THIS YEAR I MADE GIFTS

This year Christmas came and I was very broke. My Christmas goodies were  supplied by the local Salvation Army. Obviously I had no money for gifts for anyone. Over the years I have been in a variety of different financial positions from being able to give expensive gifts, to having nothing to buy things with. Fortunately for me, I have a creative gene in my makeup so in past years of lean, I have made a number of different things for family and friends.



Above is a sampling of what  I made this year. I was surprised and pleased to find that I had some small ability to paint. I have done many of the name signs in the past for various people and places, with ALL the lettering done by hand. I use the different fonts on my computer for different styles of lettering, print it out in the size I want, trace it onto the wood, then paint it.

This year I decided to try and paint and am very pleased with the results. I have done a number of extra paintings (no two are the same) and hope to sell them to make some extra cash. Some of these  are  shown below. I also now have a Cricut machine for lettering and am using it with vinyl to do the lettering on the name signs. Unfortunately I only have one font cartridge. I hope to get a variety of them as I sell items and can re-invest some of the money into it.

DUCKS IN THE YARD

It started last year when I would walk to the Save-On-Foods store a couple of blocks away from where I live. I cut through a small park with a year round running stream through it and there, in the middle of winter, in temperatures of more than -20C, were a number of ducks managing to keep an area of the creek open for swimming. We had greater than -20C temperatures much earlier than usual last year.

I started taking them wild bird food and scattering it around. None of the ducks would come right up to me, but that was fine. (now many of them eat out of my hand)  My concern was that there was a lot of snow and the temperatures were very cold and were these birds finding enough to eat.

I asked around and found that staff from the store and several of the businesses were taking some food out to the ducks, usually during their lunch breaks etc. There were also others who, like me, didn't feed them every day, but came a few times a week to lay down some food. Many were feeding them bread type foods so I would take wild bird feed for them, thinking it  would have more nutritional value for them. It turns out, after reading a number of sites on feeding them, I was right.

This year the weather is mild and has been all winter. We have little snow, as you can see from the video. The "flock" in the park has split into 3 groups now with a total of more than 100 birds. I am not sure if the number of people feeding the group has decreased or if we just have too many birds now for the food being left for them. Either way the birds appear to be hungry.

A few weeks ago I walked through the park with no offerings for them and the entire group followed me right through the park. The next day I took a big container of food down for them and, as I scattered the seed I started walking toward home. My street is only one block long so from the park to home is a very quiet walk usually. I had the entire 3 groups follow me almost to my gate. Then a car door slammed and they all flew away. However a couple of pairs showed back up outside the gate, so I threw them some food.

The next day they showed up again and I threw food on both sides of the fence. Of the six that came to eat, only two figured out how to get at the food inside the fence. As the last few weeks have passed I have added grapes (cut in half), bits of apples diced small, lettuce chopped up fairly fine, and other vegetable bits, and peels. I am going to the farm supply today to get feed for them as I have found I will be able to get 3 times as much for the same money. I have been just buying the wild bird feed at the grocery store in the largest bags I could find, but I am getting more and more birds coming in, and my budget is extremely limited. 

I get two pair who are early risers. They show up just after first light. As the day goes on now I see different groups of ducks come in at different times throughout the day, with the largest group showing up about an hour before dark. The group I have filmed above are here mid-day. My dogs have a separate dog yard and use that when they are out. They no longer bark at the ducks and they are all learning to co-exist.

It is such fun to watch the ducks in the yard, and a privilege to be able to contribute to their well-being. I also see it as a step toward animal rescue, which is my desire. I have rescued a number of abused dogs, birds and cats in the past, but when I am able to develop and fund the animal rescue I would like to include the rescue and rehabilitation of injured wildlife as well. In the meantime I am learning what I can.

Until next time, be good to your furry friends.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Well here it is. New Years Day, 2012. The past year has been quite  a challenge. No vehicle. No work. Struggling for many months to pay bills and having to recieve help from others not only to pay the bills, but to even eat. Gives me flashbacks  to the seven years I spent homeless.

But the coming year holds the promise of better things to come. I thought it might happen around Christmas, but can see the  wisdom of it holding off till the new year. That will give me an entire year to organize, make tax deductions etc. so as not to pay so much tax on the funds I am awaiting.

It all started around August when a  friend of mine emailed me two websites that she wanted me to check out and let her know what I thought. In the past she had gotten me involved in another site, mostly so I could get the product at wholesale rather than retail. I paid her back, but have never really done anything with it. I told her I really wasn't into sales of this sort, but that I would tell others if something came up in conversation that led to it. It is a good  product and most, if not all, would benefit by taking it, but that is another story.

Anyway, I told her I would  look at  the sites, but I definitely wasn't interested in MLM or anything of the sort. She also knows I am pretty skeptical about anything on the internet, having spent thousands of my own money trying to find something I could do from home to supplement my income.

I found most things to either need a great deal of funds to get off the ground, or a lot of funds for "advertising" and getting a client base, or they are out and out scams or they don't offer enough information  for the average person to be able to figure out. I have been scammed twice for several thousand each time and am now paying it back to the financial institutions.

One of the sites was to do with MLM and I told her I was definitely NOT interested in it at all. The other I spent some time in, looking around at the information there. It is an extensive site and a number of their claims I had heard before elsewhere. I told her this site may be on the level.... or may not... only time would tell. The educational material on the site was very interesting and in reality that is all they were guaranteeing. There was some reference to a process they were attempting to perfect, enabling a reimbursement of loans taken in the past.

The next thing I knew I had a membership in the club, courtesy of my friend, who absolutely believed that this club could and would come through with what they were attempting. And a few days later my friend also presented me with a pre-paid process against the time they would be able to provide the funds they were talking about.

I have gone through a lot of emotional ups and downs during this last few months. There has been a countdown happening on the site. They say they have perfected the process and they are on  the final steps to complete a new online interface to enable the members to process claims themselves and free up the office time for other things. I have watched a countdown to "red light", which meant that they had completed their research and were ready to put it into action for the members. Then there has been a countdown scale for steps to the completion of the online interface. It went from 10 to 2 in the matter of a month or so.

Then it was changed and each of the remaining steps was broken into 10 decimal points, going from 2.9 - 0.0. It  is now at .5. When it hits 0.0 the club will be funding all its members. I keep thinking something will happen to hinder it once again. I am full of hope for the future.

I believe it will possibly happen in the next couple of weeks and that, at long last, I will be able to help others and create a few dreams of my own. Top  amongst these is to finally be able to travel east and meet my grandson. I have never met him, nor have I been able to do things for him that I would love to  do.

Next on my list is to start the creation of a wildlife rescue site in my area. I already have my sights on a couple of properties that would be suitable.

The new year brings the promise of better things to come. A fresh new start that I will embrace fully.

For those of you interested, the site is http://www.freedomclubusa.com/  or, when the new interface is done and the new website ready http://www.freedomclubusa.net/ . Judge for yourself, do your due diligence. I will post about this again when it happens. If you choose to join, please use my member number # 8897 so I get the credit :) 

By the way, if you join after funding happens there will be NO upfront costs to you at  all. Can't get better than that now can it? 

God Bless You and give you increase in the coming year.