating system, and though the computers would work at the office, they balked when they were hooked up at home.

On Thursday after 5, I went shopping for birthday gifts for Kathy, and also stopped at a store that carries internet modems. I explained my problem there, and they said simply, “bring in your old one and take home a newer one. In fact, you can upgrade to the 2wire modem for no extra charge.”

Ah-ha! That’s the kind I have at the office. So I gladly brought the old Westell in on Friday before I headed out to visit Kathy, and picked up the new kit. But then I spent all of Friday evening struggling to get it set up right. If it looked like it was about to work, then my phone went dead.

Finally I figured out how to use the cell phone that had been loaned to me and dialed up Sasktel again. The man promised to send a techie out on Saturday. You know what? It took that man less than 15 minutes to discover that I had a short in the phone jack on the wall under my desk. No wonder I hadn’t been able to get online! He fixed that, and now I have a fine high speed connection at home, and can even plug in up to four computers at once, if I wish!

Problem-solving takes perseverance, doesn’t it?

You will love Ruthe’s Secret Roses if you like;
* walking and talking intimately with God
* stories of compassion and dramatic conversion
* have a bleeding, caring heart of your own
* are a caregiving older sister
* love designing clothes and make-overs
* love giving gifts and surprises
* are a mentor or counseling kind of friend.

e-Book edition Softcover edition.

It’s time for the next monthly garden photo story! Whew! This is more work than I had bargained for. But I’ve got another page of photos uploaded and ready for you to tour my garden in early August. Go to this page;
August Garden Photo Tour

I hope you enjoy my lovely pink morning glories as much as I do.

For the longest time I have resisted getting on Facebook. I have (no, I still belong, I guess) to another networking community, and it just got so time-consuming to keep up with seeing what snippets people had written, that I decided that to get on with my working career I would have to ignore them. I have not deleted my account there, but I only check the email related to that community once in a long while.


Last week I was frustrated when our SiteSell guru announced some videos by contest winners on Facebook. Naturally, I couldn’t go see them without an account there. So I sighed deeply, created a new email just for this, and made sure that the flood of emails that would come in would not show up in my KMail where I normally deal with incoming emails from about 24 addresses. I have trouble keeping up with those, and my good friends are kind enough to be understanding that sometimes it takes me a week or more to get to them, because I’m so busy just dealing with business and client emails first.


At least I should be able to follow a link when it seems there is something important to see on Facebook.

Well, then the very next day I was calling my cousin Phil and his wife Barbara because his mother had died, and they urged me to see their family photos on Facebook. Wow! had their kids ever grown up. Even their grandkids were not babies any more!

Before I knew it I spied small photos of some other relatives’ names that I recognized, so I decided to “add” them to my friends list, or invite them to be on my list. Especially Saturday night when I was wrestling with a computer problem at home, I got distracted as I tried to hunt for a contact who might have some answers to help me. Just as I’d feared, one thing leads to another on Facebook.

Now I invest a lot of time in this RoseBouquet. I can’t keep up with my 8 websites, and all my client and mission work if I start corresponding with everyone I know on an individual basis. So I resolved some years ago, that I would schedule in Tuesday mornings to write a four-part blog and publish it not only as a blog, but an ezine, that can be subscribed to for free, and also as an RSS feed. The latter is touted as a great way to promote one’s website and blog.

This morning I checked to see how many “friends” I have on Facebook. What 13 already? Hmm… It’s nice to see what some relatives are up to that I haven’t heard from in ages, but is this thing going to run away with me and re-organize my life? I confess, I’m a bit nervous about this.