Day 3333 – Reflections After Our Seventh Real Estate Investing Closing

When Bret started with real estate investing, I saw it as “his business” we’d chat about things like a husband and wife chat about their “day” jobs. Fast forward a few months and I started doing some administrative tasks for “his business.”

Then a few months ago, things shifted. We started to say “our business.” We talked about how we could ramp this up with our partners.

On Friday, we closed on our seventh property. To say that I never expected this would be our life is a bit of an understatement. My vision of what my life would be has changed so much over the past decade it almost makes my head spin to keep up. The biggest takeaway I’ve had is that it’s completely ok to change your work dreams…even every few months.

Because of us ramping up our business, we knew that our volume would increase across the board. From marketing output to appointments to calls to paperwork. As we were looking at things, the incoming calls were the biggest concern. Without ANY pressure, Bret asked if I thought I could help with calls. This was actually a pretty big ask because, to be honest, I’ve had some issues about being on the phone. We’re talking I would sweat and shake when I would call a place just to ask when they close (the reasons for this are long, drawn out, and not worth the story).

If he had asked this a year ago, I would have said, no way, nope nope nope! Keep me behind the computer, that’s my strength! But because of a number of experiences over the last few months, I knew it was a challenge that would stretch me and grow me and make a big impact on our business. The whole “if you want to be in a place you’ve never been before, you have to do things you’ve never done before” was ringing in my head.

This week, I did things I’ve never done before in our business. The first day I took calls was when Bret started back to school. We received about double the amount we’d received in the past, it was a crazy huge amount of calls. At the end of the day, I felt humbled that me taking a few hours out of my day could help us so much. The folks I spoke to were kind and it wasn’t a horrible experience. There are still a few kinks to work out, but I feel a lot more confident.

Friday, while Bret was busy at work, I did a bit of driving around (over 100 miles) for the business, which included doing a walkthrough of a property we were closing on later that day. As it turned out, this property was seen by all of our partners, so sitting around the closing table with everyone was a really neat experience.

After the closing, we went to eat with our partners. The place we chose was next to another restaurant we visited with them. What was a little surreal was how different things were compared to that previous meal. The previous meal took place about a month after Bret started working on building the business. At the time, it was still “his business” and not “our business.” I wasn’t listening to the conversation as much and didn’t feel like I had much to say.

But now, this has become OUR business so much more deeply and meaningfully. I can’t wait to see how this next stage of our business grows and changes us. I have to say, I really did miss working with my spouse. 🙂

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Day 3331 – How Marriage Is Like Totality During An Eclipse – repost

I had a last minute change of plans today, so I’m sitting in my mechanic’s waiting room getting this posted. Don’t worry, it’s just an oil change. Ah, how nice it is to have a car that just needs routine maintenance. Not going to lie though, I happened to look up while getting ready to come into the shop and noticed my very clean interior ceiling…no soda stains. I had a can of soda explode on a hot day that stained my last car’s ceiling. Got a little misty thinking about how much I loved that car.

But without further ado, here is how marriage is like totality during an eclipse.

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originally posted 8/24/17
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I’m realizing how big of an impact experiencing a total eclipse has had on me as the days go by and the experience marinates. I’ve watched videos and looked at others’ pictures. And it all takes me back to that moment it started. That moment is truly amazing. Laughing, crying, experiencing awe. Is it 2024 yet? Seriously.

One thing that Bret and I have been very aware of our whole marriage and relationship is the shortness of life. With him serving in the Marines and my personal losses of friends at young ages, the shortness and unknown of how long we have on earth has been impressed on our cores. Since he’s been working in real estate investing, he’s talked to a lot of people in many different situations. Some of those situations are losing a spouse, or caring for a spouse, or any number of losses. Yesterday, Bret gave me a hug and just said how much he loved me and how grateful he was for me. That he wanted to take the opportunity when he could. I said, semi-jokingly, I’m enjoying our time in totality. But as I’ve been thinking about it, it’s a perfect picture of the full life of a marriage. There is so much build up to the marriage. So much excitement preparing for the start. Then when the marriage starts, and totality begins, it is amazing. You want to laugh, you want to cry, you want to grab the person next to you and say, “can you believe this??” Then, so very soon after, so very brief, it is over. You are changed. Your life will never be the same because of the experience. I don’t know of the end of totality of marriage yet. I can try to imagine what my life might be like without Bret, but I don’t want to spend my time during totality worrying what I will do after. But I will live in the shadow of the moon and just experience the time that I have. I will laugh, I will cry, I will grab everyone I can and share how amazing marriage can be. I will appreciate every second, because there are so few of them left.

How are you enjoying your totality?

