Jenn Neumann Surfside Beach Real Estate

I love my real estate career. But a few times per year I accept a phone call from the manager at my previous job working at a women's boutique. Every summer when I would come home from college, I worked at this shop and everyone was so wonderful to me, so when the owner of the shop asks me to work Black Friday weekend and around Christmas, I usually jump at the chance to come out of retail retirement for a few weekends. This year I have been so busy with real estate (fortunately), I have only been able to say yes to a few days. It is so much fun, even though I am busy with my real 'job' I love spending time with old co-workers, seeing people I know who are shopping (I catch lots of my friends/acquaintances doing some last minute shopping!), and it gives me an excuse to go shopping myself...since I'm right there. I spend more money than I make but I love the holiday spirit. Yes, there are a few grinches who are annoyed at having to stand in line for ten minutes but for the most part, everyone is in a good mood, spending money, listening to Christmas music and spending time with their shopping buddies.

So for all of you last-minute shoppers, I will be right there with you today and tomorrow finishing up my gift list.

Today, December 21st, is the first day of winter for 2008. Not that anyone living in Myrtle Beach has experienced any winter weather during the week leading up to today. It has been beautiful and in the 70's for the past few days. I know it won't last but I have been trying to appreciate the nice weather and get outside as much as possible since tomorrow the high is only 45. Brrr!

I hope everyone who is experiencing all the serious winter weather and severe storms up north is keeping warm and safe. I am supposed to take a trip up to Pennsylvania to visit family for New Year's but the more I hear about the weather up where I am heading, the less I want to leave my beach.

Have you heard about Freecycle? It is amazing what you can find! Freecycle.org is a free community set up to gift unwanted but still useful items to people who need them and can find a use for these otherwise 'destined for the dump' items.

Freecycle's mission statement: "Our mission is to build a worldwide gifting movement that reduces waste, saves precious resources & eases the burden on our landfills while enabling our members to benefit from the strength of a larger community."

I have received gift boxes I will use to wrap Christmas presents and 2 bicycles. The bikes need new chains and new seats (one could use a paint job as well), but it will be a fun project for the man to do on the weekend while I supervise and then the bikes will be fully operational and I can get some exercise!

I have freecycled some clothes, a pair of shoes I never wear, posters I was going to throw away and i have a pile in my dining room ready to post. The process is simple. You find a freecycle area near you through the website, sign up and then post like you are writing an e-mail and it gets sent out to everyone signed up in your area. People can receive an e-mail on each offer or just go to their homepage and see what has been posted.

There are three types of posts: offer, wanted and received. Offers are usually the bulk of the e-mails and if someone is interested they e-mail just the person with the offer back and figure out pick-up terms. If someone is in need of a specific item they may post a wanted and explain what they want and why they need it. When you receive an item, it is encouraging to put a received so others can see Freecycle in action.

I have only had one negative experience with Freecycle and it may still turn out fine. Someone posted wanting a dress for her daughter to attend a school dance. I asked her if she wanted to keep the dress or borrow it, because I have many dresses and some I will give away but others I do want to keep. The person said borrowing would be fine, so I picked out ten dresses for her daughter to try on and dropped them off to her, where she told me she would return them the next day minus the one her daughter picked (I wasn't sure which size would work best). It has been a few days and I have not heard from her, but I understand things come up and maybe she hasn't had time to return them yet...

So keep in mind Freecycle is at your own risk, but it can be very beneficial to everyone involved. It feels great to be able to give someone in need something and it is fun to receive sometimes too! So check it out, just be careful about giving out personal information to people! It is a great way of getting rid of some 'junk' that may be treasure to someone else in your community.

At our company, the receptionist is off on the weekends and there are two agents assigned to floor duty at a time. On Saturdays there are two shifts, from 8:30-1 and from 1-5:30 and I prefer the earlier shift (which is good for me because I ended up with it two Saturdays in a row this month). Last Saturday it was quiet but there were more people in and out, but this weekend it's nearly dead. Halfway into our shift we have only had two calls and they have both been commercial calls which has its own agent on duty.

I don't mind it being quiet because I can catch up on my ActiveRain and e-mails and check MLS for any hot new listings or price changes to send to clients, but the time goes much quicker and it's also nice to hear the phone ringing and see people in and out of the office more - both agents and clients. So more activity would be preferable but I have heard from other agents that the holidays are usually a very quiet time for real estate.

Ok, so January 1st, I expect to see a stampede!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and survived Black Friday!

I love college football. That's the main idea of this blog. South Carolina is a very divided state in terms of schools people root for, the main two being Clemson and Carolina. I received my undergrad and masters degree from Carolina so I am partial to Cocky but mainly I just love watching college football.

Every year since 2002 Capital One has had a mascot challenge. Twelve mascots are chosen to 'compete' in the challenge each year. Anyone can vote but I think the main advertising is geared toward college students since I haven't seen anything about the voting anywhere but in my Alumni newsletter and it was just a small banner near the bottom.

You can vote once every day and the mascots go head-to-head so you actually vote for six out of the twelve each time you vote. So go have some fun. Clicking on the banner below will take you to the voting page.

So go check it out and see if your favorite mascot is in the running this year!

There is even a page called Mascot Extras where you can go and star in a dance video, become a fan on facebook or even add a weekly update widget so you will know who's winning.