“The RoseBouquet”

HOT Tip: There’s Plain Tutorials in PEOPLE-SPEAK! available.

(a page from a devotional book in progress)

Ecclesiastes 2:26 To the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

Wow! I’ve marked this before, but haven’t thought of it lately.

Is this true now though in my life? I do hope I please God, and I like to think He is granting me wisdom, knowledge and much happiness! The monies I’ve received in the last year or so are not really from sinners, but from Christians who wanted to help.

But still, if God wants to turn sinners’ money over to me too, … I’m open to any of His gifts, aren’t you? Can you picture this; you live a life that pleases God, so He gives you wisdom, knowledge and happiness, and He has sinners raise funds or wealth, which they turn over to you?

Once a former neighbour who remembered me from my childhood met me in a public place, and seemed to know all about me. He was watching my life. He insisted he wanted nothing to do with church, but he held out $20 to me and said he wanted me to have it as long as I would spend it on myself and not give it to my church.

About three months ago I heard a young woman raising support for full-time missionary work share how a couple, not believers, had come to her and said, “We’ve been watching your life and we want to help you out. Here’s money to help you buy a house for you and your daughters.” It was a check for $250,000, and she was able to find a house for that price!

PRAYER: How shall I understand this, Lord? The first part I grasp, for You do give wisdom, knowledge and happiness when our lives are obedient and pleasing to You. Do You really give the sinners the task of gathering wealth for those that please You? If so, that is tremendous! Thank You for being so creative in supplying our every need, and the resources to do Your work in Your name. Amen.

Last week the snows of winter disappeared at a good pace. There are still dirty clumps and patches of snow and ice here and there, but we have lost most of it in Saskatoon. That’s good! I’m eager for spring.

Snowflake showed some interest in going outside too, but of course, I don’t want to lose her, so I made her wait until the end of last week when I finished a little halter for her out of some pretty mauve polyester scraps that impossible to tear with your bear hands. I finally found a buckle in a button box that I could sew in at the top to hook in the leash. That was Thursday night.

Snowflake allowed me to put it on as she reclined on my lap. She had no problem with wearing it for a while. I wanted her to get used it as I’d read on the internet.

Friday afternoon when I got back from an a morning at the office, I put on the harness again, and tried to go out the back door into the porch. Whoa! My cat had a panic attack and scrambled out of my arms to race to the other end of the house. She seems to have forgotten that she used to live in a barn on a farm and come and go as she pleased outside.

Saturday I tried several more times, but all she would do is sniff and prowl into back porch with the stomach walls trembling. It was like she was dying to explore, but fears slowed her down. When I tried to open the outer door for her, she fled inside again.

Sunday and yesterday were much colder, and blustery with winds and a light snowfall, so I haven’t pushed it.

In my heart I know that once she gets used to being outside, she’ll be constantly begging to go out. My problem will be to bring her in!

Fortunately, Brandi, the little 7 or 8 year old girl next door has met Snowflake now, and I think will be happy to play with Snowflake for hours on end this summer. Things should work out just fine!

My first student of the week-long course had his 5th lesson yesterday (the earlier week he had to be away on the Friday). This one was about how to set up a website. Although I warned that it usually takes weeks or months to get a site up and running well, I told him I could take him through a fast do-it-yourself process so that by the end of our 3 hour session he would have a one page website up. Even if it was nothing but one large ad for his business. Well, we did it! I’ll probably be mentoring him for a while as he learns how to add more to it and build it into a true site, but we covered three basic steps;

1. We went to GoDaddy, and he registered a domain name to go with his business name, Moen-Advertising-Specialties.com
2. I set up a hosting account for him on my reseller package. It was live in a matter of moments.
3. We spent most of our time, on learning the most basic HTML tags as I built him a web page based on the info he had brought to go on it.
Then I uploaded it for him, and showed him some of the things he has and can now do in his cPanel where he can manage his site.

I would still prefer a few months to get a site up and running, but by trimming out a lot of extras, and with me working programs I’m used to, I found it is possible to do it in three hours flat. He came away a very happy man, and bragged to some friends when leaving the building, “I’ve got a website!” Of course, now he’ll have to order another batch of business cards.

An epiphany came to me last week when I realized that I was going about the marketing of my courses all wrong. Marnie Perhson of IdeaMarketers.com pointed out the value of press releases and articles to promote a business. Duh! I knew that! But in setting aside work on my own sites to get this new business off the ground I’d forgotten to go that route for free marketing. Now my goal for the rest of this week is to get up some decent webpages, maybe even a new site, just to promote what my training courses offer. Then I must get some press releases and articles out.

