There has been more than once this summer when my children have accompanied me to the office.  They don’t mind so much as we have an upstairs conference room complete with a white board, dry erase markers, TV, and VCR. It’s practically a playground.

I went upstairs to have them clean up – it was time to go home. What I saw when I got up there gave me a chuckle. Sometimes I miss the most obvious things.

It took this post by Phil over at Make it Great to turn the light on. My ten year old had mastered the basics, and I missed it.

My 10 year old, with the help of her 6 year old sister, had drawn a beautiful series of castles. Colorful and bright, they even had the royalty that lived there. Evidently, these castles were my new listings – and Madison was going to teach me how to sell them.

Three Tips to Real Estate

1. Use good manners
2. Niceness
3. Have fun at it

I guess that about sums it up – and not just in the real estate market.  I mean, obviously there are other things…but without these three, I find it hard to believe the others will hold much water.

I love going into the office. There is something about going into work, being surrounded by activity, and being in the midst of it all seems to be energizing and useful.

I can’t go into the office all the time. As a mom, sometimes I need to be home. And I don’t mind that either. In the summertime, you can bet that most of my work is done from the house. School is out and the kids need me here – and they are my first priority.

I loved the article over at LifeHacker that talked about the concept of working from home. Not so much because of its message, but because it made me shake my head and wonder if I was the only one whose home office consisted of a laptop, printer, DSL and Dora the Explorer. But the emphasis on finding a happy medium is an important one.

It seems that (reading through the comments) most folks work from home when they “need to get things done.” That is not the world I live in. We bought our house two children ago. With 4 bedrooms, I really thought we were buying too much house. Two more children later, I have lost my office (4th bedroom), and my dining room (playroom).

The idea to move the office into the playroom was good, in theory. When I worked from home, I could do what I needed to do while still being able to watch the children. However, I don’t get the residual “work at home benefits” of reduced distractions. Most projects take longer to finish and have to be triple checked for errors.

But then I consider Wendy’s question,”What’s your happy medium?”

An office in the world and an office in the playroom. My office is my grown up place and I do get more work done there. My playroom office is my mommy place. I realize how fortunate I am for the children that are mine and the career that allows me do have the Wiggles playing in the background.

We all have balancing acts that we tweak on a regular basis to get all that we can out of life. Mine consist of family, profession, and community. I am curious as to what scales others use, and how they know when they are tilted.

I was going to post the Bloggy Contest here…decided it fit better at Beautiful Chaos.

You can find it here.

Have fun!

Woo hoo! It is a great Sunday to be me!

 I am offically an SOB. Much thanks to Liz for her constant inspiration, encouragment and “heart smiles.” Getting to know her has been one of the biggest benefits of blogging to date. I am humbled to know she thinks I am kinda cool too!

Also found out I won Christine Kane’s new CD, A Friday Night in One Lifetime. She held a drawing for thirteen of them as part of the Thursday Thirteen. My name was on the list!

And it’s not even lunch time!

Typically this is the kind of stuff I would post over at Beautiful Chaos, but, there was just enough “business” stuff to leave it over here.

Long story incredibly short (insert signature “tick, tick” 24 sound effect here for maximum effect).

• Supposed to go to a Sand Gnats game for a WBA night out. This means getting work done early, babies packed up for grandma’s house, and the older kids ready to go – whew.
• Drop babies off, running late, get to ball park. Hurricane like conditions unleash a fury on the ground. Where in the world did THAT come from?
• Get into the stadium – we are soaked. Rain delay

Insert more “tick, tick, tick” here – about 2 hours worth. Do you know how much food, junk, sodas, etc. kids can consume in two hours? It is unbelievable.

• Game finally starts. It is so late, we make it three innings before the kids start to suffer from “cotton candy crash.” Pack it up and take it to the house.
• Exhausted, so wonderful, night owl hubby has the sweetest suggestion to drop me and the two older girls off at home and he will go retrieve the two younger.
• Sleep!

Typically, this begins a new 24 hour period. It did not feel like a new 24 hour period when I woke up late this morning, so we will continue.

• Woke up late. No time to check email, go through reader, or post…I hate that.
• Have to get the kids into the van – you know the one…in my driveway…with a flat tire. Ugh!
• Husband dutiful puts on the spare in record time. Get the kids where they need to go and, believe it or not – I make my 9AM meeting on time.
• Meeting goes wonderfully. Hanging out with Lisa discussing eWomen Network is always a blast. (Chris, I did push the blog idea…soon, real soon)
• Get home, tire has to be fixed…still no time to check email, go through reader, return phone calls, put together fliers…and the eleventy billion other things I need to do today.
• Finally get on the computer…get lost in Facebook…ah, the beauty of Web 2.0…Found the neatest circle of friends app thanks to Dawud. I am clearly operating in two circles – bloggers and realtors…must continue to bridge that divide in my friends list.
• You’ve got mail. WordPress informs me that there is a pingback on my Technorati post…Liz has included me on her SOB Business Cafe. Wow…

Top that, Jack Bauer.

