So yesterday I finished a new cover for the ottoman, and cleaned my kitchen, and worked. I also did some lolling around reading and knitting. I couldn't quite bring myself to grade papers, but I did do the attendance tracking. I did an hour of Wii Fit, and this morning it has given me a bronze fitness bank. Of course, it's a virtual prize, not a real one.

My husband complained about my schedule yesterday. He said I was acting as though I were single. By this he doesn't mean that I go out to nightclubs and spend money on mani-pedis, but that I don't have his dinner ready on time, and don't do enough housework.

He's right, of course, at least for some value of right.

He complained that he has to do the dishes. Almost every day. He said this in a tone of voice that made it clear that he had assumed that I didn't realize he was doing the dishes, and would be horrified to think of him having to do such a thing.

I don't find it horrifying that he has to put dishes into the dishwasher. But I'm willing to believe that he finds it horrifying.

We just got snow, not ice. For this I am very grateful. We may be snowed in, but  we have power and heat and can cook and everything.

The weather man is sad. We have this sort of fiendish-looking guy who was so happy and excited yesterday, he could hardly stand it. He was predicting all kinds of horrible things and smiling with the happy-demon smile.

Today, he looked sad, and was talking about how it could have been the stomr of the century and we could have had lots of damage. Sort of keening, by the end of the diatribe, and then he perked up a bit and said, "You can get power outages with snow!" as though it were our last, best hope.

So I tidied up my marker board and started the day.

I had blogging to do, and a phone meeting.

Then I had a website to write. 

This is a site for our local natural foods store. I cleaned up their links page and in the course of that had to click though and check the websites of all the many alternative medicine practitioners they list.

Alternative medicine practitioners have horrible websites. Depressing, really, how bad they were.

I hope that all of them decide they need new ones once they see how well the site for the natural food store turns out. I'm toying with the idea of calling them all to ask for reciprocal links for the health food store, in the course of which conversation I could offer to send them a brochure. I could hire Janalisa to make the calls and get one of the graphics people to make the brochure, and the investment might pay off handsomely in the long run.

After that, I made a cake for the chocolatier's blog.  You can go see the process at said blog, where I have posted a groovy slideshow.

The chocolatier called me, too, for a lengthy phone meeting. I showed him how to upload pictures himself. I think he'll enjoy it.

It's much easier to explain to people how to do stuff if you can see their screen. We had a lot of those conversations where I'd say "Click on 'Views'" and he'd say he didn't have a Views button. I've had those conversations from the other end of the line, too. Quick Parts? What Quick Parts? I may have to subscribe to DimDim. Or quit doing this sort of thing, of course. At one point, he asked me how to make a hyperlink.

I teach my students how to make hyperlinks, actually. I think it's a bit of html that most people will find useful if they write online, and since I teach writing in the 21st century, it seems likely that the students will at some point need to do this. But I sort of quailed at the thought of explaining it to the chocolatier. No whiteboard, and my students often have trouble with it, even when they have a whiteboard to look at. DimDim would have made it possible. But it also might lead me to have this sort of phone call more frequently, which might not be what I want. My business is in a state of rapid evolution, and I think I may nudge it away from lots of random customer service.

I was talking to The Computer Guy about my work mix. He's having the same set of problems/opportunities I am, actually, so he knows what I mean. "You'd rather just write," he said understandingly.  One artist/businessperson to another, you know.

"It's not a goal," I said, "because it won't happen, but it would be nice." And as I thought about it later in the day, I realized that it was possible. Right now, I have work like manna.

Remember manna? In Exodus, there was this spell where the people of Israel were wandering in the wilderness. Every day, God caused manna to appear, so they could gather it up and have enough to eat for that day. They couldn't save any for the next day, and theologians suppose that this was God's way of pointing out their dependence on Him and teaching them to trust him.

So it is for me. Every day, I get up with interesting work to do, and in the course of the day some more interesting work arrives, so that the next day I get up with more interesting work. It's practically a perfect system. If I had someone taking care of the accounting and billing and collecting, and if I had enough capital that I could pay that person even when the cash flow was unsteady, then I really could just do the interesting work and not worry about the other stuff. I just need to get my business to the point where there's enough interesting work, paying enough, that I can hire #1 daughter to take care of the back office stuff -- without having more work than I can do well in the time available.

Actually, that's probably always the issue for businesses the size of mine. At lunch the other day, The Computer Guy and a PPC expert and I were having just that conversation. The Computer Guy has three big contracts this year, so he has hired his first full-time worker. The PPC expert is struggling with whether or not to borrow money so he can hire someone in order to be able to take advantage of the growth opportunities available to him.