I am ready to set my business as unique in many respects. It shall honour the Lord.

If I don’t have any students next week I will spend the week cramming some time on my SBI site. Usually I only dare designate Saturday evenings for it, but by then I am so sleepy I can’t get much accomplished. Since that site is suppose to be a good steady stream I need to move it forward.

March 21 is spring in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s a time of growth and renewal. (If you’re on the other side of the Equator, just pretend it’s September. )

Most people who build a site for you (at least in my area) charge $85/hr and up to $999 to $5000 for a site. If you don’t want to learn HTML coding to do it yourself, (and even if you already know), with an SBI site you get so many quality features like high quality help with keywords and brainstorming, and automated submission to the search engines, etc., that if you can bring your brains and some motivation, you can have a site that is the creme de la creme of all sites world-wide and be assured of success. Your site becomes a web business!

Know anyone who’s looking to get a new business in bloom? Friends and family? Well, good news… Take advantage of this $100 Spring Special. The regular price is $299/year; for $100 more, you can get a second site right now. Make a deal with a friend or family member to split the cost evenly. Then your start up cost will be only $199 + taxes.

For details, please see any one of the following…

SiteSell
Buildit.Sitesell
WAHM.Sitesell
Networking.SiteSell

The resurrection of Jesus Christ on that first Easter morning was such a WOW! event that people sometimes have a hard time comprehending what it means. However, there are illustrations in nature and history - that act as simple symbols to help us get it.

Let’s do this as a series of quiz questions, or riddles to see if you can spot these allegories of Christ rising to new eternal life after three days in the grave.

Some of these should not be analyzed too deeply, for there is only a surface comparison. The point is that this concept was not a new idea to God. It was pre-meditated!

1. What ovid object is perfectly sealed, without doorway or seams, until the right day, when a new life bursts forth, perhaps like Jesus burst out of the sealed tomb?

2. What shining orb disappears into darkness for a time, then breaks out again with great joy and gladness at its appointed times to give life and energy and food to all who receive it? (Hint: in the Psalms it’s compared to a bridegroom coming out of his tent to get married, but don’t let that lead you astray).

3. There is a colony of small creatures, whose leader is larger and more gifted than the rest. This head gets richer foods than the others, but it procreates new colony members too. There is a point where this leader lays down its life for the whole colony. What is it?

4. Jewish people have an annual holiday supper, where right on the table some bread is hidden in a fabric pocket. Toward the end of the meal this bread is ‘found’ and broken and distributed to all. What is that meal called?

5. Jesus Himself told His followers that a certain man from their history, who spent three days in the belly of a huge fish, was a foreshadowing of what would come to pass for Him. After his sub-marine ride, this man thundered, “Repent!” in the streets of a pagan city. 100% repented. Who was he?

6. Followers of Jesus, who want to be identified with Him publicly, announce this by a special rite they go through. Jesus did it Himself. It represents their spiritual death and new life in Christ, which can happen privately; this rite is merely the public illustration and only takes seconds to complete. What is it?

[Answers are way-wa-y down at the bottom of this page: Rssurrection-quiz]

A plumber has just come to check out the work that is required here as part of the RRAP plan. It only took him about 20 minutes, and he’s gone again. He says it will be expensive to replace my furnace, and the water heater - ho-boy, he said that could go at any time! That should be done as soon as I have the go ahead from the inspector.

I’m thankful he was willing to come look it over, and will send me a quote shortly.

So far I’ve contacted about 17 contractors and plumbers and electricians. I’ve had one general contractor come week before last to measure, etc. for a quote, and now this one plumber. Some give me a reluctant agreement to come, and then like one who called yesterday, they beg off. There is just so much work on NEW housing in our current building boom, that they can turn down work that isn’t appealing. And some people are already booked up for this whole year!

However, God answered prayers in bringing the inspector in the first place, and so I am determined to pray until I get all the quotes or estimates necessary to turn into the inspector, and eventually that the work will be done too. Just watch!

As with any other business, you can spend a lot of time planning and preparing and setting up the office, but eventually you need to do some publicity and advertising to get your clients or students to come in. That’s where I am right now.

Last week with my one student went quite well. He was fortunate in that I could focus on his specific questions and trouble-shooting problems. I owe him one more session because he was committed to leaving Friday for a conference in Alberta. Maybe we’ll fit that in this week yet.

Next week may not be the best for a full five-day course because that week ends in Good Friday, a holiday. However, I’m doing my best to catch up on emails and unfinished projects and to do some serious advertising. Except that on my current budget, this has to be mostly free stuff, like taking flyers door to door, and putting up posters in public places.

