eAction

With sincere apologies to those who really like this blog/ezine and will miss, I am announcing that the many duties related to starting a new business - mostly off-line this time and in a real office - make it hard for me to squeeze in time to write this right now. I still have high hopes that once I’m training interns I will be able to delegate some work, and have time for writing this blog and ezine again. But to even the work load for now, I need to set some things aside.

Hopefully soon - maybe in about 2-3 months?

Meantime, I wish you all a very happy Easter next weekend.

Blessings & Thanks,
Ruth Marlene Friesen

P.S. MyPowerMall is really doing well for me, even when I’m not working hard at promoting it. If you invest some time you could do even better! If you’ve been meaning to have a good look at it, do so soon! MyPowerMall!

Again, my sincere apologies! This month has been unusually busy, and I’ve coped fairly well, because just as one stage of starting my new business for January was done, the resources were there for the next one. I took on an extra job which has been eating time up by the clock full as I try to prove I can do this. Between whiles I’m sneaking in some time on my Christmas mailing too.

This morning I got up before 4 am, to go with my neighbours to the airport, and then to bring back their Durango. However, it was too cold so the airline would not allow them to take along the dog they want to give to their grandson. We returned and went back to bed for a few hours.

All the while I was beginning to feel feverish and with swollen tonsils…. I’ve taken alternative health measures, and allowed myself to work at a slower pace at home. But after 11 am. we made another run to the airport. This time the temperatures had come up enough so they could take Noka along. In all of this I plumb forgot about this eAction blog/ezine!

Now the day is almost done, but I’ve managed to get more legal documents sorted out for my business. Last week I managed to get the painting done, some wall-papering and steam-cleaning over there in my office suite, but if you’ve been watching for an email from me…. I’m truly sorry, I’ve really neglected those because I’m hoping I can catch up with them over the holidays.

For those of you who like my long chatty Christmas letters, you’re welcome to this year’s. I managed to get it online on Tuesday morning. Go to read and/or download it from this page; Eventful Year 2007. It is a review and photo story of my very Eventful Year, and a tour of my little house.

I do wish you my heartiest Christmas Blessings, and the hope that 2008 may turn out to be for you and your business, just GREAT!

I’m going to stop making promises about next issues. Just know that my blogs are important to me, and when at all possible you’ll discover I’ve written something on schedule.

When things settle down to a dull roar in the new year, I’ll fill you in on my adventures in starting up a small business in a rented office suite.

God is so Good! Sometimes that’s evident in all the work He gives us!

that there won’t be an issue of the eAction this week. I’m very busy cleaning and preparing an office suite for a new business to start in January. I simply can’t be in two places at the same time. Hopefully I can give you a full update on the 20th of this month.

Take these extra minutes you’re gaining by not reading a full issue to catch up on your own work load.

Once more, because my business hours are sacrificed for cleaning up Dad’s estate, I can only give updates on my personal situation;

1. A co-signer has come forward, allowing me to research first-time mortgages this week. The papers to be signed today or tomorrow.

2. Dad’s estate auction is scheduled for July 6.

3. I now expect to have possession of my little mint green house in time to clean up, fix, and move in well before the auction date.

4. I’m getting small batches of my first missionary letter out to friends and relatives.

Would you be interested in my annual Christmas letter and short story gift?

If so, here’s the links you’ll need to get to it;

If you can handle zip files, click on this link to download the pdf file of it all; Christmas Car Zipped

If you’d rather open it in your browser (Acrobat Reader will pop into it and open the file for you), then try this link;
Christmas Car PDF

A couple of friends have indicated they could not open it either way, so today I’ve prepared an html (web pages) version. So if you’re stuck, then start here on this mini-index; Christmas 2005

The last couple of weeks I’ve been mulling over where to make time to write up my Linux Learning Curve experiences so that others may learn from them.

It has come to me that the encouragement and business tips I offer here are not so stellar, even though I’m convinced that our spiritual attitudes and ethics are of primary importance in our business lives, that I would have to write them every week. I could revert back to bi-weekly, and use the alternating Thursday morning time slot to work on those Linux Learning Curve stories or testimonials.

