Category: Uncategorized

Making The Most Of What You Have Which Is More Than Enough.

It takes courage to map out a strategy when critics don’t often offer many or any solutions.

Only recycle the list of excuses, negative factors on why this or that won’t work from past experience. Every day is a new one and vision to see the correct path to take means a state like Maine has lots of work to do. To make it business friendly. To adapt, evolve. To create the healthiest environment for more than just its wildlife. But creating jobs for its people that match today’s needs in society.

Examining the cards you hold in the game of life is the first step.

What pluses, face cards does Maine possess that other state’s do not. It’s hard working, dedicated people are the greatest asset, strength. An attitude of we can do it, have the right stuff is the foundation for anything else that follows. Believing in yourself is everything to keep from faltering, becoming apathetic or worse cynical, discouraged. Which is all counter productive to the lead, follow or get out of the way approach to fixing a problem. Adjusting to change in the way the state rolls means leadership. A shared vision of the direction to steer the ship. Unity, oneness, everyone in agreement and giving the heave ho of where Vacationland should go.

FACT: Certain markets are far away for a product produced in Maine. Transportation costs are high. The distance is great when you are up here in the right hand corner of the country like a thumb stuck up hitchhiking to Canada. So is the cost of heating production facilities added to the rest of the overhead any business is saddled with in a rural state that used to put most of its economic eggs in the woods, agricultural baskets. With a tinge, hint of tourism to round it all out. And that used to work until everything changed. With the shift from pretty much mostly local to markets to ones opening up from far away. For jobs for our people, for consumption of our products or services.

Lots of small adjustments, tinkering to make the big things start to happen.

To stem the tide heading the wrong way. For starters a business friendly environment and if you need to know what it takes just ask an existing Maine employer. Tackle the list they one by one recite that shout out the same complaints, obstacles. Where it hurts when they cough, try to do the heavy lifting.

Roll up your sleeves in the Maine legislature to remove restrictions, the wrinkles that harm doing business. Keeping the doors open, from being chained, locked, going dark. So people stay employed in Maine today. Business, making a profit is not the big bad wolf but the little red hen needed to steer Maine back on the path to prosperity. Not government tinkering with its fingers in the pie, pencil pushing.

Let me work, give me a job, a purpose to earn my keep is the best medicine, shot in the arm any Mainer could ask for, find. To reverse outward migration of our young people that need employment means investing in business. To stem the tide of just a graying segment of the population lining the streets of our small Maine towns. Sitting in lawn chairs. Waving the red, white and blue during 4th of July celebrations as the local band plays the stars and stripes music.

Reduce duplication of services, work hand in hand with a atmosphere of cooperation sought. When the independent spirit of a true Mainer resists that coming together collaboration. Has always survived pretty much self contained, to himself. The joining forces for the greater good of the Pine Tree state. Fighting, back biting, finger pointing are emotions that drain, set back the state’s momentum. Keep it parked, stalled and bleeding from self inflicted gunshot wounds. Seek, apply harmony as the salve to help the healing, reduce the swelling of big egos, to remove the purple bruises caused by frustration of just the way it is. With only ourselves to blame for ignoring the red flags waving, the missed cues that this was coming.

Fierce pride needs to fuel the fire so that each and every Mainer says “what’s the plan, what do I need to do daily” to help advance the state.

Knowing its takes time like a marathon. That there is a steep learning curve to change attitudes, opinions, faulty outdated thinking of what used to work that is antiquated. Not real world. And causing us to lose ground, get dragged in the tug of war to make ends meet.

We have more than enough to take the state over the top and maybe already are in many areas. But the tone, slant, all forms of media journalism of print, sight and sound are the shot of enthusiasm, the slow drip IV on a daily basis of what it is going to take to get us out of our own way. To spark excitement, to outline solutions not tear down and discourage the progress. To create the steam and rise above. Be positive, be involved, be supportive of anything that advances Maine, the state we cherish, protect, admire.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com

September 28, 2013
Just In Time Inventory, Living Out On The Edge Consumption.

Up before 5am to tie on the kitchen apron to whip up a breakfast of home made beans, blueberry pancakes and brown in serve sausages.

For the oldest son home from his real jobs of working at a Colorado ski area, the white water rafting gig. Alex who gets filled up, caffeinated and sent out the door with a lunch to get him through a long day at the Corey Farms Maine potato house. Fall is in the air, the spud harvesting tradition continues.