I’m also praying for students as that seems to help most when I have any financial needs. I’m confident that the same God who can prompt gifts when in need, can also prompt people to sign up for my computer basics courses.

Meantime, I’m hoping more of those contractors I’ve called will show up to do their measuring and preparations for quotations. What better time than this week and next?

There’s these translation jobs to do too. They are time-consuming puzzles, as often the photocopies or scans are not very clear. At my rates it is hardly worth the effort.

I’ve been seriously thinking of adding some lines to my web pages on that, to say that I’m giving that up. — So-o, just now I went online to do a quick search and see if I’m still one of only three offering this. Hey! I’m listed at the top, but there are about six other sites with people offering to translate this obsolete handwritten script! So I’ve paused here in mid-paragraph to change that page on my genealogy site, and listed the six other places potential clients can check. Whew! That’s good.

Last week my student was asking about how to order ink cartridges online. I showed him how to find sites that sell such things, and then how much cheaper they are when you have a PowerMall and can shop at one of the ink stores there. We did some major comparison shopping and in the end, he signed up and was able to order a package of four at InkGrabber for $200 less (about 50%) than if he bought them here locally for his business printers. On top of that, there is the 17.5% rebate coming yet.

He sent out 30 emails to friends and already had a great-niece signed up under him.

Stories like this are multiplying every day. You will be doing yourself a huge favour if you check it out, and “accept” your free mall too; MyPowerMall

P.S. I think I’ve won some free airline tickets for recruiting him…!

When you visit or drop in on a friend, what do you think about their housekeeping? Do you notice the differences? I do.

Rarely do we have friends whose style of home-making is the same as our own. Because of the friendship though, we overlook these things.

When I was a teen my Mom insisted that I do the weekly cleaning on Saturday. That habit is still with me. Unless something special comes up, I tend to leave my housecleaning chores until Saturday. The rest of the week I just live there. I can’t say I love cleaning, but I’ve learned to discipline myself, set some sequence of steps, and when I think I have more time I get distracted by settling down to thoroughly organize one desk or cupboard, or whatever. I guess I prefer the sorting and organizing stage best once I get into it.

My home always seems cozier and more inviting at the end of a Saturday cleaning binge. I wish friends would drop in about then!

The homes of some friends look like works of art. Everything neatly in place, and placed just so-o, with no more than one or two attractive objects on any furniture surface. No sign of a project in process or any mess whatsoever. I enjoy looking at such a place, but feel a bit out of place. This makes me a very careful, polite guest.

Then there are other homes which go the other extreme. Risky piles of stuff stacked up everywhere and every which way I look. Naturally, I try not to embarrass my friend by commenting on all this, although I’m sure I have trouble hiding my thoughts.

I don’t know about you, but the craziest yen rises in me to come in there and do a major clean up. The other morning I caught myself visualizing how to do this while I was in the bathtub.

Let’s see… we should dedicate a week to it, and the friend and I ought to work at it together. I would bring a stack of boxes… no, better still those plastic bins - colour-coded even! I’d also snap out some packages of coloured garbage bags.

I’d say, “Here. We’re going to look at every item and you decide; is it garbage? Then it goes into these black bags. Is it something you’d like to sell at a garage sale or give away? Then into these clear bags. Is it something to keep for an heirloom or treasure? Then it goes into one of these bins, and you label it. Only what you actually use on a regular basis gets a place in a bin in the closet, or a home-spot in your house where you can see and find it easily.”

We’d also have cleaning rags and buckets and cleaning products and as we’d get to the surface underneath we’d wash the surfaces, and also vacuum or wash floors.

Oh yes, and we’d start at the far back room, maybe the bathroom, and work our way around, room by room, until we end up at the front door. Once we’ve cleaned a room we don’t stash any of the filled bags or bins there. They have to keep moving behind us towards the door.

Having been through this kind of cleaning last year in Dad’s house, I know that you have to allow extra time. Like a whole half day to a room, or maybe two days on a large one.

There’s just one problem with such a daydream. Such friends have daily living habits that will put their home in exactly the same state in a short time. Who am I kidding?

Do I really want to invest that kind of time in someone else’s home?

I thought I had my fill of it last year, but… what should I charge if I were to land a job doing this for an estate where someone has died, and there is no family to do the clean up? (The woman at Dad’s trust company said I had saved his estate a lot of money by doing it so she wouldn’t have to - hmm - how much?)

[Okay, Ruth. Come back to reality. You’ve still got a lot of work like that to do down in your basement. It must be time to start if you’re in a mood like this!]

Yessir! As soon as I get caught up on some small jobs for others, I will tackle that basement! Every Saturday this spring and summer until it looks wonderful!