Blogging About Loans

Many of you have seen Donna's picture, read her blog, and even been regular commenters on her posts. Her husband, Rich, told me today there have been many emails sent to Donna from her friends at AR asking where she was and was she okay because she hasn't been blogging. So, with his permission, I'm writing a brief post to let you know how concerned we are all about her health right now. And to ask for your prayers.

Donna wasn't feeling well early last week, she thought she might have eaten something that caused food poisoning. Just a little over a day and a half later, she needed to be rushed to the hospital, had undergone two surgeries, and as of today, a week ago now, she still has not regained consciousness long enough for the doctors to feel it's safe to remove her air tube. Her white blood cell count today was so elevated that it is obvious the removal of approximately 75% of her small intestine did not rid her body of all the infection. The last I heard the doctors were weighing the pros and cons of yet another surgery.

Please take a moment to mention Donna in your prayers if you would.

If any of you follow Craig Rutman, you know he is quite the character. You never know what to expect from him next.

But I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to reblog this post he recently made. I tried it out and was amazed! It really puts the world of social media relationships into perspective. Try it out for yourself!

Ruth

Costa Rica Land for Sale

Unbelieveable values for land for sale in Costa Rica. We have a son that has lived there for 17 years and loves it! Look at this post for an example of land for sale - views, acreage, did I say views???!!!

Click Costa Rica Land For Sale to get a white list from these agents of properties available in Costa Rica.

Opinions expressed here are the sole responsibility of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the view of Starkey Mortgage.

 Ruth Vogt, Branch Manager

 Colorado #LMB100023827, NMLSR# 257576

    www.MyLenderOfChoice.com

   rvogt@wrstarkey.com

Mortgage Girlfriends Retreat in Chicago

One exhausting day of discussing and sharing one idea after another is exactly what the Mortgage Girlfriends Retreatis all about. This was my second year attending a Mortgage Girlfriends Retreat organized and hosted by the mortgage diva herself, Karen Deis! And what a mental workout we had today!

Lots of great tips! Lots of great ideas to implement! And best of all, lots of great relationships being forged! Make no mistake what this is all about: at the  Mortgage Girlfriends Retreat we don't waste precious time sitting on a beach somewhere soaking in the rays. Rather, we spend every precious moment soaking in the valuable information that we can take home and apply in each of our own markets.

Attendees to the Mortgage Girlfriends Retreat come from as far away as Alaska and as close by as 3.2 miles from the hotel (one of those two got lost and was late getting to the meeting this morning. Guess which one???) Some work for banks, some brokers or correspondent lenders, and others own there own businesses. But we all have one thing in common: a desire to embrace technology in order to find the best strategies to apply in our marketing and business acquisition/ retention plans.

Tomorrow will be another packed day. I'm tweeting some Mortgage Girlfriends Retreat updates periodically, so make sure you're following me there! OH! And I forgot to mention that the weather in Chicago right now is a lot better than what's going on in Denver. Another good reason to be here and not home!

I just had to repost this from Michael. I guess I never paid attention to how frightening some of the Easter bunny costumes can be! No wonder so many of these kids are crying in these pictures!!

Couldn't help it! Had to share this!!

We locked the doors to keep the dogs out of the main area because we were afraid this might happen. And it worked!! I woke up this morning to the screaming (of DELIGHT, I might add) of the 3 youngest of our grandchildren as they scurried around finding eggs and baskets scattered about. Thank goodness all Easter treasures were hidden inside the house and not outside, as the first streaks of daylight this morning gave sightings of the blanket of that white stuff (called snow) which we most likely have not seen the last of yet this spring in Colorado.

We're off for Easter brunch (which comes with mamosas)!! Now I'm screaming with delight! ha-ha!

GIRLFRIENDS MASTERMIND RETREAT COMING IN MAY!

Do you ever feel that a day or two in a crowded room is not what you need to find your way through the tangled web of social media? Have you ever wanted to just spend a couple of days in a smaller "work shop" environment? If so, you need to know about the GIRLFRIENDS MASTERMIND RETREAT that is being held in Chicago in May.

Reservations are limited to about 30 girlfriends (that's right! only thirty!) and five instructors. Subjects that will be discussed at the GIRLFRIENDS MASTERMIND RETREAT will be today's hottest social media topics including twitter, Facebook, blogging. Denny Andrews will be the final speaker showing you how to tie in all of these pieces and still have time left over to close the real estate transactions that you have generated from the implementation of social media into your business model!

Click the link to read more about the agenda, location, dates of the GIRLFRIENDS MASTERMIND RETREAT and get signed up today (while there are still a few seats left!).

