Sewing a dress doesn’t necessarily teach a person patience like Sacramento real estate does.

Somewhere along the line of getting older I managed to develop patience, most likely in the midst of believing I had no patience. I once tried to teach myself patience in my younger years, long before I became involved in Sacramento real estate. Back when I worked as a title searcher at First American Title in Boulder. My plan was to sew a dress. OK, it wasn’t bad enough that I once had run a sewing machine needle through my finger and out the other side when I was up past midnight, frantically trying to finish a stupid three-cornered scarf for my 8th grade Home Ec class, and that was the last time I ever attempted to sew a thing. But let’s just say I felt that patience was not my strong suit when it came to sewing.

If anything could teach me patience, it would probably be sewing a dress. It’s not like you can look at a swath of cloth and it will immediately materialize into a dress, unless you’re working in Photoshop. In the real world, you have to drive to a store, pick out a pattern, buy sharp scissors and that rippy-outie-thingamagig for tearing out the threads you sewed in error, plus the material. Just to cut out the pattern and pin it to the material is a major feat, then you have to carefully cut the cloth before any of the real fun begins. Lots of patience prior to final product.

Even today I still tell people that I have no patience. However, I have a lot more patience than I give myself credit for, and if you’re in the same boat, you might be the same. Oh, I remember those job interviews from 40 years ago when you were expected to come up with a negative about yourself. I could never think of anything, primarily because I don’t go around focusing on bad things about myself, so I would use patience. Yup, I’ve got no patience, I would say. I mean really, who does?

I’m discovering that wasn’t necessarily true. For one thing, I bought a new car last October and I still don’t have it. It’s a 2016 Mercedes GLA, and the sales guy said he would interrupt a vehicle scheduled for assembly, slip in my custom order and it would be ready by the time I came back from vacation in Cuba in early January. Except it’s still not on the assembly line. We also bought a house we can’t live in because it’s in Hawaii. See, new car, new house and I don’t have either.

As for that dress I tried to sew. Let’s just say it ended up in the trash can because I sewed it inside out. The real lesson is sewing doesn’t teach patience. Patience teaches one not to sew.

I am in the midst of working on a bunch of listings for Sacramento real estate. Many homes are just not ready to go on the market yet, and that’s OK. I’ve got a lot of patience to wait until they are ready. I’m in no rush. My time is the seller’s timeframe. My professional strategy is to make a splash with a new listing. Every detail in place. Patience helps me to accomplish that goal.