See how my marker board has become completely useless? The tidy list at the top, and then the increasing disorder at the bottom, with stuff written it all cattywampus -- not good. I need to erase it and start over.

Yesterday's class was good. I was astounded, since it was 7:30 in the morning, to have 25 students. We had to bring in chairs. That won't last, but it was nice. The secretary had been concerned that the class wouldn't make, and there I was with overrides.

Then I rewrote a site, and was only slightly late to lunch with Janalisa. We talked about our businesses and our kids, mostly. We were at Jason's Deli, where they make a nice sandwich involving croissant, bacon, turkey, and avocado, but the thought of having the Wii Fit tell me I had gained a tenth of a pound caused me to order an ordinary turkey sandwich. It was a nice punctuation for the day.

As we were talking about work, Janalisa said, "They're all men!" She works in a field in which most of her clients are women. I am of course aware that I work almost entirely for men (note that "almost"), but I hadn't thought about it. Once she pointed it out, though, I sure did notice it. After I got back to work, I had calls and emails from guys all afternoon. Single women should go into this field.

Then I got back to the Arts Center project. I'm working on a series originally written by someone who has come to irritate me a lot. This person can't say "Read and respond to this quote" but instead must say "Read and consider, carefully, the words reproduced below, of William Dean Howell. Negotiate conclusions based on the ...." So I was sort of predisposed to dislike the last one in the series, I guess.

But then I discovered that it was a geography lesson about Hannibal, Missouri. The series is about Mark Twain, so that's reasonable, but the thing is stuffed with geography terms like "Southwest Mississippi River Basin" and "Missouri/Illinois Mississippi River Basin" and "Missouri Mississippi River village towns."

What the heck?

I spent an hour trying to track down some reasonable description of the region containing Hannibal, and if anyone has a good suggestion, I'd be happy to hear it.

Then we had choir, with a nice piece that combined "Wachet Auf" with "He Leadeth Me." Hard to imagine, perhaps, but really quite nice.

Lots of work waiting for me today, so I suppose I had better get dressed. And redo my marker board.

Class this morning, so I'm in a hurry.

First, I'm going to brag a little. My professional blog got reveiwed, and here's what they said: "Professional writer X helps clients improve the quality and profitability of their website content. Her site is extremely well-organized and easy to read. It regularly includes real-life examples, with screenshots, to express key concepts. Earlier this month, for example, Haden wrote about types of website copy that aren’t read by search engines. She posted screenshots of a hospital’s homepage, and explained how a majority of the text is either part of a graphic image or in a frameset. These techniques hinder the site’s SEO effectiveness. Other recent posts include advice about decreasing bounce rates, efficient link building and regular blogging."

Really, I like the "extremely well-organized and easy to read part. Also the "The Best SEO Copywriting Blogs" part. It'll be interesting to see if it increases my traffic.

However, it also gives me a nice starting point for today's discussion of feedback. Writing classes always have trouble with this. I have my hookworm article to show them, with its large highlighted requests to make the descriptions less disgusting. But positive feedback is only useful when it's specific, as this was. So I can show them these examples and say "What if the feedback was just, 'Eeeww! Gross!' or 'It's good!'" Then, when they do their first peer reviewing on Monday, they'll be less likely to say just "It's good!"

As soon as my tea is finished, I need to get going. I have stuff to copy, and it's always a gamble. I also don't know what the traffic is like at this time of day.

Hi ho!

I have a habit of looking back at last year's xanga. Not every day, mind you, but lots of days. I like to see how my life has changed since last year.

For a while there, it was totally different all the time. By now, though, what I did last year was a lot like what I did yesterday. I have the chocolatier now, instead of the Spanish engineer, but essentially I'm doing the same thing. I have three phone meetings today, and too much work for the time available, and suspense over whether or not I'll be able to cover tuition payments -- just like last year.

I'm working on the same goals, too -- exercising every day, eating right, dressing like a grownup... I get good at these things for a while sometimes, and then I backslide. I used to think, when I attended a Presbyterian church, how bored God must get with our confessions (I go to a Methodist church, now, and we don't confess). There I'd be each week, confessing that I was short-tempered with my husband or selfish or uncharitable in my thoughts or whatever it might be, and it was always the same stuff.

God probably doesn't get bored and wish that just once we'd have a good murder to confess. But I think that we are not only inclined to do the same imperfect things over and over, but that people throughout history have tended to do all the same wrong things as well.