The brown and serve sausage links got me thinking. Pre-cooked and ready to hit a hot griddle to sizzle. To finish what was already started back at the Three Little Pigs sausage factory in some other solar system. Prepared to “ta da”. End up like you see at the IHOP, in the commercials right in the privacy, comfort of your own home. In two shakes of a lamb’s tail. Quick like a bunny as you would remind the kids when the clock on the wall said we’re late for the sandman’s nightly visit.

It used to be the potato farmer of Maine grew just Green Mountains, Russet Burbank, Ontarios, Katahdins or a handful of other tried and tested strains, varieties.

Now 2157’s, Mocca’s, Purples, Atlantics, Red Pontiacs, Yukon Gold, Blues and a slew of other types. All with their own uniqueness, merits when hopping on, holding down its section of the supper table plate.

But like everything farming in Maine has gotten complicated. Seed farmers, specific niche market growers for the processors have come out of the smoke of battle to stay on the Maine farm. To adjust, become Spartan like tough as old board nails. As the number of spud farmers in Maine decreases. As the acreage planted, cultivated, harvested increases. Stay small, grpw big or run and hide, get out has happened. As the $2500 to $3000 to grow the acre of Maine potatoes separates the men from the boys. The shift from family farm to a factory agricultural operation grinds on like the cleats, tracks on a tank squeak squeak rummble, rattle and hum going into battle.

And the house wife, house husband too of which I was a member as a single full time parent needs something that jives with the busy schedule of active kids, jobs, life balancing act of today. So pre-cooked, throw this in the oven or microwave dial it in, ding ding your radiated food is done happened.

To fill a need, quickly fuel, fit a family on the tare.

Palm size hash browns to hold, nibble on. Or sliced, diced taters like the Ruby Tuesday reds ones with special secret seasoned cheese sauce to die for that are expensive but big time meal munching clock saving. NASCAR pit stop quick to laddle on to a plate. To complete the meal needed to avoid a drive through fast food visit instead. On the way to a hockey, soccer, baseball (insert here from the arm’s length list of activities) after everyone piles in “The Beast” to be carted here and fro. To wherever the kiddos need to be next as the Earth turns faster, faster spinning tilted on its axis.

Like MRE’s the armed forces enjoyed, shared huddled in a foxhole on enemy soil defending freedom.

Except created to overcome the no room in the just in time inventory / life on the edge approach to rise and shine. Before the sunset of the day in Maine happens. Meal, Ready To Eat…. hit and run, lock and load, rack ’em and stack ’em for the shock and awe. Except these vittles taste great and a scan of the nutritional merit shows shake your head side to side concern. Heavy sodium, fat and other not so healthy food information delivered in the all in one meal warnings. That glow eerily on the side panel, bar code scan area of the package disclaimer information.

The baked potato at 425 degrees for over an hour does not fit the overbooked, heavy time sensitive schedule today for many with kids. In single parent households or not. So reaching for the tray of pre-cooked, jump started Maine processed food is showing up in the grocery store coolers. To match the speed of life in a Maine household.

As the appetite of the food delivery options need to change, so do the patterns, habits, rituals of the Maine potato farmer on the production end of the food chain.

And boy have they ever since the days of being a young grasshopper. Standing over a Maine farm house kitchen table. Helping mom on the family farm with the three older brothers, Dad. Shaking out a dusty can of potato barrel numbered tickets. Fine dust filtering during the one potato, two potato tally. To determine the daily count of all the spud field warriors that had a hand, a part in the fall harvest tradition in Aroostook County Maine.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com

September 27, 2013
You Are The Best Actor For The Part In The Script Of Your Life.

Who are you, no really who are you…what makes you tick?

Never has the effort, process of “finding oneself” been more pronounced than today in society. How did so many people become lost, and who’s tending the day to day activities, minding the store?

Personal days taken away from work and sick days used as one more way to play hookey from our professions. Work that satisfies is a job you never have to struggle a day at in your life right? But as labor becomes less fulfilling, more automated, the void to fill that space needs a sympathetic family, an understanding, supportive partner. And activities that energize, are plain downright fun, enlightening.

That’s where Maine comes in on the time you log on the life treadmill for self improvement, the quality of living.

