See how cool my rocket ship turned out to be?

We're about to launch one site and move on to another, so I got them printed up. I think this is how you put them together, though I can't swear to it.

Yesterday I went back to the optometrist. I go to the optometrist every year or two. My prescription hasn't changed in years, and they always marvel over this and tell me how lucky I am.

However, last month they also said that the pressure in one of my eyes had increased. So I had to go back yesterday, and it had increased some more.

There's fluid inside your eyes. That's what makes them round. Your body makes fresh fluid and drains away the old fluid so the eyes stay the right size for seeing things and fitting in the head and so forth. If the body gets carried away and makes too much fluid, or fails to drain it off properly, your eyes aren't going to work well. This is called "glaucoma." There's no cure or prevention for it. People with glaucoma have to take medication for it for their entire lives.

Naturally, my initial response is to reject this false claim of Satan. However, I was thinking, as the doctor was telling me that I needed more tests in order to get a diagnosis, that this is the first time I've ever had a diagnosis.

Now, I guess that's not true. Whenever they tell you that you've got the flu or poison ivy or something, I suppose that's a diagnosis. But my medical experience is mostly limited to having babies. I've never actually gotten a Diagnosis. I have trouble fathoming a health condition that can't be cured by clean living and waiting around for it to go away.

So I'm glad that I get to go have my tests this morning, rather than living in suspense. I hope they don't cost much, but I'm also glad that I have insurance.

I also like the fact that the fluid in question is aqueous humor, which sounds quite fun. There is also something called the Zonule of Zinn involved in this process, and you know I love that.

My optometrist tells me that I'll enjoy the tests today. "You'll find them fascinating," she said. I have buried drusen, which messes up my peripheral vision anyway, and also I am no good at field-of-vision tests. These are sort of like video games. I took a long one yesterday, and tried very hard, but my score suggested that I'm completely blind, which we know is not the case. This is the score I always get, too, so looking back at previous test scores didn't help. So I'm going to the Eye Center, where apparently they have better tests.

The doctor doesn't think, by the way, that I have glaucoma. However, she points out that glaucoma causes blindness, so we can't just ignore the possibility.

I'm trying not to think about the enormous number of things I have to do today, none of which can be done in an optometrist's office.

Do you ever wonder how you get on mailing lists?

Oh, not in a "Where do babies come from?" way. We all know that our names and addresses get sold. For some businesses, that's their main source of revenue.

But I do sometimes wonder how I get onto particular mailing lists. Like, why do I get catalogs filled with garments that are easy to put on and special tools to help people with limited mobility? Or the Pyramid Collection?

The Pyramid Collection appeared in my mailbox yesterday, filled with things like corsets with buckles and  shoes with purple spider webs, not to mention vampire-themed sunglasses and vibrating briefs.

What have I done to give their marketing department the idea that I'm a likely purchaser of skull and roses rainboots?

Speaking of marketing, I met with the marketing team of a local nonprofit that supports cancer  treatment and research. I was getting them up to speed on using social media. It was very fun. For one thing, I tend to forget, now that I've been doing it for a while, just how specialized my field is. Things that I think of as very basic information were completely new and exciting to the members of the committee.

One of my favorite moments was when a glamorous young redhead squealed, "Oooh! I love to geek out like this!" Really, anything I can do to encourage this attitude among young women has to be a good thing.

I don't think that, had I accessorized my sober pants and jacket with fantasy pirate gear, I would have been taken as seriously. It just wasn't that kind of party

I can't believe I have no pictures of Easter.

I have a bad picture of the roses my aunt sent me. They're lovely, though she was surprised to see them. She had asked for a spring bouquet of tulips and hydrangeas. I just changed my table setting and used my Provencal table runner instead of the more obvious pastel and bunny stuff.

We had brass in church, and then had a very nice lunch. My parents and aunt and uncle came, and #2 son was there to represent the younger generation.

The food was good, the conversation was good. My aunt gave me lots of sound business advice. My uncle said, when they left, "Coming here always makes us feel that the world is a better place than we thought it was." That was such a nice thing to say.

Then I took the rest of the afternoon off.

Back to work. I've added another blogging gig, and may have a major social media campaign to implement -- I wrote them a plan, and they probably won't want to do it themselves. The Kennedy Center is winding up their lessons, but has asked if I'd like to write articles for them. I'm seriously behind on work, but still happy when new things come up. Not sure if that's the right attitude.

Here are the very delicious Citrus Bars I made for tomorrow's celebration.

Having been informed that my sons would indeed expect Easter baskets in the morning, I went to Target and bought quantities of Easter candy, wondering at myself as I did so.

When I got home, #2 son had arrived. He and his brother set out after lunch for a climbing competition, where #1 son won the Advanced category and #2 son won the Grand Prize. This is #2 son's third time to win the Grand Prize in the past four years. He gets new climbing shoes of his choice. #2 son was embarrassed to ask whether he would also get a prize, but it was cool that he won.

The extreme luckiness of my family continued, as #2 son got the coveted job of RA for Governor's School this summer. He's like a cat with two tails, he's so excited.

Housework day. Cleaning, baking, grocery shopping, stuff like that.

