love your work Tag

July 29, 2021 In BLR Lifestyle, North Carolina, Uncategorized

this is getting ridiculous

What’s ridiculous?

Time flying by. Or standing still? My assumption is that many of you can relate to that feeling over the past year and a half.

So?

Here I am, right on point for another how has it been so long since I’ve posted here?! post.

Hey peeps!

Last word here was I had gotten hitched and was in the process of passing the big test to get my real estate license. That post was last YEAR. (What the?) That is seriously ridiculous.

Time warp or something?

For sure.

I’ve always been a pretty hard worker, but during the past lockdown/Covid/stay-at-home/what end is up? year and a half, I have gone full-monty work addicted and just recently realized (after losing my…ahem…a couple times), I needed rehab from YES! SURE! NO PROBLEM!

So I am playing catch up now, and breathing a little bit.

We humans have done and felt all kinds of crazy things over the past 500 or so days, losing our minds, ourselves, and all “normalcy.” I happened to replace all my social activities, community events, tropical travel, and other big adventures that typically keep me sane…with work. The good thing is, I passed my real estate test on the first try, dancing out of the testing center at midnight, and I’ve helped a LOT of people (clients) since, make big life changes or get into their dream homes! The bad thing is I never read all those books I was going to while things were shut down. The good thing is Jason and I walked about a zillion miles at to entertain ourselves most days, and I got pretty good at selfies, because, well…we were just with ourselves. The bad thing is my gym that I used to spend 4 to 5 days at a week at the most fun booty shaking classes shut down for months on end and now is open but pretty much all my favorite classes are never coming back. The good thing is, business is slammed busy, the bad thing is, it’s really hard to say no when you work for yourself.

The best thing on any day is that we are alive and healthy.

Even if I never fully learn not to burn the candle at all ends, I always learn a little bit more about myself. I still absolutely love my work, living on this Blue Lollipop Road, and being able to have the freedom to write my own story.

Here’s a little montage from the past blur of a zillion days: Showing houses masked up, taking walks, celebrating house closing day with bubbly, taking our first flight in months this spring, and bike riding to preview homes for clients…

I’m so glad to be here again. As always, this is my most favorite place in the whole wide world.

I hope you have realized and recognized some things about yourself and life during this twilight zone-esque 2020 and 2021. I realized I’ve totally sucked as self-care, so I’m letting myself sleep a little more now. My biggest takeaway lesson is once again…we never have any idea what is going to happen in this life, so we may as well live while we are living.

Here’s to self reflection and catching yourself before you go too far down a rabbit hole in the wrong direction.

#CelebrateEveryday #LoveYourWork #LifeOnTheBlueLollipopRoad

August 30, 2019 In Uncategorized

back to school already?!

Y’all! (Like that southern charm?) It has been a BIII-ZEEEEEEEE (busy) summer! Holy guacamole. (Love that stuff.)

Humongo projects with downsizing 5,000 sq ft houses, travels to Vermont, for fun, family, and other, Pro Athlete client move across the country (hello flying for work…so fun and yes, sky miles, and wow lots of shoes), weddings, graduations, retirement celebrations, preparing client homes to go on the market, our birthdays and engagement (wha?!), off to Florida and overseas shortly, and did I mention more work, meetings, work, meetings, and boom, its nearly September?

30 seconds of summer!

At least I made it to the gym today before yet another work meeting with my partner in crime, at the coolest place that’s opened in Charlotte since Charlotte became Charlotte. (Ok, so the USNWC is a super awesome favorite as well.) Messy, frizzy hair don’t care:

When you work for yourself, you’re a hustla, baby. Sometimes you change in a bathroom, and have to go without a shower after getting your sweat on, so you can fill your pipeline with next opportunities. Sometimes weeks pass without a break, then you take a big one. Sometimes you wonder how you haven’t come up for your own air, and then realize it’s because you’ve been filling client lungs with what they need to breathe.

We help people get unstuck. We LOVE what we do. We declutter lives to clear paths for whatever’s next for the people who hire us, dealing with the most stressful all-consuming times they might ever have. (Then WE are all-consumed.) When we are on 24/7, we know we’re making a difference by being the trusted guide by someones side when they often don’t even know what end is up. It’s exhausting at times, but after we get the red carpet rolled out for our clients next adventures, we always make time for our own.

What’s next for you?

We hope your summer was BIII-ZEEEEEEEE (busy…the good kind) like ours. We also hope that you won’t ever be afraid to go out with messy hair so you can keep creating the life you want.

#LoveYourWork #LifeOutsideTheDroneZone #LessWaitingMoreDoing

January 29, 2019 In Uncategorized

downsize-o-rama

For anyone who thinks working for yourself would be awesome, you’re right. If you think after you start, you’ll also:

Get rich

Have easy as pie days

Always wear pretty things

Feel glamorous

Sleep 8+ hours a night

Actually be done when you walk out the door

…you’re crazy.

I’m on a 10 day straight run of work like mad, time crunch, let’s get this house on the market now, I’ll sleep later, run. Just 2 more days before break time.