We're all raising our prices.

But I digress.

With that website done and sent off into the ether, I turned to the next thing, a set of brochures for a construction company. I was getting "Can you have this done by EOD?" messages about that all afternoon, along with messages from my nightclub guy wanting stuff done, so worked intensely on those brochures and I hope they were good.

I try to knock off at 5:00 on Fridays and take the evening off. Not yesterday. I finished the brochures around 6:18, with my rotten layabout menfolks yelling "What's for dinner?" from where they sat in front of the TV.

I made their dinner and watched some Xtreme Sports with them, and then took my knitting into the office and watched a movie. Salt Peanuts is becoming a lovely fluffy pink sweater, as you can perhaps see in the snap here. I have another sleeve to do, and finishing and blocking and stuff, but I think it'll be very nice.

More work today (the nightclub guy, and grading papers), but I also plan to do some domestic stuff. It's the last day of Kitchen and Pantry Week at the spring cleaning plan, and I may not be up for that, frankly, but perhaps I can do a little bit after work. My kitchen and pantry could certainly use it.

I'm going to do what they did on the news this morning and cheat, by showing you a picture of last year's ice storm. This is because it is still dark out, so I can't take pictures of this year yet. You can see more if you go to my xanga for this date last year.

Apparently we have a very punctual ice storm.

Yesterday I had a business lunch with a couple of guys. I had forgotten what that's like.

I don't mean that I'd forgotten about business lunches or about guys. I have plenty of both of those. What I'd forgotten about was how businessmen behave in groups. Both these guys are modest, interesting men. Together, they spent most of the time bragging. One left, and the remaining one and I had a pleasant and far-reaching conversation.

I zipped home in time for my meeting with my new West Coast client, and we also had a fruitful and far-reaching conversation. He's another modest, pleasant man, but I bet that if I'd been a guy, it would have been completely different.

You have to wonder -- first, how do men get anything at all done? Maybe they just do that "Mine's bigger than yours" kind of conversation when they first meet, and after they've established the hierarchy they're normal again. If not, then I guess I have to wonder how they feel about doing business with me, since I don't join in.

Actually, I guess I did brag at one point. They were discussing old-school vs. digital marketing, in a "My firm is so cool!" kind of way, and said that of course no company can get by with just a website.

"I can," I said. "I have a great website and do no other marketing, and I get two new jobs a day, every day."

However, I said it in tones of childish glee, which is how women sound when bragging. Wrong tone entirely. They smiled at me indulgently and then went back to swapping yarns about the companies they'd saved.

I did get two new jobs yesterday, I'm happy to say, so I have lots to do while snowed in. I feel quite sure that my class is canceled today, and I plan to work very intensely this morning in case the power goes off later. I have a lot of books to read, if that happens, and I got some light fiction onto my Kindle, too.

We got all het up over #NWAicestorm2010 at twitter last night, and I joined in cheerfully enough. Everything's closed today,and the meteorologists on TV are indecently cheery as they assure us that we haven't dodged any bullets, since the real storm is on its way from Texas right now.

My husband started out to work this morning, but gave up and came back in. This is not good, because he will spend the whole day sighing and moaning. #1 son, on the other hand, walked over to a friend's last night. Yep. In the ice storm. He very patiently showed us his wool socks and put on extra layers of woolies, and he texted me when he got there. There's a student slumber party going on, with sledding, and I bet they'll have fun. 

How are you coming with your New Year's resolutions and goals?

I've been very faithful about exercising daily, even if it's low key time with the Wii Fit. I haven't been faithful about eating right. I've been moderately good about working normal hours and doing other stuff sometimes.

One thing I wanted was to return creativity to my daily life. My work is very creative, and that's a wonderful thing. However, I used to be creative about meals, and decorating my home, and needlework, and random projects. I don't want all my creativity to be about writing effective copy for other people's businesses.

So I have been knitting, and am down to the last sleeve on Salt Peanuts. It's a start.

What a day!

Well, you know I like lots of action during a day. it would be boring to write about, or for you to read, but it was interesting to live.

My sister and I had a Facebook chat about code. See, all this time I thought she was mostly a statistician, and really she does programming. I was thus able to have her go look at my "Non-Specialist's Guide to Computer Languages" and check it for accuracy. I was asked to write that this morning, and it provided a nice punctuation to a day otherwise rather heavily filled with chocolate -- not real chocolate, just virtual chocolate. With a bit of shouting.

