Here We Go

At heart, I’ve always been a matchmaker.

As I remember, it all started in fifth grade when my best friend set her sights on the boy who sat kitty-corner from her desk. “He’s so CUTE!” she gushed. That was pretty much all the motivation I needed. I began to nonchalantly extol her best features whenever he was within earshot. I let it drop that she might think he’s not ugly. I nudged whenever the doing so seemed casual and un-forced. And lo and behold, one morning they sat, smiling bashfully in side-by-side swings at recess, and I considered myself successfully … done. I like to think they’re celebrating their 30th anniversary sometime soon.

Flash forward a bunch of years, and my matchmaking has taken on a more direct quality. “You should really ask her out,” I’ve been known to say (more than once) to hesitant men in my sphere of influence. A few marriages have resulted from those nudges.

And then there’s matchmaking of another sort. As a pastor’s wife, I regularly hear, “We’ve just moved up from California, and although we’re renting now, we’d really like to buy a house.” My automatic reply has always been, “Oh, let me find a house for you!”

So in late July, when I called a realtor in Cannon Beach to ask about a property that we could absolutely not afford right then-and-there and did not intend to buy, and heard her less-than-enthusiastic responses to all my questions (“Yes. EVERYONE wants to be in Cannon Beach, and it’s VERY hard to find a job here, PLUS, that area you are asking about is in a flood zone, and do you REALLY want to live in a flood zone?”), I turned to my husband and said, “I could sell myself that property quicker than she could.” And in that second, a light bulb hovered over my head, a la every Saturday morning cartoon you’ve ever seen.

Three days later, after a very intense interrogation at our otherwise non-intense baptism/barbecue on Kayak Point, at which I asked the kindly obliging Kaitlyn Watson every question I could think of about real estate in general and why she chose Windermere Real Estate specifically, I knew I’d found an open door. A WIDE open door. A door so inviting, so brimming with possibilities that I knew I’d punish myself forever if I didn’t step a toe over its threshold. And so I walked into Windermere Marysville on August 4th, introduced myself to Dan Peterson, the very friendly, very welcoming managing broker, and told him I thought I was born to be a real estate broker because I was fascinated with people and was natural matchmaker. To his credit, Dan did not scoff or laugh at me.

The next month was a whirlwind of books and tests and online classes. In the first week of September, I took and passed my realtor’s exam, came back to that same chair in Dan’s office, and signed every paper he put in front of me. And I have absolutely loved every minute since then.

And so, let the big adventure begin. Can I help you?