exciting business opportunity!

this week, i am heading to charlotte to get certified as a "green valuation specialist" - aka an appraiser who has been trained to value energy-efficient homes.  i'm excited about this for several reasons...one, i get to stay with our good family friends in charlotte; two, there are no other appraisers in virginia with a green designation (as far as we can find); three, i was reading our newspaper real estate section online just now and came across this article that will hopefully be an awesome business lead!

turns out that while we're not up to speed with the west coast in terms of green building, there are definitely a good number of local builders who are building green homes and trying to promote green building practices throughout the area.  i called the head of the tidewater builders association's green building council, and he is very excited about the prospect of my work in the area.  apparently, builders who are going the extra mile to build green homes aren't necessarily getting appraisers who know a lot about green building/valuation, so that leaves an exciting potentially opportunity for me.  the only setback is that lenders can't really control which appraiser is assigned to which job - it's more of a rotation.  but, hopefully we can come up with some way to have a green-designated appraiser only be allowed to appraise green homes. 

i'm really excited about the possibilities here, especially since i love new construction and would really enjoy getting involved in that field again (instead of mostly resale).  also, this designation will be key if billy ends up ever working for brooks running's corporate office (his dream job), as that will mean a move to washington state, which has lots of green building going on already. 

i'll be sure to post some updates as i get this niche business figured out!!

agility

about a month ago, i started jefferson on agility...where dogs do obstacle courses, kind of like horses doing a jumping event.  i thought it could be a fun activity for us on saturdays when billy is working and also a good way to channel his energy and make him have a job of sorts.  here's an example of a welsh terrier who is really good at agility...

so jefferson has quite a ways to go, but he's doing really well (especially for a terrier, which the trainer says are usually more difficult, as they don't really care about pleasing their owners...they'll do what you want, but it has to be on their terms - haha!).  so far, he's learned some jumps, the teeter-totter, the dog walk, the a-frame, open and closed tunnels, and the table.  i think his favorite is the tunnel, which is not surprising given the nature of terriers. 

i'm not sure if we're going to do any competitions yet, but we'll see!  billy has offered to build some equipment for our yard, which could be a fun spring project :)  here's a far-away view of the agility course he trains on now:

maybe if billy comes to a lesson with me, he'll be able to take some action shots of the little man!