Dear Melissa,

Grounded and glad of it! Done with travel for a little while, on the business side. I'm now focusing on when I can grab a long weekend to retreat up to Highlands, NC and catch up with friends. I miss the clarity of the mountain air, and the delight of being truly unhooked from technology.

Change Your Interiors, Change Your Life! 209 Tips for Home Improvement that Will Change Your Life. My latest book features bite-sized tidbits for both DIY weekend warriors or craft challenged homeowners that need easy improvements. It was a sellout at the Galleria Home Show just last weekend. Get your copy today! I've included a $50 certificate off of any Home Review, so you can get professional expertise to start you on your way.

Worry No More! There has been an outpouring of concern over my home not yet sold. I'm not worried; I'm simply ready for the right buyer! Please, this is a slow market, but still hopping here in Brookhaven. I am NOT moving until I get sold, so you'll know where to find me until then. Just send positive thoughts my way and between us all, that right buyer will be here any day! Besides I've gone from making this my home, to merely my house and being the caretaker until the next buyer makes it theirs. It's all good.

Live Well and By Design,

MG

"Enjoyment of life is not the presence of something outside ourselves; it is the absence of something within ourselves. Gloom is a state of inner blockage of your True Self; enjoyment is its release. Just as a balloon rises to greater heights by discarding weights, so do we ascend as we toss out negativities."
~ Vernon Howard
from Psycho-Pictography

Ever get the feeling that you aren't a human being anymore but really a human doing? I certainly do. When was the last time you simply stopped all the busyness and spent time just being you?

So many of us get trapped being busy, but not being productive. We have a myriad of irons in the fire, but lack the focus for anything to come to fruition (yes, I'm guilty too.) What I have learned is that when I can stop the noise of busy and the franticness associated with keeping all the balls in the air, and I simply step back and be for an hour or a weekend, I gain much needed perspective.

Being entails thinking and feeling, not simply acting. All too frequently we mistake motion for accomplishment. Often those who accomplish the most are the least busy among us. I am reminded of a friend from college, who put herself through school with not one but two jobs, got straight A's at an Ivy League institution, and never missed a party. She never appeared frantic or even busy, but got it all done and well. That isn't a matter of luck, but a matter of choice.

The reality is we each have a choice in how we live and how we work. Look closely at the choices you are making and remember that doing is not a substitute for being. At the end of the day, who we are is far more important than what we do.

Recently, I got an unpleasant surprise in the mail. It was a communication from an attorney's office regarding a fellow speaker's trademark phrase. I did not use the same phrase in fact but they considered that what I was using was an infringement. I had also taken pains to trademark my phrase.

Now, this isn't about copyrighting and trade marking, but instead about communication. The fellow speaker is someone I had met and actually had dinner with in a group in the last year. Her specialty is corporate communication skills. I found this somewhat (if not deeply) ironic.

Had she been truly versed in communication, it would have taken only a simple phone call and a polite discussion to determine if there is truly a problem and the best resolution.

Instead she has created a great deal of ill will and anxiety involving expensive attorneys who will, no doubt, be the only beneficiaries in this transaction. It frustrates and disappoints me to consider that in this day and age of virtuality and cyberspace, a real live voice to voice communication is so rare and yet so needed.

Before you go off the deep end, hiring litigious experts in your business or personal life, consider if there is another option. Perhaps an open discussion, polite and professional will be just as effective and far less costly both in dollars and in sense.

While we are still suffering a serious drought here in Atlanta, Spring is budding regardless and my front garden was calling for some care. I needed to replace some decorative kale that didn't make it this winter and dress the beds around my cherry and plum trees. As I was opening up the soil, and gently loosening the plants that had been confined to pots, now ready for planting, it occurred to me that this is exactly what many of us need. We need to shake up our roots!

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:
AirTran vs. Delta

Now I know some of you will think I'm cracked, but being a Delta frequent flyer I know their service or lack thereof very well. I recently took an AirTran flight as Delta's fares were ridiculous for this particular adventure. I was skeptical having only flown AirTran one other time. It was easy, efficient and surprisingly pleasant.

On the outbound flight, I upgraded for a whopping $40 and got a seat bigger than any first class I've flown in awhile. To their credit, they didn't attempt to wake me when they served a snack (that always makes me nuts!) And while the flight attendants were much younger and greener than on most Delta flights, their smiles were more ready and their willingness to accommodate flier requests apparent.

I'd fly AirTran again, and that is a mouthful as I love my fflyer miles and points and tend to resist flying without a seat assignment made from the comfort of my computer. It was worth the savings and the comfy ride.

Well, I thought I was prolific, but can't touch the new trend in Tokyo. It seems that novels are now being composed on cell phone keypads by young women with dexterous thumbs and read by fans on their tiny mobile screens. Of the last decade's ten best-selling novels, five were originally cell phone compositions.

One young author, only 21 years old, wrote over a 6-month stretch during her senior year in high school, while commuting to her part time job. When it went hardcover, she sold 400,000 copies (not a typo!)

So for those of you complaining you don't have time to write, you've got one less excuse! You no longer need the comfort of your office or the convenience of your laptop, but can create your next bestseller on your cell phone, stuck in traffic!