Yesterday, there was snow and leftover birthday cake. My workshop was canceled (it was at a school, and teachers do not go in for a workshop when it snows), so I stayed at home plying the Dark Art.

If you don’t continually work for links and rankings, you slip down. Does it matter? I have no idea. There was one day when the store blog had an amazing and completely unforeseen spike of traffic from having amazingly and unforeseenly popular content. It was fun to watch the climb on the front page of Google, and I certainly did wish that that particular post had linked people to some expensive item in the catalog or something, but the leap in traffic did not actually result in a leap in sales. Nor is it likely that I could replicate that occurence. Usually it seems that all you can do is slog along harvesting links and hope there is some effect on the traffic, and that the traffic has some effect on the bottom line.

I also spent some time with my planner, developing goals and plans for the future in a spirit of post-birthday insouciance.

I took inspiration from fellow xangans.

Dexter had a link to DIY planner, where I found some excellent printable pages for my planner, and I went ahead and processed my Ubiquitous Captures into a collection of projects, with Next Steps and everything. (Do you hate specialized jargon? Does it feel as though you’re being excluded, unless you are willing to go look up the Special Words? Sorry. I still haven’t read that book, but I think the terminology is cute.)

Canadian National told us about a little gig she got at myzip.net, so I went over and applied, and I got the job, too! So did Chanthaboune! $50 a month is not riches, but the work sounds fun and easy, and even public-spirited. Maybe you would like to do it, too. I think they have lots of openings.

I also got a phone call asking me to help with a regional presentation on the history of hymns. Mid-1700s to Mid-1800s, and the caller said she and the rest of the committee had found the information a bit dry. They were hoping I could help them jazz it up.

Very likely she and the rest of the committee were expressing themselves more forcefully, in private there, when someone said, “You know, fibermom loves that stuff.”

“You’re kidding,” someone must have said.

“Oh, no, I’m not!” the first would have protested. “You should hear her telling the entire —YAWN — history of ‘Rock of Ages.’ You just can NOT shut her up about it.”

Someone else might have mumbled that I could also get pretty carried away about the megafauna of prehistoric North America, but she would probably have been quashed by the chorus of people suggesting that someone get me to do the presentation.

I’m looking forward to it.

I agreed to help plan the Mother’s Day service at church as well.

All I can say is, it’s a good thing no one came to my door selling vacuum cleaners yesterday.