Artsy Lydia

Now you see it….

… and now you don’t!

This past weekend I went to TLC Laser Eye Center to see if I was a good candidate for LASIK eye surgery. Spoiler alert: I’m not.

Even though LASIK is for people with bad eyesight, it is possible to have eyesight that is too bad for LASIK. My contact prescription is at about a -9 in each eye. That, coupled with my “average thickness corneas” make LASIK a bit unsafe for me. I guess you need to have thick corneas So that LASIK doesn’t totally ruin your eyes.

I was disappointed by this news, but all hope was not lost. I am still a good candidate for PRK eye surgery. I had never heard of PRK prior to several days ago. It’s similar to LASIK, but the recovery time tends to be longer and the results aren’t as instant.

If you get LASIK on a Friday, you can probably go back to work on Monday. If you get PRK, you are looking at about a week off from work…. Maybe even two. And it could be up to 3 months until your eyes fully heal and your sight is finally at its best.

I’m pretty scared about the week following my surgery. My vision will be better than what it was without contacts or glasses, but still fairly blurry and super light sensitive. I won’t be able to work or read or watch movies while I’m recovering. I hate taking time off work, but I’m lucky in that I won’t have to use any vacation days. If I’m off for more than 7 consecutive days it counts at short term disability. If I can’t make it back to work in under 7 business days, then it will just count as sick days.

I’m determined to have better eyesight, even though the process will be scary. Now all I have left to do is pick a surgery date. Wish me luck.

I have a confession to make. I love stats! Is that weird?

Etsy has this great stats tool that lets seller see what buyers are searching for and how they arrived at your store. Here’s what search terms have led people to my store since January 1st:

Pinwheels! Lots of pinwheel searches, but no one has purchased any of my pinwheel related items. What does this tell me? I’m not selling the right thing! This month I’m going to put up some different pinwheel related items and see what sticks. I have a feeling that people just want straight up pinwheels, like the kind I had at my wedding:

Which of my items have people been looking at? 

Notebooks! Yay! People are really interested in these notebooks. I have a few ideas in store for that category. We’ll see how it goes!

Here are the items that people have added to their favorites: 

Notebooks are doing well here, too. I’m going to try some different color variations to see if that gets more interest. I’m open to options! Any ideas of what I could change in order to turn those views into sales? 

Ampersands in Helvetica and Times New Roman…. for all of you serif AND sans serif types out there.

Ampersand notebooks available here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/ArtsyLydia