WHY I CHOSE REAL ESTATE! - AND HOW It STARED BY LIVING IN A SHOT GUN HOUSE

When I was a little girl we lived in many very small homes. I am sure my love of different homes started there as we lived in many though out my childhood. Any military brat will tell you how hard it is to move from place to place and all the different housing you get sent to. My dad was a soldier stationed near Columbus, Georgia where I was born.

In the picture to the right I must have been at least three years old since that was when I started growing hair.

My earliest recognition was of standing in a back bedroom of our home in Columbus and seeing an unknown man stroll across our unfenced back yard. It scared me so bad I ran to my mom who was in the "parlor". That is the only thing I remember from being that young.

The next house that I remember living in was a three-room shotgun house. They called them shot gun homes because you could shoot a gun right through the home from the back door through the front door and never hit anything in the house. And, no it did not have a bathroom, only an out house. Baths were an affair because water had to be heated on the stove and put into a round aluminum tub and tap water added to it to make it the right tempature. Yes that is right, no hot water in this house!

I loved this house because I could run the length of the house yelling and screaming. My mom did not like that. The house to the left looks a lot like our home minus the porch. That house has been torn down many years now. I do visit the site often and sit where the front door would have been.

While living in this house I realized that I loved homes. I did not know then that I would be a Realtor years down the road. I started looking at other homes that I came across and noticed the beauty that each one had. My own grandmothers home had five tiny kitchen windows that warmly lit night and I would eagerly watch for them when we would come down the long winding road to visit her home, those windows held a beacon of love waiting for me. I can still see them in my minds eye.

Later we moved to another home in Luling which also had 4 main rooms and a sun porch. The sun porch was used in the summer to sleep in because the nights were so hot in the summer. You will notice many older homes have sun rooms and sleeping in them at night was their main purpose.

This home we moved into was haunted. I could never convince my mom about it. Years later she admitted she did hear stuff at night and was scared. I was convinced a young adult man was murdered in this home and hidden in our closet. At night after all was quite the closet door would slowly open and you could see him in his plaid shirt standing there with a big butcher knife in his chest....eyes wide open and scared. He came every night and after a while I could not go to sleep until he came to say this unusual good night. It was while we were living here that my dad's foot locker filled with family photos were stolen by someone. So I only have a very few pictures that my family had dug up.

When I was in fourth grade my dad, having been newly retired from the military; decided we needed to move to Houston so he could find work. We moved into the worst part of of the city and lived there about 6 months before we were able to find a home to purchase.

The house was so beautiful. The living room had a mural of a Japanese garden with a willow tree with gracefully hanging limbs. The entire home had nice hardwood floors and we were so happy. Years later my mom decided to paint over the mural.... I cried. The previous owner who lived there was a horticulturist and the front and back yard were overwhelmingly beautiful. Every spring we had daffodils, pansies, hydrangeas flowering; bamboo and banana trees and all other kinds of plants. I can't not even remember the names of all of them! It was a jungle oasis!

During this time of my life I really became interested in homes and buildings. I think with the right guidance I would have become an architectural engineer or designer. It was also during this time that I had a thing about wanting to see the attics of homes. They always held secrets and treasure to be rediscovered. I can remember passing by older homes and wondering what were in their attics.

Then came my dormant period where one covers themselves in a cocoon of working and just living.

My current day job included reviewing subdivision plans and talking to developers. Helping them through the many ordinances which they would encounter and how to deal with them. I was first contact and made many developer friends. I loved this job.

One day I asked my boss for a raise. He said he could not justify one because I did not have a college degree. I informed him I had 65 credit hours in various classes to help me with office work. He told me it it would be a good idea to go back to college and become a City Planner or a Realtor®; that I really seemed to have a knack for that type of thing.

Well if I was asking for a raise how was I going to pay for a four year college degree? However, the Real Estate classes at the community college were not that expensive and I could be done with the courses in a flash! (And I could request a pay raise again in a short period of time.)

This is the pivotal point in my life that made me realize that what I wanted most was to become a REALTOR®. That is where I met the most wonderful REALTOR® I will ever meet. Her name was Miss Betty Hodges and is located at Keller Williams, Pearland, Texas. She cracked me up with her Realtor stories and taught class in a manner in which you would never forget what she taught you. I gobbled up the classes because she was just that good and it was so interesting. It was then I realized I really wanted to be a REALTOR®.

So here I am a REALTOR® and now I can go into many homes and enjoy the beauty and song they each have. Thank you Betty!