I am embarrassed. What a “Duh!” moment.

A few months ago, I started the task to redesign my website, own it myself, and repositioning my blogs. With the help and encouragement of some mighty fine folks, and an awesome husband, all went better than I could have ever expected.

The biggest thing that I have learned is that it is always a work in progress. There is a magic dance of face to face networking, blog posting, client service, guest writing, meeting other bloggers, continuing education, website management…the list goes on. Like doing laundry, just do a little everyday, a lot when it gets backed up, and don’t be too hard on yourself if it goes from dryer to the couch instead of the closet.

Going through my blog reader this morning, I was reading a very interesting post on the Bloodhound Blog from Greg Swann on his experience with Project Blogger.  He was discussing, among other things, Teri Lussier’s success on Technorati with The Brick Ranch.

Hmm.  It’s been quite a while since I have checked up on my Technorati stats. I think I’ll mosey on over there and see what’s what.

Sucker! When I moved by blogs TypePad to WordPress, guess what I didn’t do. That’s right! When I logged in, there are my two lonely TypePad blogs and no brand spanking new ones.

I wonder how many times we overlook the absolute obvious?  Obviously, I did not have the handy dandy “Tag me Technorati” button in my sidebars.  Obviously, checking up on Technorati has not happened in quite some time? Obviously, these are things that I should have done.

So, here is my public service announcement for the day. Take five minutes and review the obvious. These little things that make the bigger things easier or more complete.

Here is my request for a favor today – suggestions for the obvious. What are some of those things that seem so “Duh!” that you don’t even think to mention them?

Still slapping myself in the head…

And you can bet the bank I accepted!

Scouting around for new blogs (like I need any more in my reader!), I was over on Kirsten Harrell’s site peeking at her blog roll.  There’s one at the bottom (because they are in alphabetical order) called Talking Story. Now, for those of you that have read my about me page, you know that I am Hawaiian on my dad’s side. Therefore, I know that  Hawaiians do not have conversations – we talk story.  So, you know I clicked that one!

That was the best thing that happened to me that day. Rosa Say is a leadership coach in Hawaii. She has melded our Hawaiian spirit into the business world – it is a phenom idea.

Of course I added her to my reader. Then I emailed her directly. Then I waited. Opps, maybe I was too forward. I waited. “You’ve got mail.” Ok, so my computer doesn’t actually say that – but you get the point. It was Rosa! She had been on vacation.

Now, I am happy to report, we are becoming friends.  She is a wonderful encourager and someone I am glad to know.

Rosa has invited me to guest author on her blog during July while we discuss Ho’okipa (hospitality). It took me a few days to get the post out because I was a bit nervous. But, it is there now. Jump on over and check it out.

My blog hasn’t been around a long time – I haven’t been around a long time. But, I think it is fairly obvious that you could get a bit of anything when you show up here.  We may be watching baby alligators in a swimming pool, talking about termite inspections, memeing anybody I can think of, or analyzing the importance of DOMs…ya just don’t ever know – heck, I don’t even know – I drink the same coffee nearly every morning, but the topics are still different.

Now, I know this breaks one of the blogging rules that says to have a primary focus (Tony, Rhonda, and Deborah aren’t the only ones who feel this way – I hear it a lot).   I tried that – don’t look at me like that, Lar!  I really did. This was a real estate blog about, well, real estate.  Specifically homes in the Richmond Hill area.  But, Richmond Hill, while an up and coming town, is still small (Chris does not get to comment on this point.)

Then, as it is customary for bloggers to do, I started reading other blogs.  There are a bunch of people out there with a lot to say. Guess what – that’s why I fit in.  Surprise, surprise – I’ve got a lot to say too and it doesn’t all have to do with real estate.

So, I made a “personal blog.”But guess what – it’s not all personal.  A lot of it is “business/life momentum” (I’ll think of a cool catch phrase later.)  I decided I am NOT starting another blog for my different thought processes…I would have eleventy billion.  Who has that kind of time?

Therefore, this blog may break this one rule, but it strictly follows two others.

• I have a goal – to invite you to get to know me and, hopefully, you’ll allow me to get to know you.
• I have a voice – and it is my own.  I am responsible about what I put out on the internet, but what is approved for posting is transparently me.

Those things are more important to me that being singularly focused.  After all, as Athol so observantly pointed out, my other blog is entitled Beautiful Chaos…there must be something about it I like.