My GREEN Life & Real Estate

Every year, after Christmas is all put away, I welcome January by taking inventory of my seed stock and pouring through seed catalogs and then planning out my garden!  Gardening is in my blood. Both of my parents grew up on farms, and even now my Uncle Leopold's farm,  Ferme Couture , is still run by his grandson (6th generation to farm this land!) up in my dad's hometown in Quebec, Canada. Growing up in Canada we had a HUGE garden, with my brother and I each having our our section to plant and tend whatever we chose. Any weekend visit to a nearby uncle's massive garden meant we were out helping to harvest the freshest veggies and sweet strawberries, or collecting eggs from the hen house, or playing in the barn with our cousins. Our pantry was filled with preserved fruit jams and it was wonderful. When we moved back to the states we had a much smaller, extremely tidy suburban garden for tomatoes, cucumbers and greens, and somehow weeds dared not grow there. My own garden ha

  In September of 2016 I wrote the first pages of my bullet journal after reading Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. It was a quick read that I read with some of my real estate team and I got a lot of out of the book. I tend to value productivity, which is something I learned from my parents, so this book with its ideas like "own your morning and you will own your day" resonated with me.    My bullet journal is a living, breathing book that I use mostly for real estate, and does not replace my agenda (yes, that’s on paper too) or my travel planning book (also paper and holds the drafts of every trip I’ve created and/or taken plus future trips.)  It started with a Miracle Morning-inspired habit tracker based on my own version of S.A.V.E.R.S. and quickly evolved into notes and task lists…then kept evolving! I have a creative side, so this fulfills that need with some colorful pages, some creative lettering, and a failed scrapbook-style page at the beginning (it really does n

To be honest, it's easy for me to get excited about a lot of my real estate listings. I love good home design. I've gone so far as to fall in love with more than a few properties over the years...some for their views...some for their kitchens...or the general feeling you get when you walk in. This home is one that I've loved for over 23 years now. It's an antique center-chimney colonial circa 1746 known as Old Purple Farm, and today I put it on the market for the owner. Isn't it a beauty? You enter through the courtyard at the back door into the kitchen with a lovely tiled mudroom spot to sit and remove shoes, and hang your coats. The owners remodeled the kitchen in 2000 and kept the original chestnut posts and beams, and the fireplace is just stunning! Right now it is outfitted with a ventless propane system, and the propane is also used for the cooktop. The light fixtures were custom made by local artisan shop Classic Lighting Design for the kitchen, a