At home with The Terrells. Marianne and Kenny Terrell are a multi-year, top-producing, husband and wife team with Boulevard Realty. Marianne further applies her real estate expertise and knowledge as our Office Manager.
Kenny spends the majority of his time working remotely so the stay at home order has not been a huge shift. So much of what we do as Realtors isn’t achieved by spending hours on end in an office. A lot of our value is in working through transactions and offers which already happens virtually on nights, weekends and with FaceTime calls (and you know we use emojis). So, we feel lucky that we can still be that first, go-to resource for anything real estate related for our clients. We are still working, still closing houses, still working with our clients to make sense of what the current environment means for real estate, Houston, and them personally.
It is true that things have changed a bit in the market, and being commission based can be very stressful… so remember your local Realtors in the groups of people having an uncertain time economically during the pandemic. So, while we don’t have showings and listing appointments as much as usual, we are still checking in and staying in touch with friends and clients: providing contacts to build a new fence, reevaluating listing plans, even had to call a locksmith when a toddler learned how to lock doors. So, in that regard our role as your “Realtor for Life” hasn’t changed.
We LOVE our home and neighborhood, which is one thing that really makes the stay at home order easier to digest. One thing we love about our Woodland Heights Bungalow is that it’s the perfect size – yes, I consider 1,000 square feet for two adults and a Great Dane more than enough! We chose our home years before purchasing it. It was a rental property that Kenny found tenants for several times, we loved the location, the walkability, the fact that it’s still surrounded by other bungalows and the fact it has a really good-sized yard! I personally feel so much of the value of owing a home is having the yard space and the space between homes… our own little oasis, our own little sanctuary. Our backyard is already an extension of our home, so we’ve really been living outside with this beautiful weather. We go out on the side patio for phone calls and video chats. We also have great neighbors and, Woodland Heights being known for it’s bungalow porches, allows for a good amount of socializing done at a very safe and appropriate distance between porches.
We’re taking cooking at home to the next level by practicing what we’ve decided will be our signature dish: Beef Wellington. It was really lucky that we took a cooking course at Sur La Table earlier this year… I think we’re nearing perfection.
We walk our dog around the same time as we always do, and we’ve been seeing a lot of new faces out and about besides the usual dog walking group. We met another Great Dane recently that’s just a few streets up from us, and we’re looking forward to getting better acquainted after the pandemic.
I think it’s important to acknowledge that uncertainty creates anxiety and there’s a lot of that going around, but forcing yourself to be busy for the sake of being busy isn’t a sustainable practice, and it’s one that I personally struggle with, so activities that allow me to detach and zone out have been very important. I like to do yoga and there are so many online practices it’s easy to find something that fits your day, whether 10 minutes or a full hour.
But, the piece de resistance is my dollhouse. I honestly could do a whole post about the history and work of this, but this is the first time in over 20 years that I’ve been able to dedicate some real time to this project. I’m glad I’ve been able to recruit Kenny’s help… it is complicated!
We are also taking time to declutter the house and, in turn, our life. Focusing on what’s really important, cleansing our environment, using this time for a restart and taking a moment to really take stock of what is important. In the process, we dove into some old boxes from Kenny’s mom’s house… it’s been fun going down memory lane, as well as learning some new things about each other’s childhood and adolescence. We’ll be married 8 years in May and will likely be celebrating in quarantine.
And for fun? We are scheduling date nights. The most recent was “dress up karaoke,” we obviously had different ideas of what dress up meant.
Just as I remember you two. Busy! Full of fun and uninhibited. Keep up the joys. Love ya.