A Prairie View

A Great Flowershop

There is nothing more special than to hear the words “Its a Boy!” or “Its a Girl”. A new life has begun. A new special one in your family, or your life in general, if a friend has given birth. Join in the celebration by sending flowers to the new mom. She’s just been through an ordeal, no matter how wonderful that new child is finally arriving — there is no two ways about it. Childbirth is hard. work. Let her know she is loved and appreciated, for bringing this new little one in your life. Send new baby flowers. Flowershop.com has an amazing collection of flowers — for the new baby, get well, birthday, I Love You, or any other special event that might be going on. What I found amazing about what they had to offer was that, take for instance the “New Born, Baby” flower collection. They have more than the typical “daisies and pastel color” arrangements. My eye automatically zeroed in on an arrangement that had sunflowers. Who would have ever thought of using sunflowers for a baby arrangement? and yet, it is very tastefully done, and anyone recieving it would absolutely love it!

Ordering flowers online is the way to go these days, and Flowershop.com has a great selection!

Spring Into Summer

I love Christian Women Online, and was one of the first members to sign up. I have watched them grown by leaps and bounds … their blogroll now numbers over 1,200 , and gone through many changes. They are always adding something new, to involve us members, to fellowship with each other, online, to be a part of this great group of ladies. With the April edition of their ezine, comes a new challenge.

Here is what they have to say ….

During the spring and into the summer months, CWO is bringing a few blog challenges your way. A blog challenge is a fun way of building community, finding a new writing topic, and possibly winning a prize doing what bloggers love to do most–blog!

Here’s how it works…

Our sponsor will post a topic, a deadline for each challenge, and a prize to be awarded to one winner. They will also include their “sponsored by” sentence that must accompany the bloggers post with links intact, as our way of showing appreciation to our sponsor :)

Bloggers who wish to participate will enter their URL into the Mr. Linky provided at the bottom of each challenge. At the end of the challenge deadline, the sponsor will choose one winner. We’ll announce that winner here at the blog challenge page shortly after the deadline. You may enter as many challenges as you like.

This blog challenge is open to members of the Christian Women Online blogroll only, so if you haven’t joined yet, now’s the time!

Participants must include CWO’s blog challenge code at the top of their post, and have the sponsors sentence (inclusive with link) within the post as well.

I will have to give this some thought, but I would really like to participate, and am anxious to see how the others respond to the challenges as well. Way to Go, CWO. This is an awesome challenge!

In The Silence

In the silence you find:
I know this isn’t the “right” answer, but in the silence, I hear my heart beating. Pounding in my ears, and more often than not, out of rhythm. I think that is why I always like to have some kind of noise — even simple background noise. So, I don’t hear that thump, thump — pause — pause — thumpty, thympty, …. thump. I don’t like to be reminded that things aren’t “quite right”. And that maybe there are decisions that I should be making, but chose to stick my head in the sand and just not deal with them.

So, in the silence, I find my mortality. And it scares me.

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Scrapjazz.com

Redefining Things

I had an inspiration yesterday and started another blog. A bit different from the others, but it will be an invaluable resource to myself, as well as other mouse-drawn graphic lovers. The blog, I called, “Just 4 Fun“. And I’m going to review and spotlight all the graphic artists I love and use. I can house my sigtags there. I can blog about other fun stuff. I’m not sure I will ever make it a “paid blog”, but that avenue is always open.

Doing this, made me think that I need to redefine some things here. Or maybe just “define” them, and then follow through. With all the different blogs, I need to have a set perimeter of what their purpose is, paid or not paid, and use them for only that. For instance … “The Quest” is about my weight loss. But, there are lots of things that could go along with that, and it would be easy to eventually get it in the “paid blog” loop.

For the most part, I do think I have each one pretty well defined. Ultimately, what needs to happen, that thing that makes me feel the most unorganized is that I’m using 3 of them to reflect on my daily events. And I would really like to narrow that down to just the one — which would also be “ad free”. But so far, I still seem to use this one here to chat about my day, and forget to go over to Quiet Time Companion to blog there. That is something I need to work on.

Something else on the burner that is bothering me. My Xanga blog … from several years ago, just sitting there. Has a wealth of information about me, about my life. It was wrote prior to my mom dying, when my mom died, and during health problems that followed that. But the surprising thing about it is that it is a PR2. Thats important in the world of paid blogging. So, here I sit, with a PR2 blog, and not sure where to go with it, or what to do with it. Maybe I’ll ask my friends over at Geeky Speaky, and see what they say. Or maybe ask Becky. She’s my computer guru, who has helped me along the way for many many years.