Tomorrow is weddings and, I hope, whole foods. Also lunch with the Computer Guy, if we are not instead under a foot of snow, as the weather people are hoping.

I should probably go out and buy peanut butter and granola bars just in case. Otherwise, when the power goes off for a week, we'll be sadly eating Triscuits leftover from Christmas.

My husband is concerned about the Grammies. Michael Jackson, he explained, can't be reincarnated because he's being kept in the TV. If he didn't have that much TV presence, he could go ahead and be born somewhere else and move on with his existence.

My husband says things like this sometimes. He usually doesn't begin by announcing that he has some wild idea, either. He'll casually remark, in a conversation about smoking, that dead people only smoke at parties. Or, seeing a Michael Jackson tribute commercial, "They shouldn't keep him in there." Even after all these years of consternation on the part of his family, he continues to behave as though we shared a frame of reference which includes a spirit world.

#2 son was chatting with me yesterday about Descartes's arguments in favor of God, and he felt he had to preface it with, "You know Descartes?" but my husband will toss out a comment about the unwisdom of building large houses (the spirits of the trees you use get mad at you) as though it were common knowledge. God is part of our shared frame of reference around here, and since I know that my husband was brought up as an animist back in his native country, random spirits probably should be, too.

It makes me think of this person who forwards me weird right-wing emails. Jokes about American servicemen committing torture. Exhortations to refuse to give our ethnic heritage on the census because the government will give all the good stuff to areas with people who aren't white. The assumption apparently is that we recipients are all white, and perhaps all in favor of torture.

The person who forwards me this offensive stuff seems perfectly nice. I meet her sometimes at church. Now that she's been sending this stuff to me, of course, I feel completely creeped out and probably shrink back from her. Presumably, she thinks we share a frame of reference in which the stuff she sends me is normal discourse, and that I'm shy.

Yesterday didn't include any downtime, actually. I had a couple of new assignments -- one I've completed, and the other required negotiations with the Computer Guy and is waiting for the client to approve the fees -- and was still grading papers at 9:15 last night. I still have more to grade this morning, too. Then my chocolatier has more stuff he wants to discuss. I tried reducing his fees and explaining that I thought he should head in other directions with his marketing, but he still wants to chat with me a lot. I shall have to raise his fees back up -- he's currently paying less per hour than my teaching job, and that's my rock-bottom price.

But I did, upon receiving a check (I was able to buy some of the boys' textbooks, thank God), stop at the bookstore after the bank and look at the new knitting magazines.  And that's why I have pictures of this pretty sweater: I saw it in Interweave Knits. I'm almost through with the first sleeve of Slat Peanuts. Under normal circumstances, I'd be looking for a new pattern. Since Salt Peanuts is taking me a year to make, though, I won't need a new pattern any time soon, so I didn't buy the magazine. It is pretty, though, isn't it?

I'm just back from my early class. I'm enjoying both my face-to-face classes, and I now have the first mountain of papers to grade.

The arts center assigns groups of three lessons. Then you turn in your lessons and they assign some more. Today, I got a response to the last group of lessons saying to wait. They've gotten their high-priority lessons fixed up and they're going to decide whether to continue with old ones or do new ones. They asked whether I had any ideas for new ones -- and of course I always have ideas. That's one of my super powers. So I shot off a list of ideas, along with a hope that if they do more old ones they'll send some more to me.

So that big project is either ending or moving into an exciting new phase, but it's no longer always there to work on as it has been for the past couple of months. As I digested that, I got an IM from my Brits, asking if I would do a less interesting job for less money. Of course I said no, and gave them the names of some cheaper folks who might. I also have a new website to write this week, but we're not supposed to start till we get the deposit, so I shouldn't do that today. I also have projects pending with a couple of agencies, but there again, they're pending and not actually ready to go.

I am suddenly not madly busy. I'm also regretting all the unbillable stuff that I did when I could have been faster with the arts center projects -- I was expecting eight (on the basis of the number they planned to do divided by the number of writers) and I did nine, so I'm not disappointed, but I do feel that I could have made more hay while the sun shone.

Today, then, I'll be grading papers, looking after my regular folks, and perhaps getting that pile of papers off my floor and filed. I might study up on some of my software... I could put on a movie and watch while I grade the physical papers. In short, I plan to get as much enjoyment as possible out of the sense of not having too much work to do.