           Hope to see you there...   GIRLFRIENDS MASTERMIND RETREAT

(here was last year's GIRLFRIENDS MASTERMIND RETREAT picture held in Scottsdale!)

If you can't join us, forward this to a friend that might be able to come! Then make sure they come back and tell you everything they learned at the Girlfriends Mastermind Retreat!!!

Several of our Denver office employees have recently decided to take on the challenge of trying to understand social media. Our operations manager, Sharon Shunk, entitled her first blog, "What does Social Media and Starbucks Have in Common". It was a great analogy that stayed with me for a couple of days.

One day I happened to be at a Starbucks store (#10114) and was telling our Aurora manager, Rona Lewis, also a new blogger, about the interesting post. While paying for the coffee, the young woman, Amanda, behind the counter told us she had recently given a 10 minute speech about how to order a Starbucks. Did YOU know there was a proper way on how to order coffee? Well, for the wondering minds, let me share with you the details of ordering a Starbucks:

First you have to understand the proper order of giving instruction. Did you ever notice there was a "menu" on the side of every Starbuck's cup? Hello??? Talk about a blinding flash of the obvious! How is that I never noticed this before??

So, here it goes:

First, tell them which cup to grab. Not small, medium or large. Rather "Tall" "Grande" or "Venti".

Once they have grabbed the cup, it's just a checklist they follow:

Decaf can be requested on most. And if you want half caffeine, ask for a "half calf"! Or ask for a double shot, triple or quad (get ready to fly around the room on that one!)

Shots: How much caffeine do you want? Single shot of expresso, double, triple? Size does not mean more caffeine in espresso drinks. Yet it does in Americanos drinks. Half-calf would mean one shot of regular, one shot of decalf. Macchiotto means shots in the foam giving a stronger flavor right away. 

Syrup- Do you know they have schools whose entire agendas are figuring out what syrups or combinations will whip up interesting concoctions that can be bragged about on Facebook? Maybe just go with vanilla, caramel, hazelnut?? OH.. and if you're trying to impress someone, just say "make it a two pump vanilla"!!

Milk: seems easy, right? Wrong! Here are your options: whole, low fat, non-fat. OR soy, organic, whipping creme, you name it! Easy so far, right? NO milk, foamed milk, part milk. Part foam is a complete dictionary of options depending on how many parts of each!

Custom: examples like extra hot, no room for cream, no foam, extra ice.

Drink:  In the picture, the "A" means Americano (espresso and hot water). Or maybe a tea, hot chocolate, apple cider (did you even know they have that??)

So, what does this have to do with social media, you are wondering? Here's a simple analogy shared at our Rocky Mountain Rainers meeting yesterday by Becky Harris. Becky heard attended a class with Liz Landry who recently visited Colorado and gave a fabulous class on social media that made it easier than ordering a cup of coffee!

LinkedIn: A board meeting

Facebook: Your backyard barbeque conversations

Twitter: After hours cocktail talk

And just to add a few of my own:

YouTube: Evening entertainment, no guests needed

Blogging: An opportunity to find pen pals all across the country

ActiveRain: Doing what you love and making money while you're at it!

NOTE: If you are referenced and linked in the post, you have been TAGGED. That means it is YOUR job to write a similar analogy referencing the post you were tagged in (or even reblogging it) and tag at least one or more people in your post. Make sure you send them an email and put "you've been tagged" in the subject line! Heck, even if you haven't been tagged, feel free to join in!!

Here is a photo of two of our dogs taken last summer. The brown one, Daisy, we have had for eight years. Putter is the black and white dog, which we have had ten years. On Tuesday of this week, something went terribly wrong with Daisy and without warning she viciously attacked the black and white dog.

Putter was in surgery for almost three hours. Dozens and dozens of stitches and staples were used to put her back together again. According to the surgeon there was no doubt that Daisy intended to kill Putter. Had our house cleaner not been there, that most likely would have happened.

We finally were able to bring Putter home today. She still has four drains inserted into some of the deeper wounds which most likely won't come out until next Tuesday. Her stitches and staples will be in for about a week after that. For now it will be our job to make sure she gets all of her four kinds of medications scheduled around the clock, and to be sure to keep all her drainage tubes clean and clear. Who would have thought that two "friends" for all these years would have had this horrific outcome? I shudder when I think how much worse this could have been! Not only do we have two younger, smaller dogs, but we have three young granddaughters that live with us. So, Putter is indeed our hero: she took one for the team.

IT"S BACK!!! The REBLOGGING BUTTON!!! HOORAY!!!

Not even sure I know how long this feature has started working again, but just happy as ever that we have this up and running again!!

Now - how long for auto tweets into Twitter, I wonder???

Ruth @ WRStarkeyMortgage

720-489-0712