I know how much it has helped me when I’ve found someone else’s account on the net, and I feel I ought to share my discoveries in a narrative form to help others. If I leave it too long, I’ll forget what happened. Though I do make some notes.

I don’t know of anyone else on this list who is trying to work in a LInux operating system, and I don’t want to overwhelm you with my sagas if they are no help - so, I will just post those writings, starting next week, as a separate blog category on the eAction blog, but not trouble you with the ezine edition.

The alternating week, I will be back to write encouragements, and report what I’m learning about running an online business, and offer helpful tips and suggestions.

If you are eager to see my Linux Learning Curve stories, just scoot over to the blog address, and read them there. eAction

The other day a dear older friend, whose wisdom I have long respected, called
me. We talked of the opportunity I had last week to submit a quote on a job for
a rare skill I have. Such opportunities don’t happen often. At one point she
said though, “Now just don’t get too friendly and chummy with your client.”
She knows I tend to do that with everyone, so I agreed with a blush.

Yesterday morning I woke up thinking about this. Is “not getting too friendly
with business associates” godly advice, or is that a secular principle? How does
God really want us to behave towards our business clients, customers or
contacts?

My next thought was, the book of Proverbs in the Bible is God’s handbook on
practical daily living in all aspects of our lives; I should search in there.
Trick is, what keywords to use?

I was sure my wise friend had not meant to avoid being nice or polite to my
business contacts. More like, be discrete in what you tell them about yourself.
If the business contract falls apart, the other party can use what they know
about you to hurt you.

After skimming around for a while, I decided that “discernment” and
“discretion” were fairly good words to sum up what my advisor had meant. Then,
with a concordance, which is like a huge index to words in the Bible, II found
plenty of verses that referred to this kind of understanding what to say and
what to leave unsaid.

There are some that call it an ornament and a necklace that you wear all the
time. It makes you attractive and winsome. Discernment is something to be
sought after and prized like a rare jewel. Give up other things to get this!

A woman without discretion is considered to be as incongruous as a gold ring in
a pig’s snout. Oh-oh~

Discernment - and discretion - are spiritual gifts that I have desired and
prayed for over many years. Sometimes I catch myself using them, and sometimes
I miss the mark. So I’m renewing my resolve to earn and practice them. I’ll use
them both in my business relationships, and in my friendships.

I don’t own these gifts, so you are welcome to apply to the Lord to receive
them for yourself too! He’ll be pleased to give them to you.

Just remember, like muscles, they grow flabby and disappear if you don’t USE
them.

I trust you are enjoying the blessings of summer. May you get just the right amount of rain, and the right amount of sunshine, and the grace to appreciate both.

I’ll keep this part short, because the feature has grown longer today.

Just a personal note, Dad and I are driving to Winnipeg this weekend.

Despite Dad’s age (89), weight (200 lbs), diabetes, and arthritic knees, and that a lot of news and complicated concepts go over his head, he can still do many things. It makes him feel important that my brother has asked Dad to come and build them a swing like he used to build a lot a few decades back. I’m sure he can do it too!

Well, I’m more or less back on track. So I can make my announcement that was preempted last time.

Since this is a rather small mailing list (i.e. fairly short list of subscribers), and because only one or two ever send any feedback, I’ve decided to ease my work load in this effort.

Instead of working a morning or two, plus a Thursday evening every two weeks on this ezine, I’m turning it into a blog. In fact, it has already been a blog on my site since February, but now I am just going to spend one hour on Thursday mornings writing whatever helpful, encouraging ideas and advice I can, and let the WordPress software I’ve installed on my site do all the archiving, etc.

This will mean a weekly effort for eAction (the longer name, Encouragement & Action, doesn’t fit onto the header there, so I’ve shortened it), but it will free up another evening for correspondence with those whom I am mentoring.

I’ve been feeling badly about sometimes neglecting their emails for several days, and trying to squeeze them in here and there. They deserve more of my attention, and I ought to make more effort to reach out to those who seem to drop away.

