Okay, okay while everyone else on our team is lucky enough to have been called to the real estate profession or inspired in some way to help people buy or sell homes, my story is not so heart-warming, as a matter of fact, it is a bit selfish. I was working in the mortgage industry (yes, that is how Jim and I met) as an office supervisor/underwriter. Jim and I had been together for about a year. I was called upon to go out of town to our corporate office for some training seminars. I went to Atlanta, completed my three-day training seminar...and like a big up and coming corporate executive, cried myself to sleep every night because I missed Jim and my kids. After I got through that, a few months later, I was asked to go back to Atlanta to learn about some new products and a new computer system. Once again being the corporate yes person that I was, I said no and gave my two weeks notice. Who was I kidding, I was not cut out for business trips, dinner meetings and corporate this or that, I wanted to stay close by my home, my family and the new love of my life. At about the same time, Jims front desk secretary and bookkeeper had given her two-week notice. So it seemed logical that since he needed a new secretary/bookkeeper and I needed a job, that I come work for him. When I had our son Shawn, we decided I could work from home and we hired someone else to work at the office. After our son started pre-school, I came back to the office to work side-by-side with Jim in growing his real estate business and that is what I have done for the past eleven years that and raise our blended family of five children. So, as you can see, I started working for Jim for purely selfish reasons I was a corporate dropout, but I am just as passionate about what I do as the rest of the team. People often ask how we can work together and stay married. For us we would not have it any other way. Yes, it is hard to turn off the real estate stuff but to be honest, we never really turn it off because we do not want to. Our kids would get annoyed with us because we would go on vacation and look at real estate while we were there. Who else would be crazy enough to put up with that ... other than each other?