Have it any other way? No, thanks. As my friend Aaron says, I’d rather work 80 for myself any week, before I work 40 for someone else.

AMEN! (And also, we spent the holidays in the Caribbean, so being the boss means you get to choose when to burn the candle at both ends at work, then relax while you light one on the table next to you at the beach as you sip on a corona:)

We finished up a 5,000 square foot purge, organize, and stage to sell in Charlotte, NC last week, then Team BLR directly road tripped up to VA for a much smaller 1,700 square foot home project, filled with lots more than the bigger one had. (Yes! We LOVE to travel to clients. From Texas to Tokyo…we can do it! Call us. We will come to YOU anywhere.) Let the open all drawers and closets, and SEE everything, begin! You’ve got to make a mess, before you make it better. (That’s with everything in life, right?)

(In case you missed above, yes, this is the glamorous uniform I sport in my “office” each day.)

Whoa. Lots of stuff! Intimidated? Never. We aren’t done with this current project yet, but here’s a good idea of a before and after:

This is only just taking off/out/away the piles, and coverings, and repurposing furniture around the house. We snapped this quick photo before we ran out the door tonight, and might change things around another 10 times, but oh the freedom of light, space, and what’s already there to stage if you don’t have the money/time/need to stage with furniture brought in!

Yay.

The best feeling is that we know this client we are working with on this downsize, will soon move closer to her grown kids, grand kids, have less to maintain/less work to keep up with around her next smaller space, and she’ll be able to relax and have more time to do what she loves.

Less stuff. More freedom. Happy life.

YAHTZEE!

Are you ready to get unstuck?

Ok, better hop in the shower and put on something other than my BLR sweatshirt and old jeans so I can get out for date night dinner, all fresh and clean, with my partner in crime. I’m not sure he’s seen me in anything but that uniform in quite some time…

#LiveSimpleDoMore #LoveYourWork #TodayIsTheDay

June 18, 2018 In Links, North Carolina, People, Photos

and then she crawled on the floor

I don’t know how swanky your job is, but mine often looks like this:

Since my last post, nearly 2 months ago (how the heck does 2 months later always happen?), I have been BIZ-EEE. If I had small children, they may have been starved by this point. I really don’t know how moms and dads do it all. Hats off once again, to all you parents in the world for keeping yourselves clothed and fed (let alone other small humans), while you work, and do a zillion other things.

The above photo shows me attempting to pull myself up from the dark pantry bottom shelf floor of a client home last week. Those clients took their 2 young kiddos off on a cross-country road trip to their new home in Texas, and I wrapped up everything for them in North Carolina. I’m often the last one to walk through, the last set of eyes on each corner or drawer, and the one who hands the keys in, to a place where lots of memories were made. I love my job.

This past several weeks during the spring client move madness, I haven’t slept much, and social time has been fairly limited. Balance? Not really. It’s been go, go, go, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. My friend Aaron:

“I’d rather work 80 for myself, than 40 for someone else, any week of my life.”

I agree. The hustle is not glamorous, but at the end of the day if I’m still smiling and helping people get to the life they want, that’s all the fancy I ever need. Thumbs up!

Here’s to showing up, getting dirty, and knowing you make a difference.

#LoveYourWork #LifeOutsideTheDroneZone #AlwaysLookingUp

January 25, 2018 In Be active, Business, Cool companies, Great companies, grow, Inspiration, Links, Live the life you want to live, North Carolina, Operation Charlotte, People, Photos, Projects & Organizations I dig, Today Is The Day

celebrate everyday: day 24

1.24.18

Today I celebrate entrepreneurs, because it takes a lot to keep the hustle going when you work for yourself:

I went to F*ck Up Night a Advent Coworking tonight. F*ck Up Night is, you guessed it…an event where a panel of entrepreneurs share their stories about how they got to where they are, and all their f*ck ups along the way.

The kind of passion, drive, and hustle it takes to work for yourself is not for the weak or tired, to say the least. There’s a whole lot of regular “Why don’t you just go get a real job?” and other ridiculous opinions we’ve all heard, as we scrape the last penny out of the bank account, put in another late night, and wake up early to pound the pavement again. Those things would make most people break down and cry like babies. (And we have at times.) But! Figuring out ways to navigate this crazy world and make a living doing what you love and believe in so hard core, even your hero couldn’t talk you out of doing it? That, is pretty f*cking awesome. And totally worth the expenditure of those blood, sweat, and tears days.

NEVER GIVE UP!

Does something you overhear in a conversation at a cocktail party make you want to jump over the appetizer table, knocking over the hostess as you spill your martini, just so you can be talking about it, too? I think you’ve found your thing, baby. Go for it.

You know what you love to do. It’s ok to feel like you want to punch someone in the face next time they tell you you’re nuts to chase the life you want. You don’t have to punch them, just keep looking straight ahead, and let all that bs outside noise fall far behind you.

What lights your fire?

#LoveYourWork #StartDriving #LifeOutsideTheDroneZone

*Ready to join the hustler club, but don’t know where to start? Call me! (804.339.6514) I can help.