I loved Mean Girls and a mashup between Mean Girls and Jane Austen sounded like a great idea. And it was! I loved this historical novel. I didn’t think it was exactly a romcom as there were some darker threads in the story. But it was also fun and I laughed my way through it. I sincerely wanted a cocktail, as well. 😉 Georgia Ellers is sent to live with her fussy aunt and uncle as her parents take a break from her? Or their lives. Georgiana is bored out of her mind until she meets Frances Campbell at a party. The two become fast friends and “George” is thrilled with being included in the wild life of her new, extremely wealthy friends. Reputation is an excellent debut novel. I absolutely loved how funny and entertaining it was! |
Author Archives: Lauri Rottmayer
It’s My Half Birthday!
Today I am 61 ½ years old. I love my birthday and cake so much that I have celebrated my half birthday for as long as I can remember. 😁
Today, I have half of a mocha layer cake with mocha buttercream. Frosting isn’t something I do very well at all so I’m pleased at the way this one looks. 🍰
Birthdays represent joy, cake, happiness, fun, balloons, cake, friends, laughing, and cake. I just love mine. 🎈
Do you celebrate your half birthday?
Book Review: Meant To Be
Emily Giffin is one of my favorite authors and I loved this book like I have all of her others. Joe’s family is like American royalty. Everyone knows who they are, they are fabulously wealthy, and they live a privileged life. Cate comes from the wrong side of the tracks who makes it big as a fashion model. When Joe happens upon a photoshoot Cate is doing on the beach, he falls for her. Cate tries not to fall back. She feels like there’s no way the two of them can possibly work given that they have such different backgrounds. However, they were meant to be. I loved this book and couldn’t put it down. I highly recommend it! |
Here I Go Again – In Pageant Central
I’m so excited to tell you that I’ve entered a pageant! I thought I was finished competing after Mrs. International in 2016 but that little bug will not go away.
So which pageant now? I’ve entered the Ms Arkansas Senior America pageant. It’s scheduled for June 2-4 in Hot Springs and is for woman aged 60 and over.
Not only am I excited to compete again but I’ve never been to Hot Springs yet in our travels around Arkansas so I’m looking forward to that as well.
The pageant honors the “age of elegance”. I’ll be competing in an interview with a panel of judges. There is an evening gown competition during which I will present my philosophy of life statement. The last portion is TALENT! I am going to dance and I so love the idea of entertaining the pageant audience. This is the first pageant I’ve done that had a talent portion.
I’m competing for the first time in a state other than Florida! Yep, every single other pageant I have ever done was held in Florida. I’m also competing for the first time with a green wardrobe. It might sound like a minor detail but I love green and it’s my favorite color. Even with this being the case, I rarely wear green and so it will be a nice change to wear my favorite color.
I’ve been busy getting everything together that I need and practicing. I’ve nearly got everything together and I will be super prepared by the first of June.
The winner of the pageant will go on to the National Senior America Pageant which will be held in Hershey, PA in September.
We’ve got our hotel rooms booked and I booked tickets for my friends and family. I’m super excited about this one and I will let you know what happens!
Meant To Be
Emily Giffin is one of my favorite authors and I loved this book like I have all of her others.
Joe’s family is like American royalty. Everyone knows who they are, they are fabulously wealthy, and they live a privileged life. Cate comes from the wrong side of the tracks who makes it big as a fashion model.
When Joe happens upon a photoshoot Cate is doing on the beach, he falls for her. Cate tries not to fall back. She feels like there’s no way the two of them can possibly work given that they have such different backgrounds.
However, they were meant to be. I loved this book and couldn’t put it down. I highly recommend it!
Beautiful Packaging, Beautiful Scent, Beautiful Skin
When I was first approached by the folks at Blue Nectar, I was a little wary. I am asked a lot by folks with skincare lines to try their products. I am told a lot how beautiful my skin is so I have never taken anyone up on their offer before.
After receiving the email, I investigated the Blue Nectar products and I was intrigued. Their ingredients are totally natural with no chemicals. I’m working more every day to move to all natural products as all those chemicals that commercial preparations contain are just not good for me.
I was asked to try the Kumkumadi Night Cream with Jasmine. I looked at the product on Amazon and noticed on the label it mentioned Jasmine and Pachouli.
I LOVE the smell of jasmine. Back when we lived in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, we would pass by a certain house on our daily walk. Jasmine was growing over the fence and I breathed as much of it as I could each time we passed by.
I do NOT love the smell of Pachouli. I often wonder how people can wear that scent as it smells like mold to me.
Given that some smells, no matter how good they are, can make me nauseated over time (I once had to pull over to the side of the road so I could wipe a new lipstick off because it was making me sick!), I was just a touch nervous at the thought of how the smell would affect me.
I received the cream. The packaging is beautiful! It came in a square blue box with a removable lid. The ingredients are listed on the side of the box. Upon opening the box, you find a beautiful gold jar of cream.
I opened the jar and it smelled SOOOOO pretty. It smelled of jasmine with no hint of pachouli smell at all. But could I made it all night with it on my face or would it bother me? It didn’t bother me! It’s a gorgeous smell that I go to sleep smelling and it hasn’t made me sick once.