However, I still have to tell you about the little epiphany I had last night, even though it's business related. I received in the mail a copy of Being Strategic by Erika Andersen. I saw this book when Janalisa and I were visiting in the Big City. We went to Buca di Beppo and there was a 45 minute wait, so we left our names and wandered about, ending up in a large bookstore.

Janalisa was quizzing #2 daughter closely about the morning coffee arrangements at her place, so I got to prowl around through the books a bit, and I saw this one. I'm a strategic thinker, and do a lot of strategery for clients, but this book is like a workbook, and we're currently having some "How do we get from here to there?" problems in our business, so when I got home, I checked it out at Amazon. (The coffee discussion was too intense for me to buy it at the bookstore.) It's coming out in paperback, but I'm glad that I didn't wait.

Andersen makes a lot of good points. One is that we have a tendency to jump straight to solutions without sufficiently identifying the problem or the desired outcome. As you read through the book, you practice the skills with an example from your life, and I chose the CRM issue.

I started out with something like, "We need better customer relationship management" or "We need to follow up n our leads." Andersen cautions us about this: those are solutions, but we haven't actually identified any problem. I went to, "We don't follow up on our leads." So what? I have plenty of business. I don't have to follow up on leads if I don't want to -- I just felt that we should, because it's good business. Or something.

As I continued through the process -- and I won't bore you with the details, but if you need some strategic thinking assistance you should get this book -- I realized that it isn't just that everybody ought to have a CRM. It's that following up on hot leads and bringing satisfied customers back for more services will give me more control over the kind of work I have, allowing me to choose more profitable work. This in turn will allow me to hire people (my family members, for an added benefit), which will allow us all to play to our strengths and let me be busy and happy rather than overwhelmed by work or stuck with tasks I don't enjoy.

So, yeah, that's worth $900 a year (the price of Salesforce for me -- it can be as little as $60 a year or as much as $50,000 or more, depending on your precise needs). It's also worth taking the time to learn to use Salesforce systematically, and in fact it's worth taking the time to follow up with people, whether I'm a naturally friendly person or not.

It's a gorgeous day. #2 son is coming in, so I will now clean house and bake and stuff like that. It'll be great.

Hot Cross Buns for Good Friday. Whole wheat with dried fruit, which is honestly better than white with candied fruit and icing.

I went ahead and signed up for Salesforce. This is a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) program that helps you keep all your data about leads, contacts, and accounts in one place. First, this helps you actually follow up with potential clients -- something I generally don't do, because the information is never handy and also I'm so busy that I forget. In general, I have enough work on hand from people who take the initiative themselves that I just don't bother with the ones who might well hire me if I just called them back.

During the first week of the trial, I was amazed to see how many leads I had. At the end of the one-month free trial, I find that I have 16. If this is typical, and if I converted 10% of these people, then I would have another 20 projects a year -- enough to pay for a full time employee.

And this is just people who contact me. If I actually made any effort to find prospective leads, I could end up with quite a tidy little business.

The Computer Guy also points out that Salesforce gathers data. At some point in the future, the information I'm gathering now will allow me to do things like forecast sales, estimate things accurately, price things better, recognize when I'm about to get too much work -- stuff like that.

But it's definitely an investment. You have to pay for a full year, for as many people as you plan to include in it. I'm also setting up this new website, which is very much a bow at a venture. I made two scary investments in my first year of business, and both have given me excellent ROI. I'm trusting that these two scary investments will do the same.

Also, it's not magic. I have to call those people up -- or hire someone to do it. I was hoping #1 daughter would be able to do this part, but she's swamped. So I plan to get some of those phone calls made today.

I also have a lesson for the Kennedy Center on Civil War letters, and a new website project to arrange (with The Computer Guy, if he accepts) and work for my New Yorker and my Australians, and I also still have half a dozen of The Computer Guy's projects on hand.

It's also Good Friday, so I ought to make Hot Cross Buns. I hope to finish early today and go to the Tenebrae service and start getting ready for Easter.

Hi ho, hi ho!

I came back to add my photo, so I might as well tell you that I did follow up. It was easy -- all the info was there, including notes on all previous contacts, copies of their proposals, etc. Everyone seemed reasonably glad to hear from me and had good reasons for not having gotten back to me. 

The trees are blooming -- not the big show it used to be, since so many were damaged in last year's ice storm, but still cheering. We had the brass in for rehearsal last night. They pretty well drowned us out, which of course means that we can relax about the songs we're doing with them.

We're also singing Anne Herring's Easter Song, a little piece that I'm told had some crossover success as a pop song in 1974. I don't remember it. I kind of like this piece, though we don't actually know it well enough to sing it on Sunday.

As a choir, we tend to be emergency oriented.

I haven't done anything to prepare for Easter yet. I haven't kept a good Lent, either. At some point I have to clean my house and bake. Today, however, is monthly reports. I also have to write up a social media marketing plan for a hospital, and a new Services page for my New Yorker. I still have one of the Kennedy Center projects to do, too.

We're also getting down to cases with the new educational site. The Computer Guy really dislikes the girl with the light bulb whom I showed you a few weeks back. He's going to come up with some wonderful alternative. I'll still use her for something, I'm sure -- I've paid for her, after all -- but I like what he did with her vines...