Now my # 1 Fan has problems getting online long enough to read any links I send her, so for a while I will also send this blog material out in this ezine format. But when I see subscribers unsubbing, I’ll let it go and just send this friend a separate email.

It only takes a few minutes to paste it in and send off an ezine, so I won’t shut down the subscribing forms until I see whether anyone bothers to subscribe or is willing to come check out the blog, or - better still, bookmark it into their RSS Feedreader. Then it shows up in that window whenever you click on the title. The latest entries are always just a click away!

I know, not everyone knows about Feed readers yet. They will. This has potential to be as big or bigger than email.

Tuesday morning, I opened KWord and pulled up some files on a floppy disk from my old 286 computer downstairs (where I do my devotions). The first one I had converted to RTF and it opened okay, but when I opened the second one, KWord “hung up” or greyed out, and I couldn’t close it or do anything with it. In Windows-lingo, it crashed.

I spent from about 9:30 to 11:30 searching online for how to deal with this. I knew that in a Linux operating system one should NOT shut down and reboot to solve a crash. That’s a Windows’ cure. But I got impatient and decided to shut down and reboot.

Only now I couldn’t get into Mandrake. All seized up! I re-installed my Mandrake suite, but on the empty half of the 40GB drive. When I came back in, I found my cursor missing. I struggled to fix it, but couldn’t get into that area of Mandrake Control, as I couldn’t see where the mouse was clicking.

In the afternoon (sigh!) I re-installed Mandrake again. Still the same problem. I explored the SuSE LIVE! CD (it stays on the CD, not the hard drive), and via SuSE was able to see that my partitions were still all there, so I went to look for answers on the net, with my older computer, using dial-up. I couldn’t find anything really helpful, so in the evening I came back and installed Mandrake again for the 3rd time.

While in the custom partitioning stage I decided to risk a Rescue partition click. My sister-in-law Penny called, and I was talking to her when it stopped and I saw my hard drive wiped clean!

As I moaned and grieved she comforted me by saying it was all just “stuff.” People matter more than our stuff.

I know all that!

What she didn’t know was how many web sites I’ve been working on, how many writing projects, graphics… and not all for just me - clients too.

I still have stuff on the 10 GB drive with Windows, but it’s been locked off to me since Easter. What I’ve lost now, is all the stuff I’d gathered and set up since Easter. I had not been able to figure out how to do backups to CDs, but had been saving everything to a separate partition on this drive. If I had NOT tried that “Rescue Partition” button I would still have it. (SIGH!)

I finished that third install. (I am getting VERY familiar with that routine), and late that night I hunted up manuals and instructions on backups. I was resolved not to do anything else until I had learned how to do backups on CDs. Close to midnight I went to bed, feeling odd. Like I ought to be physically sick. My heart was certainly in mourning.

All day yesterday and most of today I have sought out and managed to learn a steep mountain of information. I can now do backups on a program sitting right here in this suite of over 900 programs. It’s called X-CD-Roast. I also learned a number of commands to use in the Konsole like a real Geek.

I still need to learn more about changing file permissions, but I think it is safe now to try to re-build my “stuff” on this computer. Remembering my move to this computer in November, and my transition into Mandrake only after Easter I realize that it will take a few weeks. All my big blogging plans are on hold.

I’ll be able to download my sites and the ones I look after, so I’ll have copies of them again, but the work I had not uploaded yet… well, I’ll have to do it over.

Same with the kids’ book I’d started on the weekend, and the article I wrote Saturday night for the local weekly paper’s centennial project. A big batch of graphics I had cropped and re-sized, I’ll need to do over. About 80+ tracts that I had scanned for a shopping cart - need to be done over. Never mind all my email addresses.

(Sigh!) Yes, I have been in tears over this. Nevertheless, this morning I saw and claimed a Bible verse and it cheering me up more and more as I re-read it throughout the day today. Let me share it with you in case you need this lovely comfort too.

“The LORD your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.” (Zephaniah 3:17 NIV).

Can you put aside your pain too, and focus on God delighting and singing over you?

Blessings & Thanks for Reading,
Ruth