My first paying jobs were babysitting children and pets. I started working when I was eleven years old. When I was fourteen, my Mom opened a candy store, and I began to work for her. Candy Classics was the bomb. I kept the candy bins stocked, ran the cash register, cleaned the store, and helped customers put together personalized gift baskets. It was a fun job with great perks. When I left for college, my Dad helped me get a job at a restaurant in Austin called Del Frisco’s. A simple job bussing tables turned into a restaurant career and marrying the Lead Cook and Kitchen Manager. I worked in high-end restaurants in Austin, Dallas, and New Orleans. I learned a great deal during those years about people, food, cultures, and presentation.
When my oldest was about one-year-old, I stayed home with her for a while and decided to follow a passion of mine, healing and improving the lives of others. I began my formal education in Hypnotherapy and eventually opened a small clinic. Most of my clients used their insurance benefits for smoking cessation and weight loss, but others sought out relief from stress and healing from childhood wounds. This career path ended too soon.
My family was transferred to Palm Springs for my husband’s newest Food and Beverage Position. While I was in Palm Springs, I spent a great deal of time volunteering at my daughter’s school. This lead to a part-time job in the school library. That opened up a whole new world of gratification. I adored my job. I loved the books, the storytelling, and the smiles on the kid’s faces. Another move would take us to the Chicago area, and we made our home in the small town of Itasca, Illinois. I was able to begin a new role in the Itasca Community Library as Youth Services Coordinator. I was in charge of several storytime programs, major community events, decorating the children’s department, helping to develop new programming, supporting community outreach and press releases. I was a library rock star in our community. My picture was in the paper every few weeks for some program or local event. A divorce and a move back home to Texas changed the trajectory a bit. Houston’s library system did not have the same type of job descriptions for non-MLS degreed candidates (Librarians). I took a job as an Assistant Director of a Montessori School for a while. It didn’t take me long to figure out that the company I worked for was not about children, but about profits. By this time, a position I qualified for had opened up in my local library, Head of Circulation. I applied and won the post. I worked more directly overseeing the staff and in conjunction with the Central Library System on a new initiative to improve community access and involvement in the library. I built an incredible team, created new workflow habits, initiated people first platforms, and put systems into place that are still used in that library today.
The next chapter began in 2003 with a new, and my current, husband Robert who encouraged me to spread my wings even further. Robert always said I could sell water to a fish and I had a flair for bringing people and things together. Hence, I launched my career in real estate.Skyrocket might be a better term because that is what happened. I exploded into sales using everything that I had learned in my past. It wasn’t’ long before I was teaching, coaching, and leading an entire office of over two hundred agents. I specialized in creating a culture of a family by supporting each person. My goal was to help each agent or team member discover their strengths and talents and aid them in building their businesses. My success came through their successes, and it has been a heartening vocation.
I spent the last fifteen years focused on real estate while raising my family here in Houston. In 2017, I retired from real estate management to take time off and support my family’s changing needs. Dad had passed away, and my Mom needed me, my son was in the process of being diagnosed with ASD, and my husband’s career was taking him on a new journey that had him working increased hours. I recognize it is time for a new chapter that will allow me to share the best parts of me with the world and my family. I took some time for reflection.
When I was actively engaged in Hypnotherapy to guide healing, the fundamental tool we used were our words. We used words to guide the subject to slow their breathing and become open and relaxed. Then we used our words to direct the body and mind to begin making the desired changes. Our words and our thoughts have incredible power. They shape us every day. Now I’m using my words in a new way. I’m writing Cluck Howl Crow so that I can continue to teach, create, heal and bring a community together.
What the heck does Cluck Howl Crow mean? The blog’s name Cluck Howl Crow symbolizes the range of emotions, conversations, activities, relationships, and experiences we go through each day on our path. Cluck Howl Crow is the mundane, the heartfelt, the maddening, the hilarious, the tragic and triumphant. It represents finding the words and the ways that move us to the next place.