The four season outdoor space to think clearly. To dial up your awareness levels of what is really important to a person in life. Your life. Not the one lead by the advertising marketing folks for an illustration of how you should do the two step, twist, line dance. But good old, one and only you. What’s it gonna be sailor, mister man, chummy.

What defines you and the direction you need to take when change happens helps if you like where you live. If you are in the right place and just know it. Feel it in your bones, deep in your gut. And when more is expected of you on the local level in a small Maine town which all are, there is more a sense of contributing to the greater good. And less sitting in the corner and taken out of the game by your own devices or option to be selfish, all to your lonesome.

The process of self discovery never ends.

But the fear of the loss of living a life to its fullest gnaws at a person brought up to be an over achiever. Taught to expect not just good but great, spectacular. Over the top, as big as life and twice as frightening things to happen pretty much round the clock in their short stints on planet Earth. Our competitive society preaches bigger, better and be all that you can be. Whether wearing Army green or not. Having fun in Maine in the process.

No one is keeping score. Stop. Oscar Wilde said “only the shallow know themselves”. The process of self discovery never ends. Because we continually grow, change and never cease learning. The weaknesses, blind spots, stubborn lines in the sand drawn by ourselves when we dig in. Stand crossed arm at a halt and dug in on what we call principle warrants examination. The limits, filters we apply to live that rob the harvest of all the experiences start and end from within. Not our surroundings. Not another person, not any woulda, coulda, shoulda’s.

But the baggage, mortgage from earlier life paths that took a wrong turn can be viewed from another angle.

No more regret. If you chose to glean the good from any event. Squeeze, ring out the juice of knowledge that is the take away if you study what was your role. Ownership of it instead of the default survival knee jerk of typical denial is slid on a slide under the microscope. The inner workings of your heart, mind, soul. You are that channel and how is the reception of the broadcast coming in on your small set of rabbit ears? Learn anything worth sharing? Let’s compare notes. Share the puzzle pieces each of us has earned, collected, possess that the other needs.

Why you react the way you do and why can’t others be who they are on the same stage under the smoking hot lights and behind the orchestra pit? Scrutiny, critical and self flailing needs to wave the white flag. Come out of the foxhole into the sunshine, fresh air, to embrace a new day. Maine, the place to set the next scene in act two or three, whatever count you are up to in the life journey.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com

September 26, 2013
Maine, Keeping Up With Life, Not Letting It Get Ahead Of You

Life picks up speed or maybe you realize the velocity of it all when you find chunks freed up turning one of its corners.

Child rearing full time if done right should and does consume a parent. So will building a career. Getting it off the ground. But when empty nest happens, or retirement knocks at the door, a person notices in their life the miles per hour radar check print out. Shows we all have been speeding. Going way way too fast.

Unless poor health takes over standing at the time clock check in and out daily ritual, sometimes the issue is the habitual living for tomorrow mode we are stuck in. When this won’t be a problem, when this is paid for, when you fool yourself you’ll have more time. You have the time now. It is how you chose to use it. Fill your days. Reach for the bottle of moderation. Crack it open, pour a little out to season your daily activities diet.

Maine is a place where community involvement happens. Each of possess gifts, talents that make us unique, distinct.

We are taught the value of simplicity. The importance of solitude built into your daily hokey pokey of sensory stimulating events. Natives, full time Maine residents live in a state many only outside get to visit once in a life time. Or that try cramming the entire state into a seven day vacation capsule annually during the return visit. Experiences harvested to take back to the hustle bustle of city living that they have to strap on the other fifty one weeks of the year. Maine is the band aid for their gunshot wound, inner city bruises in rough neighborhoods. A temporary fix, a something to do when they have more time destination. Some day is too late to land here. Once a year or lifetime does not cut it.

Life is simple, we are the ones guilty of making it too complex. The happiest days are when we had little, were starting out and full of wonder, excitement, hope, faith and ambition. Everyone was poor financially but did not know it. Because of being grateful, rich in appreciation and saddled with an attitude of having more than enough to accomplish much. Kids, youth know how to have fun, apply a sense of fairness to keep everyone in the game. Not taking their bat and ball and heading home.

Discovering in our own Maine backyard all we need to thrive is right here.