#1 son was telling us the other day that he's spiteful. He knows, he says, even as he does spiteful things that he's being spiteful, but he can't help himself. #1 daughter agreed. She figured it was best to warn people of your particular besetting sin, whatever it might be, so that they could take it into account. I always figure we should just work on these things.

After all, if I didn't work on exercising every day, I would probably be completely sedentary by now. If I didn't work on my selfishness, I'd be way more selfish by now.

Or maybe not. Maybe there's a natural reversion to the mean. #1 daughter was telling me yesterday about some issue she's been having with her bf. I assured her that he'd do it again.

It's like people who make unguarded racist remarks, I told her. It doesn't really matter why they did it, or what the circumstances were. People who aren't racist don't have those remarks pop into their heads. So it's not really about whether they should have said those things; it's the fact that they thought of them in the first place that should alarm us.

Just so, a person who was really dedicated to good grooming and a professional look wouldn't have to force herself to quit wearing the same ratty jeans and sweater for days on end. I just feel sure that La Bella doesn't have to discipline herself to wear accessories or brush her hair. For me, it will never come naturally, even though I like the results when I make the effort.

So I told #1 daughter that it wasn't a question of whether the guy would do these things again. He would. It was a question of whether she could accept that in him or not. And I guess it's true for us, too. It's easier for us to accept things in ourselves than in other people, of course. And there's nothing wrong with striving to improve. But some things are always going to be things we have to work on.

This sleeve got up to the cap shaping yesterday. We sent both #1 daughter and #2 son back to their daily lives, and #2 daughter and I mostly lolled around.

She went out for sushi with Arkenboy and I took the opportunity to get in some Wii Fit time, actually, but before and after that there was a lot of lolling.

Today I've gotten a hiring message from a West Coast agency I'm taking on. I now have the North, the South, the East Coast, and the West Coast covered. I have a couple of British firms, too, but they are very sporadic, so I think I could probably add another there.

I have a list of stuff I need to do for my classes, which begin on various days this week, and the new arts center contract. So it's back to daily life for me, too, I guess.

The sleeve, though... Well, the instructions for this sweater really didn't seem to work very well. Some knitters, on finding that the directions don't work well, frog what they've done and try again, following more closely, or work out the math and chart the offending garment to see where they've gone wrong. I tend to just do it differently. That is the case with this sweater. So there will be that moment of truth when I put it all together, sometime in the distant future. Will the parts actually fit together? Will it be a sweater? Will it look anything like the original design?

We shall see.

We started yesterday with a business meeting at the local American bakery. We developed our goals for the year, and the Next Steps for accomplishing them.

We had some tangential discussions as well -- do we want to do work on retainer? Should we be doing web design? Just how bad is the conversion rate on our proposals?

It was suggested that we had wienie business goals. 

"My girls," said #1 daughter, who has those corporate speech patterns, "always think the goals are impossible. We're on track to take in $80,000 this month."

After giving us time to admire these numbers, she went on to explain that goals that don't cause consternation in the people who are supposed to achieve them aren't worth setting.

Spurred on by her rousing words, we increased our financial goal slightly. Otherwise, our goals continue to be pretty wimpy.

With the meeting completed and the Next Steps parceled out, we went home to make lunch for my parents' visit. That was fun, as always. We then went shopping.

I'm not much of a shopper. The girls were looking for clothes, though, so we went to the mall. The last time I bought clothes was in May of last year, when #2 daughter assisted me in buying enough clothes to look well-dressed throughout my summer class. I did look well-dressed throughout my summer class, actually, but that wore off, and I have been shlumping around in frayed jeans and ancient sweaters for a few months now. School starts again on Wednesday, for me, so I think I might need to mend things or at least figure out where I put them.

We then went to look at cabinets to put electronic gear into. I feel that I need one of those, if at some point in the future I can afford one, and I figured that the whole group of us could find one. No such luck. The kids kindly explained to me that the reason I couldn't find one is that it's old-fashioned to want to hide electronic gear.

I'm sure they're right.

#2 daughter and I then went on to the Martin Luther King celebration, where my church choir sang. There was a really good speech, too, and  liturgical dancers, and some other music. It was pretty uplifting overall.

Home, then, tp pizza and movies. I am now on my third no-exercise day, eating all kinds of fattening foods, so I feel sure that my modest weight loss since New Year's has been completely undone. However, it was a fun day. #2 son and #1 daughter are both leaving today. It's been a nice visit.

It's like spring out, and I have the whole family here. We have a lot of plans for the day, though at the moment everyone is asleep.

I've missed two days of Wii Fit, and yesterday's attempt to get all our financial stuff in order for the tax guy was not that successful.

