From the category archives:

Living Up To Full Potential

Another 365 Chances

December 29, 2009 Going Green

It’s hard to believe that 2009 is almost over and the second decade of the millennium will begin in a couple of days.  It has been a memorable year, in many ways, and I am counting all of the blessings and lessons that have made it significant.
Aside from evaluating the past, have you also started [...]

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LOVE Before And After Makeovers

November 2, 2009 Living Up To Full Potential

I just returned from the home of a client I’d worked with previously. When I first met the woman, who is in her late 40s, she’d hired me to redecorate four rooms. At the end of her consultation she asked if I had ever helped clients with personal styling, too. I explained that I have [...]

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Positivity

May 11, 2009 Living Up To Full Potential

I love my work but it wasn’t always that way.
My first two jobs were in publishing: I started with a small publishing house and then moved to a large firm. Ultimately, I realized that I just didn’t like working in an office. For me, a 9 to 5 job was a bummer. (Ironically, the idea [...]

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You And I Are Rich, Today

March 9, 2009 Living Up To Full Potential

Instead of obsessing on the soft real estate market and watching stocks gyrate, here is what I have been focusing on, recently, to make myself feel good:
1. Making sure I take time to exercise regularly. I really need that endorphin release.
2. Eating healthfully so that I have energy to deal with day-to-day stuff, whether business [...]

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Take It From Teddy

February 23, 2009 Living Up To Full Potential

It seems that a lot of people are spending more time at home, which is making them very conscious of all of the things that don’t look good or are not functioning properly. Most folks aren’t putting their homes up for sale right now nor are they making expensive purchases but they are trying to [...]

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Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are

February 17, 2009 Living Up To Full Potential

It has come as a surprise to me to find out that people are actually reading this blog. Because based on the number of comments I’ve been getting on the posts, recently – a few here and there – I had absolutely no idea. In person and by email folks have been giving me feedback [...]

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Beyond Decorating

November 14, 2008 Living Up To Full Potential

At a party last weekend, I chatted with an acquaintance who had brought along a woman he’d been dating for several years. As he and I spoke – she was across the room with the host – the man leaned in and said, ” Do you know, why Melanie and I haven’t gotten married?” I [...]

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One Vote, One Country

November 4, 2008 Living Up To Full Potential

At 6:15 this morning the sound of a helicopter, whirring over my Manhattan apartment building, woke me up.  I smiled as I realized that the news chopper was hovering in order to report on the already long lines snaking around the local polling place, two blocks away. Election Day was off to a great start.
Like [...]

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When Time Is No Longer About Money

September 9, 2008 Living Up To Full Potential

Last week I had dinner with my aunt and uncle. She is a PhD, who retired from teaching at a major university two years ago and he is an executive who still travels around the world for business meetings, hesitant to give up his work. After speaking with them that evening, it seemed apparent that [...]

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Which Do You Choose?

September 5, 2008 Living Up To Full Potential

On Wednesday, my client and I spent a bit of time together in taxicabs as we went from place to place that day, shopping for furnishings for her home. As we rode cross-town to look for some lighting, she told me about her very young daughter who would not cooperate when she didn’t get her [...]

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Checking Off or Checking Out

August 27, 2008 Living Up To Full Potential

I’m a list maker (isn’t everybody?) and the sort of person who usually must finish my tasks before I can take it easy. The good news is that I accomplish a lot on most days; the bad news is that I don’t relax enough. Fortunately, my husband, Joe, and I work together and he knows [...]

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Effort-less

August 15, 2008 Living Up To Full Potential

Yesterday, as he was cutting my hair, my stylist Jay and I had one of our usual stimulating chats. Jay always seems to have an interesting anecdote or restaurant recommendation but he, instead, shared something that he’d just read: “The difference between having an ordinary life and an extraordinary life is effort.”
We nodded at each [...]

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Innovation Nation

July 16, 2008 Living Up To Full Potential

Over the last century, the U.S. has been an extraordinarily creative place. From the towering images of four beloved presidents carved into Mount Rushmore to the sleekly advanced new iPhone 3G, design has had an impact on nearly every aspect of our daily life. American ingenuity has dramatically affected the structures we live in and [...]

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A Home That Reflects You

June 18, 2008 Living Up To Full Potential

Today I worked with a woman whose home made her feel bad every time she walked through the door. The problem wasn’t the space nor her things. She liked most of her furnishings but she had a common problem: Her home looked and felt dated and seemed to represent who she was a decade [...]

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Whatever You Have

June 14, 2008 Living Up To Full Potential

If you believe, as I do, that every day is a gift, not to be taken for granted, and if you aspire to use whatever talents you have been blessed with, I hope that this blog will inspire you and give you the courage to do whatever you love most so that you can live [...]

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Welcome to My New Blog

June 10, 2008 Living Up To Full Potential

‘So happy you’ve dropped by!
Today has special significance: My husband, Joe, and I are celebrating our wedding anniversary and it is also the anniversary of the Interior Refiners Network. Therefore, I have chosen this fortuitous day to launch my new blog.

With this new addition to my website home, I hope you will feel as though [...]

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