On thing I do need to do, is get that Xanga blog backed up and saved on a disk. Those are entries I do not every want to lose!

Are You a Maverick?

Whether you are a mom-and-pop-store on the corner and you have been there forever, or if you are a new business just starting, today’s business world is not like it was in our parent’s lifetime. Competition has always been the name of the game, but you usually only had to worry about the guy down the street, or across town. But in today’s fast paced world, you are competing with the guys down the street, AND the guy down the street who has internet access. Online business is just as prevalent in the business world as physical stores are. So, how can you get the edge on the guy down the street who has an internet market? Small Business Mavericks is one source that you could check into. They are offering a free ebook for local small business internet marketing secrets to grow your business. In short, they are wanting to show you how to increase your sales by marketing locally on the web.

They have a powerful affiliate program. You can profit from their best selling products. Earn a 35% commission on every product you sell. Tell your friends, sign them up, and earn a 15% commission on sales made by people you refered to them who became affiliates too. They provide free promotional materials that you can use to promote their products Get pre-written text ads, e-mails, banner ads and attention-getting graphics that you can use right away to grab new customers and earn commissions!

Ratings

Hearing him practice, Ethan got a “I” in my book; but at the vocal contest, he received a “II” rating. The mixed ensemble he was in though, received a “I”, so they will be going to state next month. He sings Special Music tomorrow. Considering that we didnt’ have a clue to what he would be singing this time last week, he has done an excellent job practicing and getting this new-to-us song down pretty good. He should do well tomorrow.

Water 2 Go

As with any diet, drinking lots of water is mandatory. Drinking lots of water should be a part of everyone’s life — it flushes out all the body’s toxins, and just makes your bodys system run a whole lot smoother when water is part of the daily life. But what do you do when the water out of your tap tastes like …. well…. let’s just say it doesn’t taste very good. You can buy bottled water, but that gets expensive.

Pure Water 2 Go offers you a good alternative. Portable Water Filters. Their portable water filter bottle allows anyone to filter their own water. It has a top of the line quality water filtration in place and it is a portable unit. When you are travel or on vacation and are in locations you are not familiar with, filtering your water is probably a good idea. And the fact they Pure Water 2 Go makes it portable makes it easy, and you can rest assured knowing the water you are drinking is safe.

Friday Feast

Appetizer
What are you proud of?
That I have lost 75 lbs; and that even though I seem to have hit an impasse, I refuse to give up, and so have incorporate Phase II to step the plan up a notch

Soup
What is the best thing you’ve ever won as a prize?
A 19 inch color TV. Our favorite Mexican food place has a customer appreciate week once a year; and during that week, everytime you eat there, they give you a ticket (as well as a small prize that you can take right then…like a pen or hat or whistle that has their name on it). The first year they did it, both David and I won. David won a 5 lb bar of chocolate, and I won the TV. Whoo hoo!

Salad
Name something you do that is a waste of time.
Surfing the internet. I just need to get down to business, read my daily favorite, do my entries, and get off the computer. But. I tend to surf alot, and that alot of times, is a waste of time.

Main Course
In what year of your life did you change the most?
Probably my 16th year. I went from being a highschool student, to being a married woman and mother. Living in a different town, different state. I had to change to adapt to the changes going on in my life.

Dessert
Where is a place you consider to be very tranquil?
The sanctuary of our church. Also, the park, or down on the riverbed, like when we go camping.

Online Invoicing

In the afternoons, I work at my husband’s office — he is the dispatcher for a trucking company. There are 11 drivers who haul grain — and it is necessary to bill anywhere from 10 to 25 even 30 companies each week. Out of those 30 companies, there are only 2 that we can bill on line. I would love to suggest to the rest of the companies that we deal with a program like SimplifyThis.

SimplifyThis.com is a web-based application that allows you to invoice online. Invoicing online speeds up the process which means you get paid faster. An Online invoicing and payment system would speed up things on my part like you wouldn’t believe. I know those 2 companies that we do bill online, I truly do wish we had more like them. Its not just the billing part; but also, with the others, I have to make copies of all the freight tickets for our records, and send the originals back to who we are billing. With those 2 that we bill online, I don’t have to do that. We keep the orginials. We are a small business and this is something that we could so benefit from. There is no software to install, and no help manuals to read. Its a web based application, so it can be used from home, from the office, on your laptap in the park! Anywhere you have computer/internet service, you have access to your billing program.