I love the way the cream is absorbed by my skin making it feel moisturized but not oily. This is crazy, but I love how I can still smell the cream when I’m working out and sweating the next morning and it comes out of my pores.
This is just exactly the night cream I was looking for and I didn’t even know it. Thank you, Blue Nectar for letting me try your beautiful night cream. I love it!
75 Hard Challenge, Round 2!
This is Day 9 of my second round of the #75HardChallenge. I finished the first round last August. If you haven’t heard of it, the challenge was created by @andyfrieslla.
Why I chose to do #75Hard the first time: I had a truly awful week in real estate. 75 Hard is a mental toughness challenge and I decided at that point, I needed some mental toughness. On Day 63 of the first round, I was skewered by a client who also used to be a friend and it devastate me. No mental toughness. But what I did get was radical clarity! The challenge was worth every single minute I devoted to it.
Why I chose to do a second round: I still want mental toughness! LOL! I’m still shooting for the mental toughness aspect the challenge should bring. Additionally, I feel like following the challenge is making me a better person day by day.
Why I love 75 Hard: It’s scalable! That means ANYONE can do it. If you notice in my video, I can’t do push-ups off the floor yet. Yet! So I do them off of the rail and they are tough! But one day, they won’t be tough and I’ll be doing them off the floor. I aspire to this.
At the age of 61,I’m just getting started. There are so many things I still want to do and 75 Hard will be the foundation to those things. Have you done 75 Hard? If not, when are you starting?
Millionaire Real Estate Agent
This month, in our Arkansas eXp Book club, we are reading The Millionaire Real Estate Agent by Gary Keller. This is a book that’s loaded with information and our broker suggests that we have it taken apart and either have it spiral bound or punch holes and put it in a binder.
I will be doing this because it seems like this book will end up being a great resource for my real estate business. I eagerly look forward to each week’s readings. 🙂
Before Selling Your Home…
Only 7% of home sales in 2021 were FSBO (for sale by owner). Of that 7%, many of these were sales between family members and people who knew each other. Meaning, even in an extremely low inventory market (aka HOT seller’s market), most sellers hired a real estate agent to do the legwork.
Instead of listing out all of the reasons why you *should not* sell your house without an agent. I’m going to educate you as to how the RIGHT fit agent can help you when it comes time to sell your home.
First, a great LOCAL agent knows the market. They’ve been inside many of the homes that have sold and are for sale. That gives them a leg up when it comes to the current market values of homes in your area so they can help you to price strategically and attract the most buyers. They know what buyers are looking for and what turns them off, therefore knowing what you can do as a seller, to create the most demand.
A lot of the “work” you’ll do when selling your home happens before it’s ever for sale. This is the “pre-market prep”. I guide my sellers through this process whether it’s staging recommendations, furniture placement, paint updates or small repairs that should be done prior to the home hitting the market. This takes the guess work out of it for sellers, because like I said, I’m familiar with what buyers want (as well as what would be considered red flags that we should fix).
I’ll also leave you with an important stat to keep in mind. According to NAR (National Association of REALTORS):
- FSBOs (for sale by owners) typically sell for less than the selling price of other homes;
- FSBO homes sold at a median of $260,000 last year, significantly lower than the median of agent-assisted homes at $318,000.
The moral of the story is this: A great agent will help you maximize the sale price of your home, putting more money in YOUR POCKET. That is done through their extensive market knowledge, pricing strategies, pre-market prep guidance and out of the box marketing tactics – all while navigating every step of the process for you so you don’t have to figure it out yourself.
Book Review: The Showgirl
I’m a couple days late here but one of my favorite books this year, The Showgirl by Nicola Harrison, went on sale Tuesday. If you love historical women’s fiction, this is a book for you.
It’s 1927 and all Olive McCormick, a gifted singer and dancer from Minnesota, wants to do is become a showgirl in the Ziegfield Follies in New York. Her parents expect her to get married and become a housewife and they think her desire to be in the Follies is cheap and unacceptable. This doesn’t stop her, though. She boldly goes to NYC to meet Ziegfield where he tells her she’s not exactly what they’re looking for. This doesn’t stop her either and she works in another review show until she’s finally brought into the Ziegfield Follies.
All Olive wants is to sing and dance and be adored by the audiences. She doesn’t understand her family’s attitude towards what she is doing and she doesn’t understand the attitude of the other girls who see the show as a means to find a husband so they can get married and settle down with families.
When she meets the good looking and wealthy Archie Carmichael, she thinks she’s found the perfect man who loves her for who she is. Then she learns that he wants to ultimately have a family and she doesn’t want to tell him a secret she’s been keeping from him that she thinks will destroy their relationship.
This story is full of drama, thrills, excitement, glamour and secrets. It also gives a nice inside look at the Ziegfield Follies, a showgirl’s life, and life in the roaring twenties in New York City. This is a great book. Congratualaitons, Nicole Harrison on another excellent book. Montauk, also by this author, is another favorite of mine.
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