No need to travel to mountain tops and spend time with gurus, monks, wise hermits to unlock the life keys to happiness. Cook your food on an open fire camping at Baxter Park’s South Branch Pond. With the full moon shimmering on the smooth as a bottle lake top. As a moose to your right feeds on reeds, chutes, new growth of shoreline tree branches. Sharing the landscape as you hear an occasional Maine loon call, the constant sound trail of crickets in concert. After a never fade memory making day besting Mt Katahdin, a yearly trek as important as a doctor’s check up.

Pick a season, lock and load a back pack. As you lace up, secure hiking boots to explore a Maine trail. As you swish swish on boards to cross country or down hill ski powdery new fluffy snow. As you rack focus your tripod camera studying a Maine light house offshore, birds in their natural habitat, the fall foliage explosion of colors Jack Frost controls, conducts.

Come meet the people of Maine, the spark, the drive of one of the 108 small towns that makes her special.

Learn what locals already do about life, balance, moderation, volunteerism and family. Maine, the way life should be. Used to be like every other place until that simple honest approach to living was lost. Thanks for following our Me In Maine blog posts!

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573
Email info@mooersrealty.com

September 24, 2013
Time Alone, By Yourself, To Think, Breathe, Pick Your Life Pace.

Make Your Own Trail, Find Your Way In Maine.

There are two kinds of alone. The one where someone is painfully missing.

Creating a void, a gap, a hole. That completes you. And the kind that you relish, need and actively seek. To collect and tidy up scattered thoughts rolling around in your head. To make the time, set the stage for the essential space to yourself. All by your lonesome. Except no one is pining away. Self inflicted for healthy reasons, something you enjoy doing as an army of one.

Why is just me, myself and I time needed but somehow a taboo, shunned condition in society as a whole?

Maybe because being social is everything. The person with the most friends, likes, followers is a real Pied Piper of People Pleasers. But what about you? How are you built, wired? How do you shuck and jive, move and groove, hokey pokey? Hey. You can not find out if working the crowd and surrounded by people. Ones telling you to do this, don’t do that. Or self absorbed and a major bore. Or nice as punch but you just need a break from to do what you want, need to create. To unplug, recharge and get centered in your space.

Relaxation is a long word meaning lots of the same list items to achieve it. Many of the not so similar things people build into their life for meaning, healing, maintenance. What builds inner joy, what causes peace inside a person depends on the individual right? We come in all sizes, colors, speeds and some are out going loud and proud. Others more in the background and strong in silent ways. And we have the inbetween. Vocation more than vacation types happen too.

Maine is a great place to have time to yourself.

Because with 11 people per square mile where I live in the Crown of Maine, that space translates into don’t have to look far to find a getaway. A private lake to kayak, a hidden trail unexplored to hike. A sunset capping off a special private day outdoors in Maine. Your lungs filled with fresh air, clean water, blue skies. Collecting another experience reflection life puzzle piece. For quiet contemplation. No one to interfere or rob that moment anywhere in sight or ear shot. Raw, real, unfiltered and all natural that hits you deeply. Splits you wide open. Removes the knots.

Disengagement for the body and mind. Not on a yoga mat. Inside a church either. But outdoors blown away, swept to a place of tranquility. To collect your thoughts. Or just spend the day at your own pace. Imposing your own speed limit, not someone else’s who may be on your bumper pushing you from behind. Blowing their horn to get out of their way slow poke. Or inching along in front creeping and holding you up, slowing you down. Wasting daylight.

Disengaging for mind and body makes Maine a perfect setting.

Loaded with places to spend time with yourself. Or a small special group you bring to be away from the crowds. Hordes of people most have to put up with 24/7/365 if eight out of ten people have migrated to the urban areas of sprawl.

Private time you seek out, insert in your life is not a painful, desolate exile.

Not like time spent in your room when sent there to reflect on something you did wrong growing up. Alone, viewed by some as what, no friends? Like you are the next candidate for a one way air trip and parachute drop over Misfit Island. Where all the broken toys are sent, banished, hidden. Because they failed to meet the expectations of someone down in human engineering. Maine is a wonderful place to become total absorbed in your environment. To do your own thing. To have a solo and feel empowered, reliant, self sufficient.

