The New Thirty And The Keys

"Old friends take a long time to make."

That's the sentiment embroidered on a pillow that was given to me several years ago by my dear friend Melanie. You may remember that in August, she and her husband came along on my surprise birthday cruise to Alaska. This was our second vacation together in eight weeks! Woohoo!

Melanie and I met in Mrs. Grider's kindergarten class in September of 1970. We were both five years old. We became fast friends and now, 35 years later, we still remain very close, despite the fact that she and her husband live several states away from us. We decided that since we were both turning forty this year, we should take a girls' weekend away to celebrate. By the way, if you haven't heard, forty is "The New Thirty". And smile when you say that.

We chose Key West for our vacation destination and boy was it fun! I managed to set up a book signing at the only Borders on Key West, so I did that for a few hours one day while we were there. (one photo of us at Borders is posted above). We flew into Miami on Saturday morning, rented a convertible and drove the three plus hours down to Key West. That leg of the trip was one of my favorite parts, actually, as well as the ride back up at the end of the weekend. Riding in the car, we had a chance to just hang out together, listen to music, see the sights along the highway and enjoy each other's company.

When we arrived in Key West, we were pleased to find that our bed and breakfast was lovely! It is an adorable little quaint place called The Popular House on William Street. Melanie had taken care of finding the place and making the reservations and she chose well! They had several rooms, all were charming and beautiful, and ours was on the top floor overlooking the town. A few of the pictures above show our room, as well as the view from our balcony.

We spent four days in Key West shopping, eating, shopping, drinking, shopping and just enjoying the island. Did I mention we shopped? We ate breakfast each morning outside on the lanai behind the B&B, which was a wonderful way to start the day.

One of our days, we booked an excursion on the sailboat Danger, crewed by the very handsome (and physically fit!) Danny and Haig, as well as Danny's girlfriend Jenny. The excursion included sailing, kayaking to see the mangroves, and snorkeling. The crew served us wine and snacks, and we got to know the other people on the boat, which was a lot of fun.

Back on land, we held our own Key Lime Pie taste test, the winner ended up being The Blond Giraffe. We also ate at a Caroline's on Duval Street, as well as the Half Shell Raw Bar and a Cuban place called El Maison de Pepe on Mallory Square, where I tried my first Key West Mojito. Yum!

Here's the basic recipe for a Mojito, in case you want to make one yourself:

1.5 ounces of light rum (Bacardi says to use their brand of course but any will work)
12 fresh mint leaves
Half of a fresh lime
4 teaspoons of sugar (or 2 Tbls of simple syrup)
Club soda

Muddle the mint leaves and lime in your glass and cover with sugar (or simple syrup). Add ice to the top of the glass. Add the rum and fill the glass with club soda. YUM-O-RIFIC!

All in all, we had a fantastic weekend and we have decided that our girls long weekend away should be an annual event. Got any good suggestions for next year?

First Book Signing Was A Succcess

Well, my book Organize Your Office In No Time was published on August 15th, and I held my first book signing on Sunday September 18th at a Borders in Atlanta. It was a good steady turnout (75 people came by in three hours) which isn't bad for a first time author promoting a brand new book. If you were one of the folks who came by to say hello and support me, I thank you. Here are a few pics of the book signing event from Sunday afternoon...

A Girl's Day Shopping

I admit, I'm not a typical female in many respects. The joke is when my girlfriends need the perspective of a man, they call me. :) As I get older, however, I realize I'm turning more and more into a "girl". Several few years ago I began to catch myself looking at dresses in the mall. "Hmmm how odd", I thought. I started to wear makeup a lot more often, and not just mascara. These days I'm into pretty undergarments, fun sparkly jewelry, and more feminine clothes. I even have a few more pairs of shoes than I have had in the past. So bit by bit, I'm stepping into my own version of "girlhood" that is just showing itself now.

Yesterday I spent the day with a dear girlfriend of mine and we went shopping. I'm not a huge fan of shopping really, but somehow when I go with Lisa, I always have fun and sometimes I even buy things. In fact, I think she may be a bad influence on my wallet! Anyway, yesterday during our girl's day out, I ended up with a cute new necklace and a few really great greeting cards. I've been into greeting cards for many years. From the time I was a teen, I'd keep a sizeable stash of them on hand so I'd have the appropriate card at a moment's notice. I still do that, but these days I'm even more concerned and focused on the verbiage of the cards than ever before. Yesterday I found a fabulous card that I doubt I'll ever send to anyone. I'll keep it for myself because it's the perfect encapsulation of my life's philosophy and I have it hanging above my desk. It helps me refocus my energy when I need a boost and it reminds me of why I'm busting my butt to build my business. It says LIFE ISN'T ABOUT FINDING YOURSELF. LIFE IS ABOUT CREATING YOURSELF.

To me, it says, "Take charge. Decide what you want. Decide what you don't want. Decide who you want to be. Then take action every day to move in that direction."

