October 13. Thursday Night.

Hi Journey.

All day yesterday just lurked about inside the shop; I couldn't seem to get going. I had no appointments, only a ton of paperwork to grind through. Still, I usually try and ring up one client and chat. Some days even I get the Blues, Journey. Seems worse when it's hot, and yesterday was a scorcher.

Today was better. I read through the results from our annual Postcard WriteBack Campaign. A piece of my soul yearned to pitch a tent out in the backyard and sift through the responses by the soft glow of a battery-powered lantern. A third of those long ago cloud-gazing summer days with Sisi had eased into star-gazing nights. More than once Dad had to get out of bed and trundle out to the yard to shut off the propane on his Coleman camping lantern after we'd fallen asleep. That was before Casey came along and we bought the telescope.

And that was when I had a backyard.

WriteBack Day. Third annual. I still dread it.

Not the answers, Journey. I love the answers. It's just that I don't look forward to the drudgery of sifting through all the response cards one after the other after yet another all in the same sitting. But, don't know how else to get a feel for what the clients really think about our shop. Running the stream of comments in front of my eyes slots me in a groove where I can really grab a feel for how our clients actually perceive us.

Joni dreamed up the concept a little over two years ago and shared it during one of our first Bloom Team meetings. Each year we refine the process. This year Joni lets the cards trickle in for a month and simply cached them in a desk drawer. Then, 30 days after we first send out the little survey, I read them in one sitting.

We received 19 more responses this year than last.

Again this year Joni spread-sheeted all the checkbox results on one page. That first year when I (tried) to tally I all myself I actually cried. The next year I took Joni up on her offer to add up the responses. Still, I have to look at every care—over half of them wrote a note to me.

This year I plowed through the chore down at CoHo. Extra early. Pre-rewarded myself with a double-espresso and just a few (true, Journey, I swear!) chocolate espresso beans.

OK—and a biscotti. But the plain one, not the chocolate-slathered type that usually seduces me.