Sometimes, half the battle is just showing up.

Sometimes just saying yes and showing up is what it’s all about.

I have reached the fun, “CHECK PLEASE!” point of pregnancy.  I’m ready to be done.  I have a tiny reprieve from nausea which has been replaced by what I’m gently referring to as “pregnancy narcolepsy.”  I feel asleep the other day for three hours with my laptop firmly in my lap, and hadn’t planned on a nap.

I’m working on trying to say YES to as much as possible, which, yesterday included a fun formal/ball gown give away event in down town Jacksonville, NC at the USO.   I think I get extra points for sporting yoga pants, flip flops and a t-shirt in a room full of beauty queens and sequins!  Talk about a technique to light a fire!  Everyone keeps joking about lack of sleep once Baby G arrives, but I’m ready for less bathroom breaks at three am, no upset tummy or splitting headaches not to mention, it’s easy to be happy about waking up in the middle of the night when there’s a cute fella involved! 😉

http://www.jdnews.com/news/local/hundreds-swarm-designer-dress-giveaway-1.210582?tc=cr  a link to the Jacksonville Daily News article

I hope this event makes its way through the bases again next year. It was a blast to see so many ladies finding a FREE dress of their dreams!  Stay posted and if/when I hear more, I’ll certainly update the post so folks know all the details!

Hope you have a great ball/formal season!  I’ll be doing lunges and squats forever not to mention MANY miles with the stroller and wee man!

JBOR Election and Affiliates night.

 

A brief explanation.  The last few years have had progressively more fun themes for our annual Jacksonville (NC) Board of Realtor’s election and affiliate night. This year was more or less a night at the Emmy’s/Hollywood evening.  So, folks were encouraged to dress as characters. . .I was thrilled to manage to squeeze into something non-maternity for a night but I think had I done a youtube video of me trying to get into some spanx (spoiler, I wasn’t successful) whilst getting ready would have easily scored more views than that cat riding the roomba.  ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLt5rBfNucc)  Safe to say, especially if you have European heritage and have assisted your Grandmother making sausage, a nine month pregnant woman trying to get into “smooth wear” basically looks like fifty pounds of sausage trying to get into ten pounds of casing, alternate image, a python who ate a deer.

Adapt and overcome!  😉

Jacksonville’s Board of Realtor’s election night-more photos to follow?

The last few months I have felt like I have been riding the bench professionally during a great game.  I managed to pull it together for last night’s festivities which, despite the contractions and sore feet and being overheated, made me feel a little more myself for a night which was a nice change of pace.  Everyone is joking that “once the baby arrives, you’ll be exhausted and it will slow you down”- they’ve obviously not experienced a difficult pregnancy.

Looking forward to launching some new projects and ideas and having my new right-hand-man by my side.  Subletting my body for the last year has given me time to fill MANY notebooks. . .big plans and goals for the future!

Today is also my birthday.  I had a talk with baby Garrett- included the philosophy my folks instilled that early is on time, on time is late and late is unforgivable.  I buffered the delivery and birthday conversation with the pointer that with both his father and my birthdays close to the due date, it would be lovely if everyone kept separate special days.  Last week we made it through a harvest moon, a packed labor and delivery department at the hospital and his father’s birthday.  This week I cleared my docket and rearranged a few big plans in anticipation since we are making very slow and steady delivery process.  The average first birth is fifteen hours, so reaching mid-day on my birthday I feel I’m safe to guess that we are in the clear but ANY TIME from here on out would be lovely.  Baby G, I’ll take a rain check for a day with no nausea, and getting to take a quick nap on my stomach as a present from you.  🙂

Hope you have big things brewing too!  Cheers to planning for an amazing sis-bang-boom to send out 2013 and to putting things in place and in motion for an even more amazing 2014!

Seasonal sprucing, neurotic nesting and diligent down-to-the-wire work to-do list.

Enough with the alliteration.  Apologies.

