Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Hey, this IS theraputic

I'm sitting at the Black Dog Coffehouse right now. Just wrapped up a commercial policy for a new client who truly gets it.

He said, "I wish you could buy everything like this."

I asked him what he meant, and he said, "Face to face like this, without all the smoke and mirrors, no hiding shit."

BAM! That one really hit me... reminded me why I'm doing what I'm doing. Here's this young guy running his own business, and he knows his job/skill/art very well, but he doesn't know much about insurance. He shouldn't have to! That's my job, and he truly appreciated what I did for him.

The guy signed a contract, wrote me a check and literally walked away with nothing in his hand, and he felt good about it! So good he asked for some cards of mine to hand out and thanked me for helping him.

Good day, and it ain't even lunch yet.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Living Green

Earlier this evening I was proud I had two full recycling bins at the end of the driveway, but only one trash can. I was a bit disappointed when I looked up and down the street though. Many of my neighbors have way more trash and NO recycling.

This wouldn't be that big of a deal unless you do the math. There are six of us living in this house, and Veronica runs a home daycare!

It isn't hard; I wish my neighbors would try harder.

I also have a window open on my PC entitled, "Build Your Own Rain Barrel." Since we've reworked the entire yard and we actually have grass growing now, it sure would be nice to water it with the rain nature already provides but falls on my roof.

That will be a good project to do with Alex and maybe Aidan. Probably a bit advanced for Aaron and Allison.

We've also done the CFLs throughout the home. We made that change early on... I noticed it right away on the electric bill since we did it almost throughout the entire house at once. This house has a LOT of lights, and the family has a bad habit of leaving them on. The CFLs have helped with the energy usage. I'd like to plan towards automating much of the lighting again... that will help when the system doesn't detect motion and turns those unused areas off.

I've got more to say about what I mean when I say green, but it's getting late.

Let's just say we're taking a Dave Ramsey financial course, so we're trying to get the finances reigned in as well. More on that later, as well as ramping up the planning for our big Halloween party on October 24th after the church's Trunk or Treat.

Talk to you later.