They also have one-click reminders …. there are a few of those companies I would really like to be able to do that with. Most pay in a timely manner, but there are always those chosen few, that always seem to drag their feet, and you always have to call them, and then you get your money. I would love to move this small company that I work for into the 21 century by recommending SimplifyThis.com to them.

Plan Change

Whoo hooo! its Friday. And I think I’ve figured out my weekend. Tonight we are eating supper with family; and then off to the church for a Fellowship evening. I thought I would work tomorrow morning, and I still might. But, what I happened to think of, and told Gordon — was that I probably wouldn’t be in Monday (morning). Several times month, I dont work out at the trucking company because I need to work past my 4 hours at the church to get the newsletter out. I really did try to make that not happen this time around — I gave it to Gordon to proofread on Wednesday, thinking I would get it back Thursday. But it was today, and it needed to go out today. So, I worked on it until it was ready for mailing; and I didn’t go out to the trucking company.

Come Monday morning, I’m going to just work at the trucking company in the morning, until I need to leave for my doctor’s appt at 2:45. That will put me ahead of the game with the billing, and not require that I work tomorrow to make it happen. Works for me.

B-I-N-G-O

Our fellowship team has been revamped and they are really putting things together. They have planned and organized quite a few different activities that we’ve never done. Tonight we are having White elephant BINGO. I plan on going. Ethan will go. I am hoping David will be able to come as well. But, with all the truck trouble they have had this week, I won’t hold my breath.

Ethan defined my day for tomorrow. I knew I would work some out to the trucking company since I have 2 doctor appt’s on Monday. Ethan has to leave for Iola at noon for a vocal contest. So, guess I’ll be working from 7:00 am until around 11:30. That will get me a good start on the billing though. AND, my cardiology appointment isn’t until 2:45, and its here in town (not Topeka), so I could work a little bit Monday … from 12:30 until 2:30. So, that works and I still should be able to get everything done.

Thats the plan. And we all know how my well laid out plans tend to go around here. (grin)

Agloco

We all use it — Google. The Grandfather of all Search Engines. Agloco is a new company that is starting out much like Google did. The difference is, though, they pay you to use their toolbar. The toolbar is easy to install — it installs at the bottom of your browser, and you get paid as you surf. And you don’t have to worry about spam or popups or any of those other annoying things that so many sites seem to plague us with. Why are they willing to pay you to surf? Because advertisers, search providers and online stores are paying lots of money to reach you while you surf. Agloco is breaking ground to bring the advertisers and the everyday internet users together. Its a win-win situation. Through their referral program, they will reward those who are helping to build Agloco as a community. The bigger the community, the more money the members make. Agloco is own by its members. So when it, as a community makes money, you make money. For surfing the net. It couldn’t be any easier. Just sign up, refer your friends, download the free Viewbar, and the just go on with your internet life like you normally would. And rest asssured, you information will never be sold, rented or shared with anyone else. Check out their FAQ section to learn more about this great opportunity.

Nap Time

Do you like taking naps?

No. I sleep with a CPAP because I have severe sleep apnea. So, if I fall asleep in my chair, or try laying down to take a nap and don’t use my CPAP machine, I wake up with a severe feeling of anxiety — one similar to being woke up in the middle of the night by the phone. Heart racing. Out of rhythm. Not a good feeling. So, naps are out for me. When I go to bed, the mask goes on, and I go out. I sleep like a baby, and the mask doesn’t bother me much now. It took awhile to get used to it; but the benefits are worth it. The apnea is what caused my heart to go out of rhythm, and we didn’t realize it, so I let it go so far that I’m sure it has caused permanent damage. Even though I use the CPAP machine religiously, my heart still gets out of rhythm. But at least I sleep alot better these days. Before I was diagnoised, I snored really bad; I would have dreams that I couldn’t breath … which, actually wasn’t a dream. When I had the sleep study done, it only took them a few hours to know that I was defnatelyl a candidate for a CPAP machine. Some people, it takes several studies to determine this. Not me:) They said I stopped breathing 150 times in the first hour they watched me. No wonder I was exhausted all the time. The great part about it is, though, now I don’t need naps. Most days are a breeze to get through. Usually not enough hours in the day for everything I want to get done!

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Scrapjazz.com

Mexican Food

Foods you never get tired of eating.

