Do I know something about relocataing!  My father was a Navy pilot.  Our family moved about every eighteen months.  My mother had lived her entire life in a small town with extended family around until she married my Dad.  She was forever apologizing to my brother and me for our not being able to sink roots in our communities.  What she didn't realize was that although we didn't have her deep tap root, we did have multiple shallow roots which allowed us to make friends quickly and get to know the most special things about people.  We also learned early on that participating in all sorts of activities solidified the path to friendship.

My three children were afforded the best of what Mother wished for me, deep roots.  Their Marine father went here and there without us.  We got to stay home!  As they say, I was the one who wore the big watch and carried the check book.  In other words, I got to be the disciplinarian.  Though tough at times, I learned logistics and organization.

My three adult children are all property owners.  They have been taught the long term value of home ownership.  They are raising my grandchildren to have strong family and community commitments.  All six grandbabies know the pride in giving back to their communities and do.

I lived for 20 years in New Bern, NC, the Colonial Capital of the Carolinas.  While there, I helped create a coobook for Christ Episcopal Church called Pass The Plate, the Collection From Christ Church.  Some years after its publication, we were awarded an honor from Southern Living as one of the best regional cookbooks in the United States.

I was born in Upstate New York and soon began my journey of moves.  I lived in multiple places in Florida.  Dad was then sent to Ohio State for a year.  Then I began a series of moves to Virginia, New Jersey, Newfoundland, California and Alaska!  I chose my college sight unseen because they actually had a room for me and I could send my belongings there before joining my Dad in Alaska.  My undergraduate work was completed at the University of Mississippi.  I majored in French and minored in Spanish and Music.  Ole Miss was a turbulent place in those days, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world.  What an education!  I often say that I hold a degree in Bellism of the South.

Some twenty years after graduating, I enrolled at East Carolina University.  I felt it was my civic duty to teach English.  I have a Master of Education degree, emphasis English.  I had been on track to get a Master of Arts in English.  When I was told that I wouldn't be paid for having a master's degree unless it was in Education, I left my thesis hanging.  I taught at Havelock High School, and at both Craven and Carteret Community Colleges.  It was during this time I got my Real Estate License.

Selling real estate is a lot like teaching.  While I am not correcting dangling participles or reading essays or grading exams, I am teaching.  I teach the ways of buying and selling real estate in our location, location, location.  Very likely it is not the same as when you last bought or sold, or as was customary where you used to live.  Local ways are different in various parts of North Carolina.  What is usual for the mountains is different in the Triangle and certainly different here at the Crystal Coast.  Not to mention the extremes we have felt in the market between the bubble and the bust.

Education is always my goal.  I am constantly taking interesting classes which keep me up-to-date in the latest concepts and changes in my profession.  Early on in my career I recognized the value of knowledge.  I am a Graduate of the Realtors Institute; a Certified Residential Specialist; and an Accredited Buyer Representative.  I serve my local board, the Carteret County Association of REALTORS as the Chairman of the Professional Standards Committee.  Additionally, I serve on the Scholarship Committee and the Public Relations Committee.  I am a board member of Communities in Schools.

For fun I am the chairman of Cook's Night Out.  This is a group from the Pine Knoll Shores Women's Club who, four times a year, go to dinner together with their husbands, significant others or alone.  I select the restaurants and have been rewarded with knowing the owners and/or chefs.  We have a rowdy crowd wherever we go, so usually we have a private room.  I am an active member of St. Francis By The Sea Episcopal Church, the Carteret Arts Forum and the Fort Macon Sail and Power Squadron.  Through my husband's association, I am involved with the Cape Lookout Yacht Club and District 27 of the United States Power Squadron.

My husband and I moved to the Crystal Coast permanently in 2008.  We had been coming here for many years to play aboard our boat.  I had been working as a REALTOR in the Triangle area of North Carolina - Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill- for 15 years prior to our move from the quaint town of Bahama.  Now it is my pleasure to look out of my bedroom window every day and see the ocean.  I love to see the traffic of early morning joggers, some with their dogs, leaving footprints on the beach.  Then later to see the same beach wiped clean thanks to the beautiful ebb and flow of the sea.

That feeling of being cleansed is what makes the Crystal Coast our little slice of paradise on earth.  Let me show you how the other half lives!