So even though I bought that card just for me, I'm sharing it with you. Start creating!

So It's 4:00 a.m. and The Phone Rings...

...nearly every night lately! I roll over, pick it up and it's a fax machine, whispering sweet nothings in my sleepy, aggravated ear. BEEP BEEP BEEP! And once isn't enough I guess. The thing calls two of my three phone numbers, so I get disturbed twice each night. Oh, it's lovely! When it first started happening, I thought it was a fluke. Mistakes happen, I understand. But this is getting ridiculous. Grrrrrr...

Last night when it range for the second time, I had absolutely had enough. I got out of bed, walked to my office, got out the phone book (yes, I keep one of these relics around) and looked up the code for "Call Blocking". Yahoo! There it is! I gleefully hit *60, which is supposed to block the last number that called in. Except for one minor detail... it won't block out-of-area or "unknown" callers, which my mystery fax certainly is! DRAT! Back to square one. I try hitting *57, which is "Call Trace". I have visions of telephone company Men In Black, wearing sunglasses and waiting around the seedy phone company building to see who my mystery faxer is the next time he calls me. But the call tracing service won't work with unknown callers either. DOUBLE DRAT!

I call the phone company. Surely they can help! After a long conversation with two different people, the nice lady tells me that she can upgrade my voicemail so that it will accept faxes. Which means that when my mystery faxer calls again, the fax is supposed to get saved into my voicemail, where I can later retrieve it and print it out on my fax machine. It is my hope that when I do print it, there is a name and phone number on it, so I can contact them to tell them to take me off their list, or I'll be forced to take them to small claims court where I will be awarded $500 per unsolicitied fax call that they make to me. Woohoo free money! Hey, it beats delivering pizzas, right?

The lesson here is to get your number on the DO NOT FAX registry. But wait... it's not that easy. The Bellsouth lady gave me the number for the FCC to register my numbers with them, however, when I called, I couldn't find one voice prompt to lead me in the right direction. So I went to their web site and found the same thing. I was forced to email the FCC begging them to show me where the registry lives. I'll keep you posted...

Your Attitude and Language

Given the scope of what the southern coast of the U.S. is enduring now, I felt strongly about writing the following and wanted to share it with you. Understand right up front...this is not a political statement, so please don't bother emailing me or posting comments bashing the current administration or politicizing this in any way. I hope you have enough respect me enough to honor that request. This note is about countering "human nature", eschewing the path of least resistance, and focusing on what's actually possible.

I believe it is incumbent upon us to maintain as positive an attitude as we can about this disaster in the Gulf Coast and here's why... it's oh so tempting (and easy) to jump on the bandwagon, and to adopt a gloom and doom attitude about these kind of things as they relate to the future. I have heard people saying, "we'll be crippled by this" and "this will kill our economy" and "recession is looming".

Well, I'm not that smart, but I do know one thing is for sure... If people keep SAYING it, it WILL become a self-fulfilling prophecy. So why don't we try to NOT join in the doomsday predictions? Let's NOT revel in the drama and play the blame game. How about we choose instead to take the high road and do what we can to help out, while continuing to keep the economy rolling as best we can instead of griping about it and spreading more negativity. We didn't let 9/11 ruin us and we can't let this thing either -- but if we don't have positive attitudes and high expectations for the future, we will cause our own ruin. And that benefits nobody.

Self-fulfilling prophecy is absolutely a truism. When someone (and it's often started in the negative media) yells "POSSIBLE GAS SHORTAGE", people panic and start hoarding gas and well, imagine that... surprise! You created a gas shortage.

Go ahead and yell "WATER SHORTAGE", you'll have people panic and start hoarding water and there you have it... you've created a water shortage.

Alan Greenspan yells "THE HOUSING BOOM IS OVER" and people begin believing that it's true, so they stop buying/building and there you have it... you've created your own reality just by speaking it.

It's important to understand that the thoughts we hold in our minds and the words we use are incredibly powerful influencers of the state of our own lives and the lives of those around us. The more we all say keep saying something, the more power we give it, then the greater number of people believe it, and THEY continue to say it and it spreads like a cancer. And then out of fear, people act on what they've heard and said AS IF IT'S TRUE, which causes it to come to fruition.

After 9/11, a lot of people said they weren't going to let the threat of terrorism stop them from living their lives. Many didn't, and they continued to travel, buy things, invest, etc. and yeah things were a little tough for little while, but we got through it and our economy weathered it.

It is my firm belief that our language and thoughts create our world. And right now we should all be thinking AND saying to others in our regular dealings every day, "The situation is hard right now but we're resilient, we'll adjust and we'll be fine". I believe by continuing to spread this positive, hopeful, confident attitude for the future, that it feeds itself. It creates and spreads public confidence and we can create a positive reality, just by speaking it among our own circles of friends and associates. I urge you to believe, think and speak confidently and positively about the future. If you agree, you are welcome to help spread the positive energy by sending a link to this to those you care about.

My very best to you,
Monica