WELCOME TO VAN DYKE ZINNIAS NEW HOME @ OUR PLEASANT LAKE COTTAGES IN MICHIGAN!
Since 1998, customers have been selecting their Supreme Variety Zinnia seeds at The Farm Store at redbudfarms.com. In autumn of 2009, Van Dyke Zinnias @ Redbud Farms moved operations from The Farm to the cottages at Pleasant Lake, Michigan to accommodate the better water supply and ease of access to it. Additionally the owners desired to create a more desireable location to showcase and better manage the gardens that support the business.
In time for the 2010 growing season, Van Dyke Zinnias will unveil the new website here, along with their usual variety of uncommon zinnias and other cut flowers. The 2010 catalog is available for download. Other great offers and grand opening specials will highlight the start of the winter and the seed buying season.
Past customers will soon receive a colorful post card that will offer a very special discount to those who purchase seeds this seaaon as a "Thank You! for having "moved with us." :) The new site address is
if you wish to order early before the website posts the 2010 order pages.
Future plans for the website are to have more gardening advice and puppy stories of life at the cottages at Pleasant Lake.
If you would like to subscribe to "News Beams from the Cottage," please make that request by emailing me at SBaller@LobaTek.com
Until then, please stop by often to visit as the new site content is going up! We look forward to the 2010 growing season with you!
Best!
Sharon Baller, President
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News Beams from The Farm with Sharon Baller
Sharon Baller is owner and president of LobaTek Incorporated and Van Dyke Zinnias @ Redbud Farms, small business consulting and online storefronts founded in 1996 and 2007 respectively. Sharon is the visionary and principal manager of all things "virtual" and administrative for LobaTek Incorporated.
Her passion is to explore and exploit the nature of virtual communications, the electrical "Beams" that transverse time and space to connect people across the planet. She often says that whether she is using the Internet to share important ideas or business transactional analysis, she imagines this is what Heaven must be like! Beautiful Soul thoughts unemcumbered by the physical human body, shared between people without having to see a face or touch a hand. It is the ultimate in communication across minds.
"News Beams from The Farm" is another creation she generously shares with her customers and clients. Articles will appear here monthly for those interested in following the exploits and other life events beamed from The Farm. Puppy stories and puppies soon available from the Farm and all things alive and lovely will be showcased here. Please submit ideas for articles or opinions you would like to see addressed on this site. There are no limits to our interests and passions or compassion. Many thanks for visiting today! - May 2009
BEAM #1- Dangerous Questions Missing in American Life Today Sunday, May 17, 2009
"I love dangerous questions -- questions that do not have easy or immediate answers and the process of answering is transformative. Answering potentially dangerous questions requires self honesty, introspection and a willingness to be authentic. I call such questions dangerous because they have the ability to shatter our self made selves thereby creating an opening for something brand new. I believe dangerous questions flow from Spirit in order to prepare us for a new relationship with Life." ~Richard Beattie
Why are "dangerous questions" missing in America and the world today? Maybe it's because people are afraid of the authentic? The genuine? Instead, they contrive other selves to show the world. Selves they believe may be more attractive, more powerful, more intimidating, or appealing to it. It relates to what Pastor Brian, Stockbridge Baptist Church, calls "The Prison of Being a People Pleaser." The cure is simple. Instead of worrying about what people think of you in this short life on earth, pick up the key of Christ's life example and worry only about what God thinks of you for now and all eternity. Here's the zinger: People pleasing diminishes our ability to be a servant for Christ.
The ability to pick up the Christ key and turn the lock that traps our souls in people pleasing depends on our accepting the simple fact we are unworthy to judge. For when we do, the timing is off, and the motives of others' hearts cannot be discerned by us. Only God knows the motives of men's hearts and is able to never judge too soon, His judgment being reserved for Judgment Day. We mortals are not patient enough to wait for that; so we screw up ours and others' lives by falsely believing we are capable to judge others and know the motives of their hearts. How ludicrous! How utterly arrogant, imperfect, and prideful is our judgment. That is why it causes so much pain in our lives. And that is why it is one of the Ten Commandments, I would guess.
What we don't understand is the payoff that could be ours if we could cast off this human tendency to judge. If we could turn that off tomorrow, we would be free to surrender your worries, anxieties, and cares to the Lord who is most capable of handling such things. Oh, and BTW, Pastor made one other statement that hit home for me: "If one or the other spouses in a marriage is a 'people pleaser,' there cannot be a Biblically functioning relationship." HELLO!
Well now. How many of us reading here are in or have been in that snare? How many reading here have encouraged a spouse's people pleasing behaviors for our own comfort or benefit? How has that affected your marriage? How has it stunted your own growth as an authentic person? The question is rhetorical. All such questions have a waterfall affect into other corners of our lives. Substitute any relationship in the last paragraph -- child, friend, enemy, boss, family. The topics along that line of thought would make a great book. Maybe I will write it. . . I have a lot of good examples I could use from my own life.
Sunday, May 17, 2009 - Talk Title: Ask, Seek, Find!
So I say to you: Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; everyone who searches finds; everyone who knocks will have the door opened. ~Luke 11:9-10
I love dangerous questions -- questions that do not have easy or immediate answers and the process of answering is transformative. Answering potentially dangerous questions requires self honesty, introspection and a willingness to be authentic. I call such questions dangerous because they have the ability to shatter our self made selves thereby creating an opening for something brand new. I believe dangerous questions flow from Spirit in order to prepare us for a new relationship with Life. ~Richard Beattie
Today's Affirmation
I am willing to question everything and I am open to experience Life from a new perspective.
Today's Meditation
Dear God,
I love the journey of self discovery that is my life in You. Beyond the edge of my past experiences, Past the boundaries I had imposed on myself and on You, Life is flowing into expression in a most amazing way. I am open and receptive to being new, in You, right now. Thank You for Being in me. I invite Your peace, presence, power and love to express fully in me, now. Amen
“History does not entrust the care of freedom to the weak or timid.”~Dwight D. Eisenhower Copyright 2007-2010TALK CITIZEN ™ is a trademark of LobaTek Incorporated