The thing about the recordkeeping... usually I can look at a situation and see what needs to be done to fix it, even if I have to hire someone or learn something to do that fixing. With the recordkeeping,  I stare at it helplessly. #1 daughter suggests that it's an attitude problem, and she could be right.

Anyway, all we came up with as a solution was to go back through all the bookkeeping from last year and redo it. That doesn't seem like a solution at all.

We have a business meeting this morning, though, and perhaps we'll break through.Then we have lunch with my parents, shopping, and singing at the Martin Luther King celebration. Somewhere in there will be cake baking.

Here it is: wonderful chair in messy office.

This isn't #2 son's mess, though. He tidied up yesterday. This is just my own workspace. It could be worse.

There was a company (I've got an NDA, so I can't tell you anything about them) that had a Big Urgent project and I scheduled them for Monday the 11th. I had a bunch of emails from them all weekend, and then on that morning got an email saying "wait." So I did nothing, until yesterday afternoon at 5:30, when I got an email from them saying, "I bet you're busy, aren't you?"

So I emailed back and forth with them a bunch more and got to the computer before 6:00 to find a new assignment from them -- one hour. I've spent more than an hour just emailing back and forth.

Ah, well. I like the guy and I hope his project goes well.

On the other hand, I've got two more contracts from the arts center and half a dozen things with the Computer Guy, and classes start next week.

I will therefore appreciate this very comfy chair.

#1 daughter arrived last night and we all had pizza and played Beatles Rock Band with the Wii. #2 daughter arrives tonight. My parents are coming over for lunch tomorrow. So here's hoping for a productive day today followed by plenty of fun with the family this weekend.

#2 son has been giving me advice. I like getting advice. #2 son just has sudden bursts of it. He sort of lectures me, actually, which #1 daughter says is a family trait.

"You're in a perfect position to do a test," #2 son informed me. "Just track the agencies and the private clients and do a profitability analysis."

He's an Econ major.

He also says that I should be more businesslike, and that I should have a regular payday for all my workers, including myself. I expect he's right.

I continue to have to make collection efforts, though, and then there's the arts center, which owes me $6000 but has just sent a mass email to all the writers saying that the payment process is a lengthy one. Since this is who I've been working for most for the past six weeks, this is kind of an issue for me.

I quit handbells, using the simple method of just not going. The director didn't say anything, so I guess he's grasped it.

In other work news, I'm having another designer issue today. I'm supposed to work with a designer for one of my IT clients who is dabbling in web design. I've tried to work with this designer before, and I find it difficult. Basically, I say "Can we get this highly important item up at the top where people will look at it?" and the designer says, "No. I have a lot of reasons I won't do that, though I'm not going to tell them to you." This is my client's problem, really, not mine, but it's frustrating for me. It keeps me from doing my best work.

Sigh.

I'm getting a seriously late start here.

My new chair arrived yesterday. While I'd like to show it to you, my office is in #2 son's bedroom, which is such a dreadful mess that there's no way I can show you the chair. However, I am sitting in it with my feet on the floor, which suggests that it's designed for sitting in, rather than perching on.

I got a piece of work from a graphic artists today. It doesn't work at all. This as never happened before, actually. Normally, I give artists this sort of vague concept of what I want and -- amazingly -- they provide a wonderful thing far better than anything I was imagining.

Now I don't quite know what to do. I could just pay and let it go, and not use it. I could ask for changes, but we didn't negotiate about that ahead of time. I'd rather do changes, myself, but if this is a start-over situation, I don't want to pay double -- the price was already at the edge of my budget. I liked this artist's portfolio very much.

So I'm not sure what to do, but I've spent way to much time this morning messing with it already...

I've already done my review of Wii Fit at Amazon, but I'm still learning things about it.

For example, after a couple of weeks of doing the 24 minute routine it gave me, I added some on and found that it celebrates with you when you hit thirty minutes. I also found that the cartoon trainer has more of a life than I realized -- yesterday the guy showed up, saying he hoped I didn't mind if he stood in for my usual trainer. He was bossier than the girl, it seemed to me. I wonder what she was doing, that she had to get him to cover her shift.

I've also learned that it gossips. "I haven't seen J for a while," it'll say. And last night it asked #2 son, "Have you heard?" and then proceeded to tell him that I wasn't doing the full required 30 minutes every day.

On the other hand, it will congratulate you when you've lost .2 pounds since your last workout, which no one else is going to do.

#1 son got back to class yesterday. He says his classes all seem pretty abstract, which I suppose is a good thing.