Fall is (almost) here in the South.  If I was allowed to touch the bags of bug killer and fertilizer I have on hand, I’d know for sure what is optimal to prep for the winter and next spring- but I get yelled at by friends and neighbors  but, never hurts to see what you might need to do to winterize your lawn and prep it for a great following season.

Also, fall is a great time to trim back trees and shrubs so they look great for spring and to mulch loose leaves.  My father, on their recent visit, spent an industrious afternoon while my mother and I were wandering the newly re-opened/relocated New River Pottery trimming and thinning a wall of hedge (well, calling it a “hedge” is being kind- hot mess of evergreen weeds and poison ivy might be more appropriate) .  I say trim, but think back to any story you have ever heard about a three year old with a pair of scissors and their own hair.  Nightmare bangs.  Well,  I had nightmare masses of thorny briar mess all over the back yard and now no longer have a loverly buffer to the neighbors back yard, which, if you’ve ever hear my crowd-pleasing story involving a small gas leak and my blowdryer (seriously, it’s good over coffee or a soon-to-be-enjoyed-again-glass-of-wine). . .and an audience. . .you understand what a loss.

So, in an effort to get the baby show on the road, spent the last few days cleaning the house and scrubbing the floors and today, hauling a mountain of trimmings to the curb- AND tracked it through the house so I’ll be doing all the floors, again.  Not the same as Spinal Tap, but my nesting goes to eleven.

Of course it’s also raining work now, loan pre-approvals and random buyers who didn’t respond to email or voicemail for months calling/emailing back and in the next two weeks, four listings hitting the market.  As predicted, looks like no maternity leave for me, but then, I can’t handle missed phone calls or texts.  Maybe three am feedings will become my new favorite lead generation/email triage time?

Hello September, hello new/old name change.

Almost complete with the name change but finally have a few official documents back so I can expedite things like changing them with NAR (National Association of Realtors), NCAR (North Carolina Association of Realtors) etc. . .the parts of name change house keeping that aren’t all that fun.

New business cards will be in the works, and even MORE incentive to get back in shape ASAP- new head shots and thank HEAVENS for Pinterest and SECRET boards!  Inspiration and outfit ideas but looking forward to no more edema and perhaps finding something new-mommy yet professional.  We shall see!

But the not-so-new-news is that it’s officially McKenzie Johnson again- and working on LOTS of domain name overhauls and the KW phone app etc. which had t wait until the name change became official.

 

Hope you’re well!

Check out the public portion of my Pinterest boards @ http://www.pinterest.com/mckenzie27/boards/  I passed 1,000 followers this week- so my late night and early am pregnancy insomnia seems to be helping “win friends and influence people”- or, at the least, find folks with equally annoying sleeping patterns OR who also spend time waiting in driveways for clients to show homes and pin a bit.  😉

Youtube, “theiraq” and the such.

Because some things are painful:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww

Educating yourself about real estate shouldn’t.

 

I promise, no spam or terrible links.  Brief snippets about real estate in Eastern NC and hopefully more to come- pending negotiations with some exclusionary contracts pending a possible tv deal, long story, and RIGHT up there with working on having a baby, I’ve reached the hopefully near a decision making point where things may come to fruition oooooorrrrr we all move on.

Meantime, despite the fun rumors, I plan NO maternity leave (crazy talk you say? nay, single mom roaring, look out business world, fighting for more than an arbitrary goal list from here on out.) so I will most certainly be moving forward with my team in helping folks in Eastern NC with their real estate needs as well as our FREE red carpet concierge service to help folks relocate anywhere in the world.

As usual, visit http://www.JasonGruner.com for more real estate info, a great free phone app and AMAZING access to local real estate information.

I’m also working on a stroller patrol, if you’re local and looking to network for running and/or walking – we’re working on a fun group to help cheer one another on towards their goals, not to mention just the fun fellowship and friendship. 🙂

Hope you are well and enjoying your internet browsing this evening!

We’re number one for the Onslow County, Eastern NC area- AGAIN.