A Little About Me

I live in Kingston, Ontario, Canada but was born in Saskatchewan. I am a mother of four children; 2 sons ages 25 and 24 and two daughters ages 16 and 17.

I was married for over 20 years but separated and divorced in 2007.

I grew up in a highly dysfunctional household the oldest of four kids. I raised my siblings from an early age.

Everyone I meet tells me how positive I am. I often wondered who they were talking about because on the inside I didn't feel positive.

Raising my children to be happy, healthy adults has always been of the utmost importance to me so I tried everyday to be positive and optimistic, basically adopting the fake it til you make it attitude.

It eventually became true. A few years ago I started keeping a gratitude journal where I would write down five things I was thankful for each day. Strangely enough I got a little discouraged doing this because I was writing the same things down many days. I finally told myself it didn't matter if it was the same I should be grateful and not looking for novelty.

This however, prompted further soul searching and getting to the core of my poor self image. Some of it always had been obvious, the traumatic upbringing I had as well as some other unpleasant things that happened to me when I was younger but in going deeper I could see in a new light other ways the events had shaped me even though I thought I had come to terms with them.

This really opened me up and challenged me to make bigger goals for myself than I previously thought possible.

It was that openness and willingness to grow and expand my horizons that led me to real estate investing and to this group.

I am currently in a relationship with a wonderful man, originally from Europe who now lives here obviously but who lived and worked for a time in Connecticut and who still maintains a business there. He is an architect and new RE investor as well. I am living the best life I ever have and very day it keeps getting better and better.

I love reading and am an information and knowledge sponge. I also write and have had some of my poetry published as well as a play I wrote. Many people have encouraged me to pursue writing as a career and while I enjoy it immensely I prefer to keep it to myself. Writing used to be my form of self therapy, expressing myself in metaphor to get it out of my system. I find I can't write as well about happy things without sounding like a Hallmark card and I am happy all the time now so have no angst, or anger or loneliness to express. I will take happiness over a great poem about sadness every day of the week...lol

I feel great about my decision to get involved in real estate and even better about getting involved through Dean and his group.

Not only am I learning things from a good teacher but from someone whom I can respect and admire.

Look forward to sharing my RE successes with you and reading about other's successes as well.

I hope to one day in the not too distant future to work for Dean's organization as a liaison for Canadian students.