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Day 3329 – Making Adjustments To My Work Day – or – Bret’s Going Back To His Day Job Today

Today, Bret goes back to work at his day job. While there is some sadness because I’ve loved having him around all day and I’ve enjoyed how much easier it is to share a car, I’m also really excited. We’re making some changes to our real estate investing business and we’ve spent the past few weeks gearing up for those changes. A few of them include me stepping up, growing, and helping more in the business. If you had told me I would be stepping up and growing in the way that I am even six months ago, I would have told you – “No way! I’ll NEVER do that!” Which, is funny, because I try not to say never or always about anything. There are absolutely no guarantees in life and I don’t want to live like there are (well, outside of death and taxes). What I’m seeing is how different experiences have prepared me for these changes. From doing a similar thing for one of my clients to getting to be a part of a meeting with some folks we ultimately got to help in our real estate business.

I think when you start to focus on how your experiences are helping you, growing you, serving you, changing you, preparing you, it changes your outlook on life. If you’re calling each hard thing that comes up in your life as a challenge and not a hard thing, it makes it easier. For example, we’re calling this season of our lives “Investathon” because in a lot of ways, it’s like what I imagine training for a marathon is like. We found for a while we were calling this time things like “the apocalypse”, “the crazy time,” and saying things like “it’s going to be so busy!” Since we both read a lot about mindset and growth, we knew this was a terrible way to talk about it. The language you use to describe your life is huge.

When we talk about this season now, using a word like Investathon brings to mind a reminder that this isn’t a one and done thing. This isn’t a fit it all in quickly thing. This is something we have to show up consistently for, every single day. It’s a reminder that we’re creating a new way of life for ourselves. It’s a reminder that life is what you make it. I wanted to call this something different and I did.

I can’t wait to share how our Investathon goes and how I grow in the process.

Have you ever changed the name of something that made it better….or worse?

For fun, here’s me trying to be just like Bret! They do say the longer you’re married, the more you look like your spouse! 😀

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Day 3326 – Something I’ve Truly Missed In Our Marriage Is Back – Playing Video Games Together

Bret is a lot of things to me. First and foremost, he’s my spouse. He’s also my very best friend, closest confidant, business partner, idea-bouncer-offer, travel buddy, co-pilot, encourager, pusher, and more. But there is one thing that he was but hasn’t been for a very long time – my video game partner.

A year or two into our marriage, we started playing Lego Star Wars together. It was so much fun and we would regularly stay up late to play. But as we played, tensions grew because of the gameplay. Basically, sometimes he would be on one side of the area and I would be in the other, and the game would pull the other player. Not fun if you’re trying to work on something! So I continued on with my Lego game love, playing almost every one that has come out since then, including Dimensions.

Since I play all of the games, and I can get them from the library, I put in a request as soon as I can. Lego Incredibles has been on my list since I heard about it (why yes, I do follow a Lego Dimensions/Lego games video game Facebook page), the hold request took a good month to go through. There might be some delay to the library, but that’s ok with me to save some money! I finally got the game in and worked through a few levels. Last night, I made a comment to Bret about maybe playing with me. Friends, oh friends, he said yes!

What followed was hours of glee. I forgot how much fun it is to play a video game with Bret. Especially one that we both enjoy and aren’t just playing for the spouse’s benefit (ha ha, just kidding, not even that happens). It was such a sweet time together and I can’t wait to play again.

Do you play video games with your spouse?

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Day 3323 – A Painful Reminder Of The Importance Of Watching What You Consume

This week I’ve had a painful reminder of the importance of being very careful about your consumption habits. For our trip to MA, I purchased a 12 pack of a generic soda. I’ve had this soda before and I’ve had soda on road trips before. But for some reason on this trip, my stomach was NOT a fan. It took me a few days to definitely pinpoint the soda as the tummy upsetter because we ate SO much food from so many different places. In a lot of ways, I’m so thankful for this reminder. The practical takeaway is to not drink that much soda. I typically might have 1-2 sodas and/or energy drinks a week. On the trip, I had 1-2+ per day. I really need to remind myself to NOT take sodas on a road trip. I might test out iced tea on the next trip. I’d still get a bit of caffeine and it would be somewhere healthier.

As I was thinking through this, I realized that while this was an obviously physical reminder of how what you consume impacts you, it was also a reminder that what I see, read, and hear impacts me as well. If I spend my time around others who talk poorly about marriage, or watch movies where marriage is disrespected, or even making cheating ok, it has an impact on my marriage. I will treat my husband with less respect and potentially entertain thoughts of cheating. Knowing this, I am very vigilant about what I consume about marriage.

If I’m spending my days watching videos that are positive reminders to business owners, encouraging me to keep working, and showing me examples of others who HAVE done it before me, I am much more energized in my work.

So even though it hasn’t been a fun few days with an upset tummy, it’s been a great reminder of how one little thing can have a huge impact on my entire life.

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