Adventures in Marketing

I am SO excited - we've finally decided to put an ad on myballard.com, the fabulous blog of all things Ballard, which I've been enjoying following since I moved here last summer. I'm going to be making a coupon for my fellow Ballard-ites to clip out with a deal that is even better than the Sunshine Special that I'm currently running (see the flyer above.) That's how much I love the Ballard.

Damien Jones, my fantastic partner in many ventures and recently titled "VP of Marketing," has been working tirelessly on different ideas for promoting my massage practice. My old ways of yellow pages and sandwich-board sign on the sidewalk just don't fit here, even in the relative small-townish-ness of Ballard. While he has tried out ads on Facebook and helped reorganize and "Google-juice" my website, I have been talking to other massage therapists and small business owners.

The most helpful of these has been Laura of Laura Bee Designs, who generously met with me over coffee to discuss our respective businesses. She had many good suggestions, my favorite of which was to start a blog - hence the creation of onehappyduck. It also quickly became apparent that her success has come out of a genuine warmth and enthusiasm as well as a good eye for design. I was inspired to trust that the quality of the service I'm providing, given the encouragement of some good promotion, will eventually build back up to a practice that is thriving at least as well as my old one in Bellingham.

Which is to say, "thank you" - to all the people who have given good suggestions and encouragements, come in for massages and written reviews. I am so grateful to be doing this work and to have so much support in making it happen.

Sidewalks, cherry blossoms and herbal remedies

On Thursday I decided that Green Lake was too crowded, and that instead I would take short run in my own lovely neighborhood of Ballard. It was sunny and warm, and all down my street were cherry trees bursting with beautiful white and pink blossoms. There's something particularly joyful about cherry blossoms to me - I always notice them when I'm running in the spring and they make me feel like a whole world of possibilities is unfolding.

Unfortunately, I only made it about a block from my house before I met an uneven wedge of sidewalk with my foot and fell, hard, onto the cement. Fortunately, I did so in front of the home of a wonderful woman who came out and put icy wet towels on my bloody knees while her husband joked with me and offered to walk me home.

Things this reminded me to love:
- icy wet towels
- calendula cream, which soothes cuts, scrapes and burns, and arnica cream, which helps reduce bruising and inflammation
- living in a neighborhood that feels like a small town, in the best way
- the amazing things the body does to heal itself (how convenient that I'm learning about blood right now in my Anatomy & Physiology class!)
- cherry blossoms