Mexican food. I love taco salads. Chips & salsa. And it never seems to matter how often we have it, I never grow tired of it. We have a favorite Mexican Food place that we frequent often. But even when we don’t eat there, there are “favorites” here at home that I tend to make a lot as well, and it would have be to classified as Mexican food. And fortunately, on the current diet plan that I’m on, I am supposed to eat 8 oz of protein a day. So, that allows me to have a small taco salad …. lean hamburger, onion, a dash of cheese, and taco sauce. Anyday. Everyday.

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Scrapjazz.com

Woven Basket

Even though Christmas is still months off, if we don’t start now, it always seems to sneak up on us, and we end up having to buy everything in a mad dash those last few weeks in December. The Woven Basket is a one stop gift source. They have numerous selections of many different categories. From baskets, to bags & purses. Candles. Cups and mugs. They also have gardening gift items, fountains, bird baths … and the list goes on. AND, first time customers can use the discount code: blog-link3 and will recieve a 10% discount on orders over $20.00.

The feature I like the best at this site is the baskets. They offer ready made gifts baskets that are unusual, and attractive as well as practical. Baby gift baskets, spa baskets, bath items. Or, they also offer “build a basket”. You can choose the items you would like to go in a gift basket.

They are a brand new company, opening just this month (March 1). But they have a great site, and add products every day. For exotic gifts, you won’t find prices any lower on the web. Stop by and give them a look.

Nose To The Grindstone

Tomorrow is one of those “nose to the grindstone” kind of days. Friday’s the day I usually finish up the bulletins for Sunday, and a handful of other things. I have that to do, plus my boss wanted to take the newsletter home and let his wife proofread it better this evening. He took it home last night and she went over it; but when I made the corrections and gave it back to him — hoping I would get it back with his approval to run … he said “you were planning to mail this out tomorrow, right?”. I didn’t want to argue with him. So, I said, it was his call. He said he’d take it home and let her have a better look at it. *sigh. Hopefully, the morning will go quick and I can get it done so I can then make it out to the trucking company. I have one project I would like to finish up before the weekend out there.

But. I can only do what I can do. So, I’ll try, and see where I’m at at noon, and go forward based on that. The newsletter HAS to go out. The bulletin HAS to be ready to pass out. The project at the trucking company needs to be done by the end of April. So, the church projects take priority.

A New CD

What was the last CD you bought?

By His Wounds (Glory Revealed). Its a Mastertrax 3 key CD. Ethan was asked to sing for Special Music on Sunday, and try to make it focus on Christ and the cruxificion. He is in a Barbershop style quartet and they sang Old Rugged Cross, so that was out. We were at the Christian Bookstore a couple nights ago, and he went back to see what he could find. Its a new song, to both of us; but he has caught on quite quickly, and I have complete faith in him that he’ll do an excellent job with it Sunday. I bought another CD — I think it was WOW 2007 — or something like that. Popular praise songs. We dont’ buy many CDs, but I was pleased with our purchases Tuesday night.

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Scrapjazz.com

Write It Down

I’m somewhat of a pen fanatic. My cup at the church if filled with my favorite style of pens. I have a tin sitting by the computer right now — again, my favorite pens. And my third desk, at the trucking company, filled. With pens. I like the concept of advertising pens. Its been done forever; but its an economical way of getting your company’s logo, your company name and address there. But you can’t just walk into your favorite stationary or office supply store and buy pens with your name on it. PensRUs can help you get your name in print, on our pens. They customize with tex, logos and more. Their easy to use, easy to navigate website offers a broad selection of quality pens organized by brand, style, price and other ways. Or, if you are like me, you can just look until you find that “right” pen that says “thats it”. Thats the one.

If you have a business, new or old, get your name out. PensRUs will help you do it.

Filling A Canvas

What is your first reaction to a blank page or canvas?

That it needs to be filled. With words. With creativity. A plain layout on a blog is a blank canvas to me. I have this need — compulsion to fill it up, with beauty. With color. With organization. I know. I’m weird. But then. Thats just me.

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Scrapjazz.com

Ladder Racks

A while back, David’s brother needed to borrow our ladder. We got out blankets, and bunge cords, and strapped the ladder to his truck. And for a one time use, that is probably doable. But. What do you do when you need to transport a ladder on a more frequent basis. Buy Auto Truck Accessories.com has just the thing. A ladder rack. They have ladder racks and accessories for just about any kind of truck you can think of — compact trucks, heavy duty full size trucks, utility trucks. They can be mounted on the side of the truck or on the roof. You probably see them on any given day, and like me never had really given it a thought to how they actually get those ladders from place to place. Now you know!