I probably ought to finish up my accounting and get prepared to do my taxes, but that doesn't sound nearly as pleasant. If I still don't have too much work tomorrow, I'll get to that.

Yesterday I worked instead of cleaning my living room.

Actually, there was plenty of time during which I could have cleaned my living room. #1 son did the grocery shopping so I could get my arts center stuff done and papers graded. I worked for a mere eight hours, and then went and had lunch and sat down with a light novel to take a small break before tackling the living room.

After a bit, I baked cookies, and did a bit more lolling. Folks, I never even knitted. I just sat around reading. At one point, I made dinner for me and #1 son, and cleaned up the kitchen at bit, and we had a discussion on God and physics and discord in music and skepticism. Then I returned to sitting around reading.

This morning, Janalisa and I are going to help set up the tables for the ministry fair. I was in charge of this last year. This year I'm just helping out. I don't know whether there is anyone in charge, though...

I have a couple of hours before I head off to do that, so I might clean this morning. I also need to make a new cover for the ottoman, which takes a lot of abuse.

If I don't do it this morning, I might do it after church. The amount of lolling around I did yesterday should be sufficient to last me for a while.

I'm talking about business today. My feelings won't be hurt if you don't stay and read.

The thing is, my possibility tree is getting branchy again.

Originally, in spring of 2008, my possibility tree had three branches: get a job, work for myself, or fail miserably and starve in a gutter.

Without making a decision in any noticeable way, I began working for myself, and the other two branches just sort of ended.

About a year later, I had the option to be a happy freelance writer with a balanced life, earning about as much as I did at my salaried job in half as much work time, and doing whatever I felt like in my unbillable hours. I merely would have had to turn down additional work. Emboldened by my daughters and spurred on by enormous tuition bills, I drifted over into ownership of a company. I incorporated as an LLC, got a CPA, etc.

Now here I am with Basecamp and workers and projects and stuff, and I find myself faced with another set of branches.

Are we an interactive marketing agency? If so, we need a design firm we can partner with, or designers of our own. Are we in fact a design firm? If so, we must have a designer, and we're in competition with some of my best clients. Are we content providers, and we just offer a list of design firms, and mostly work for the trade? If so, I have a problem with my website, which speaks to businesses, and mostly to small businesses at that. True, agencies hire me because my blog shows I can speak to their clients for them, but you can't have a website that's a demo, and refuse to serve people who come to you because you seem to be offering to work for them.

For many years now, I've done the Holiday Grand Plan that gets you ready for Christmas without stress. I've done it with varying levels of dedication and thoroughness, but it's always better to do it even a little bit than not to do it.

Some years I also do the Spring Cleaning Plan, and I think this will be one of those years. I think it'll help me get more balanced and more connected with life in the physical world.

Used to be, this plan spent the month of January on self-discovery and thinking about health and goals and that kind of stuff. You'd make a collage about what you wanted and stuff like that. The idea was that having the first month of the year focused on yourself let you do a better job on the rest of it, and that makes sense to me.

However, this year they've stripped away that stuff and it's just the housework parts. It began last week, and here it is already Living Room Week. I'm going to get my living room thoroughly done tomorrow, and move on along with the plan.

Today I'm teaching a class at the Global Business Center. This is the hybrid online/face to face class, a new idea. I'm excited about it.  I also have a phone meeting with a new agency client. Last night I looked at my financial data from last year. My teaching job and oDesk were the biggest sources of income -- oDesk of course being shorthand for a whole passel of different clients who work through it -- providing 22 and 30% respectively. Then I have five regular clients -- two the same, and three others who changed during the year -- each of which was about 8%. The other 8% was random stuff, including building web sites and writing for the arts center.

As a freelance, I was able to rely on the steady paying half of my work (oDesk and teaching) to keep things from getting too rocky with the other stuff. But neither of those sources of income is necessarily good for my company. If my goal is to grow the company, then I probably need ten regular clients instead. Or the five regular clients at increased levels, and way more random stuff.

The Computer Guy has three big contracts this year, which circumstance has emboldened him to hire a full time person. His company is older than mine, of course, and he's definitely going for growing a company, not working freelance. One of my other regular clients, a software developer, has just a couple of clients a year. Obviously, their prices are higher than mine. #1 daughter thinks that's the way we should go -- higher prices, less of the writing an article here and a press release there, more of the bigger projects. She thinks it harms our brand to work through oDesk and really can't see why I'm teaching.

I am teaching, though, so I'd better go get ready.

I don't know.