Being alone, cut off for a spell, a need that reasserts itself through out life to figure things out, to just take a break. To quarter, split up life into smaller bite size pieces to savor. Chew on. To suspend time once in awhile. Before grabbing the safety bar, hoisting yourself with the Tarzan rope swing back onto the life conveyor belt. For many chasing the almighty dollar. Beyond enough for simple survival. But as a fuel for self medication. A whole lot of retail therapy, booze, drugs, over indulgence of man made something that does not last, is not real, is not Maine.

Get away from the deafening sounds of the city, to listen to your own inner voice, heart, mind. To remove the static, to spend time with yourself. Don’t ignore or close off those inner channels. It is what the place with the space dubbed using only one single syllable word is about labeled “Maine”. Ready, waiting, whenever you need a destination to check out up here in the right hand corner of the country.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com

September 23, 2013
The Yearly Trek To The Maine State REALTORS Annual Meeting, Trade Show.

Learning, Laughing, Networking In Maine REALTOR Convention Events.

New developments in your industry and what’s hot, not.

No matter what you do there is a state, national, world, solar system meeting to be better at it. Because regardless of what you jump out of bed, get up each morning to go off to work to perform for a task, the way to do your job’s hokey pokey changes. Because its faster faster, better, quicker, more complete and sweet. The new, chop chop more efficient, get used to it blur pace of life, society. And there are always neat creative ways to do what you do more efficient, effectively right? To meet the needs of the person the service is being provided for, the Joe and Jane Customer receiving the product on the other end of the marketing signal.

This year’s annual statewide Maine REALTORS meeting was in Portland Maine.

Next year’s is at the Samoset in Rockport Maine. Hopefully (fingers and toes crossed) the 2016 venue will be Bangor Maine thanks to the new Cross Center. A little closer to home for me because Portland is a 3.5 hour drive. Maine is one big honking state remember?

Talking With Her Hands, Lots Of Emotion, Maine REALTOR”s Legal Arm Linda Gifford Explains A Point.

The annual meeting is a time of continuing credit hours gathering, required for Maine real estate licensing renewal.

It is a coming back together for three days of old friends in different markets that you network with in Maine real estate promotion, sales.. The group is a resource to find more creative ways to clear hurdles that come up in the day to day peddling property listings. It is a place to share successes, setbacks. What each and every one of us learns listing, marketing, selling (repeat) Maine real estate.

Slide Your REALTOR Key Card Right In This Slot, To Get Credit For The Class.

The clearing the schedule for three days going into the Maine REALTOR convention is always hectic. But with cell phones, a super assistant back at the office, email, you stay connected with real estate buyers and sellers, banks and lawyers while on the road. And blogging still happens. Because the Maine real estate office is really online day and night. It’s where the people are. Where we have to be 24/7/365 lock and load ready. Thanks to a little device called the Internet. “I may doze but never close” means we are open for business.

The take away from all the educational credits, the conversations around the dinner table and out on after hours hospitality suites verandas of vendors all vying for your business is we are in a people business.

One of forming relationships, meeting needs, listening to know, connecting. Then advice, guidance from experiences for the best direction to navigate. Setting expectations early on that all center, revolve around the largest investment for most that is ever made.

Real estate is emotional.

Whether it’s the Maine waterfront property that tugs at your heart strings and increases the lub dub. Makes you tingle. Or the dire, “gotta sell my home quickly because I relocated” that makes your seller frantic, sweat, anxious. Causes his family’s life to be put painfully on hold. Or the divorce, estate settling that needs special, sensitive, empathetic surgical glove handling for broken heart mending in the someone’s gotta pack up, go shuffle.

Learning Means Hungry, Eating. Dinner Table Talk Very Educational. Food For Thought.

Old and young and in between, Maine REALTORS rubbing elbows in an organization of around 4500 agents, brokers from around Vacationland. All in different markets with unique dynamics but everyone of us with a fierce pride in the state, county, local Maine community we represent. Back to work this Friday in the real estate office, industry I have worked at for thirty three years. And that does not feel like a job at all because it is what I am built to do.

Ethics Class For Maine REALTORS Continuing License Renewal Credits.

Thanks for following our Me In Maine blog posts, kinda like a journal of sorts. A distraction to the my real Maine job I get up, brush my teeth, comb my hair to do after running through the shower each morning. It is true if you love what you do, you do not ever work a day in your life.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com

September 20, 2013