Yesterday Recap

I knew yesterday would end up being a day. It wasn’t too awful bad. Just busy. Left work, picked up Ethan, and through the course of conversation, we decided he would go with me, if it was OK with his play director. Which is was. We had a fun evening, of shopping and then a nice supper. But it was late when we got home. My weigh in didn’t go well; but I’m moving forward, and that is that. My thoughts and plans about where I go from here can be found at The Quest.

Home and Living

I know its not fair, but in 2 years, our last child will graduate, and (hopefully) out of the house and he gets on with the business of living the great life that is ahead of him. Once he is gone, I would like like to do some home improvements, new furniture, and maybe even turn his room in to a small office (translation, a scrapbook room). Looking through the selection of furniture that Powell furniture offers, I can see a work area table, and this this wonderful writing desk that they have. I also saw a storage cabinet they sell that would be perfect to store all my scrapbook supplies. Powell Furniture is the largest online collection of quality home furnishings. “Furniture at your fingertips” is this slogan. Browse through their easy to navigate website, and find those pieces that fit your taste, your needs, and your budget.

At The End of the Day

For a Monday, it actually went pretty well. Our minister has 2 funerals later this week, so he pretty much locked himself in his room, and we didn’t go over our normal Monday calendar stuff, which often leads to chatting alot longer than we should. I feel like I’m ahead of the game with several projects there; so hopefully that will carry through tomorrow.

And Mondays — at the trucking company, are always …. always…. always busy and I have to work late. But. 2 factors sent me down another path, and I was able to work on some “loose end” kind of things, and leave at a decent time. And tomorrow I have a doctors appointment in Topeka at 5:30, so I need to leave early. I didn’t do the billing because David hadn’t checked it yet, and he had to take a truck to the shop, so he was gone most of the afternoon. As it turned out, even if he HAD gotten his part done with the billing … something is going on with the computers. The one in the other office doesn’t work at all. David’s works and so does mine … until we went in to QuickBooks. Couldn’t get in. So, made it a little hard to do the billing. I was glad to have the opportunity to work on some of the things I often don’t have time to. I don’t like it that the computer is not cooperating because that means David is going to have to work on it some more, and he really doesn’t have time. But he’s going to have to make time. So, I have a feeling tomorrow will be pretty intense, but it wont’ be a late night. Well. It WILL be a late night, but for a different reason. Weigh in day.

I’ll say more about it tomorrow….

Projecting The Future

A few years ago, our church began using a projector during our worship services. The words to songs are put up on slides; the scripture that is read before the prayer is on the screen. Points made during the sermon - on the screen. With the move to the new building, we had to implement 2 projects — 2 screens due to the structure of the sanctuary. Needless to say, our projectors are a permanent fixture of the building.

But what do missionaries; or businessmen, who travel extensively do when they are in need of a projector. Many times, its cost prohibitive to own a projector; esp. if a presentation is needed only a couple times a year. Project 123 is an new online service where professionals and other people can place an order — rent — a projector and have it delivered by FedEx anywhere in the US. The projector rentals are shipped within 24 hours. Thats all they do. They don’t get sidetraced with trying to sell unrelated products and they have cost associated with an expensive storefront location. Because of this, they are able to pass on the savings to you, the customer.

LoudLaunch - Compensating bloggers for their unbiased opinions, reviews, and analysis. View the LoudLaunch campaign release this post was based on.

He’s Better

I talked to Matt this morning, and he’s doing much better. He said it still pretty tender, but at least he’s able to put some weight on it. They did give him crutches yesterday, but from the sound of it, I think he’s hobbling around on it. We talked about that yesterday — because the nurse had said something about the doctor probably would want him walking on it to keep the circulation good. So, we analysized it. When its a sprain or an injury, then you want to stay off of it, not put any weigh on it, to give it time to heal.

But since its an infection, then you won’t hurting an injury, then walking on it, no matter how painful, may be a good thing — to make the blood circulate and flow better. Thats what you want going on. So, it sounds like maybe thats what he is doing. Between that, the antibodics, and the pain killer they gave him last night, it sounds like he is going to recover quickly. I’m glad. He was really worried about having to miss alot of work (esp. when he thought it was broken). He can deal with missing a day or two. It was the “weeks” that he wasn’t particular fond of. They instructed him not to work until Wednesday, follow up with a doctor on Wednesday, and he should be good to go by Thursday. After talking to him, sounds like everything is going according to plan.