Welcome to the life of a mompreneur!

Blackberry: "DING DING DING...CHIRP CHIRP...BEEP BEEP BEEP"
Hootsuite: "DING DONG DING DONG"
Phone: "RING RING"
Bills: Just keep rolling in
Kids: "Mommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmy! Can I have more juice? Up, up, up!!! She pushed me! I'm hungry! Abby just bit me!"
Household chores: (they live at the bottom of my priority list...)

Me: "Hmmm, and I asked for all of this???"

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First, let me say that I love my kids and I am completely satisfied with my place in life right now. I get to have the best of both worlds by running a home-based business and being able to care for my children. Sure, there are some "sticky" moments where I want to give up and just do neither job of mine, but overall, the good times outweigh the bad. I can be there when my kids are sick, I can kiss all the boo-boos, they can nap when they want, eat when they're ready, and if they exhibit bad manners, I can be right there to correct it! I also have my other life, where I can be a successful small business owner who is immediately receptive to the needs of her clients and believes with all of her heart that hard work and perfection are the best ways to grow her client list. Additionally, I get to keep my resume in-tact without a gaping hole where I was not involved in any business community. Every mom who has taken time off to care for her children dreads the part of a job interview that covers "so, what have you been doing for the last 5 years?" Finally, I am able to put my degree to use by managing every aspect of a business, and if I fail at either endeavor (my children or my business), I have only myself to blame.

I just wanted to give everyone a little glimpse into my daily life. I hope to get some pictures up from our Virginia trip soon!

Have a great week!

All my love,

Out of Sync

The past few weeks have left me feeling out of sync with my world of budgeting, couponing, thrifty shopping, and being frugal in general. I am now pretty much forced to shop at our local Food Lion or at the Wal-Mart, with special trips to Harris Teeter being made once, maybe twice, a month. I despise Wal-Mart, so Food Lion has been the big winner and now gets most of my grocery money. The little things though (my coupon binder isn't in line with how their store is arranged, they don't double coupons so I'm constantly stopping myself from seeing "$.60 off" and automatically doubling it to "$1.20 off," etc.) are driving me nuts and I just can't seem to get it together! I took Abby today and we got approximately 1 week's worth of groceries for $43, which is at least $15 MORE than what I used to spend at the Harris Teeter. The good news was that I was able to redeem 6 coupons...the bad news was, I forgot to buy a newspaper while I was there so I could get more coupons!!! I am expecting an envelope from my mom this week, so that will help and I've also been tipped off by my new friends at FayettevilleMommies.com that I should have Scott pick up a copy of Paraglide every Thursday while he's on base. Between getting those items and keeping my will strong, I think I can get back on track by Easter!

I wanted to share these here too:

March 11


March 13


March 16


March 17


March 18


March 21


What we've got there is seedlings of squash, zucchini, tomatoes, green peppers, peas, green beans, and pumpkins. I'll keep you all posted on these plants as the year progresses. After seeing green peppers for $1.59 EACH today at the store, this is a harvest I'm really looking forward to!

I hope that you all have a great week! I hope to have a successful week in the world of internet marketing and a quiet week with the kids. We had a big weekend and they'll need their rest. Next Sunday is Palm Sunday and then we'll be headed to VA for Easter and then to Wilmington for the Montgomery Gentry concert and the Azalea Festival - time flies when you're having fun!!!

All my love,

Ready, set, go!

Hi everyone,

I hope that your Monday was a great one! I was very productive today! After waiting through the move and then for my internet to get turned on at the rental house, I finally am making great strides towards becoming a small business owner! I didn't know before doing it for the Holiday Inn Express that I was so passionate about marketing, but I'm glad that I found what it is in life that I truly enjoy doing. I love meeting new people. I love helping people get what they want from an experience in a hotel or a restaurant. And I love staying on the cutting edge of all new technologies!!!

Yesterday I designed the logo for my company:



The colors are simple and I really liked the font because it seemed to play well off of the pineapple (which, if you don't know, is the international symbol of hospitality). I like this banner-style logo the best, but I had to modify it a little to "square" it up for my Twitter and Facebook avatars:



Considering that I am by no means a professional graphic designer and that I was only using Microsoft Publisher, I think they turned out rather well! BTW, I'm beta-testing Office 2010 right now, and I like it a LOT. It's a lot like Office 2007 with the tabs and etc., but the programs seem to be more anticipatory of what you may be trying to do and there are more shortcuts available on the documents you are working with.

Today I created a Facebook fan page for my new business. I also printed the articles of organization for becoming a limited liability company and applied for a federal EIN. Tomorrow, I hope to file my papers at the county courthouse and after that, I hope to obtain lots of new business!!! (If you know anyone that is in need of my services, please give me a referral - I'm hypothesizing that 95% of my work will probably come from people who know somebody else that is in need.)

Thank you so much for the support you've already given me on this venture and I look forward to keeping you posted via this blog and on Facebook, Twitter, and my future web site!

Have a great evening!

All my love,

Quick Poll

Hey everyone,

Hope that your week is going well! We FINALLY have internet here today, so I will be picking up where I left off with coupon tips and etc. in the near future!

In the meantime, here is a quick poll:

***POLL REMOVED***

I'm just looking for input or any other spectacular ideas that may pop into your head when you think about what I'll be doing!

Have a great day (I'm going couponing in a few minutes!!!)!

All my love,

We Have Arrived

We have spent almost a week in our new house now and things are finally starting to fall into place that make it feel more like our "home." I've been trying to get through as many boxes per day as I can, but there's also a priority factor that comes into play: first, make sure the kids aren't causing any harm to themselves or each other (or anything valuable in their path) and THEN I can go hunt for the most important boxes in the garage. We were in such a hurry to move that we stopped labeling boxes about 1/4 of the way through, so it's a big treasure hunt to dig around and see what you can find. My biggest prize today was Katelyn's Computer Cool School. She almost cried when I took it out of the box and then she ran upstairs as fast as she could to plug it in and play it. I haven't been the only one this week that's felt the pain of no internet; Katelyn's had a rough time as well! A lot of our favorite learning activities are online and we've had to do a lot of improvisation to our preschool time this week.

Hy the way, here are some of our favorite web sites (which I also have shared on WilmingtonMommies):

Letter of the week

Enchanted Learning

Fun Shine Express

Successful Homeschooling

Learning Planet

No Time for Flash Cards

First School

PBS Kids <--Especially on the Island - that's an interactive site that requires a parent to log in so that it can keep tabs on your child's progress. You can see a report card that shows your child's strengths:



Then your child is redirected to an area where they can play learning games to earn tickets (which can be exchanged for prizes such as printable coloring sheets, Sesame Street videos, or things to decorate their virtual treehouse with). Playing all of the different games successfully in a level will unlock a more difficult level. So far, Katelyn seems to be really taken to this particular learn/earn/reward style. She's also caught on to reading SO MUCH in the past few weeks. We're trying to teach a combination of a lot of basic phonics with some whole-word reading as well. She enjoys playing with her chalkboard a lot, and we're introducing both reading skills and simple addition via that medium.

In other Dowell news, Scott is still enjoying his job very much! I haven't heard him this excited about his work in a LONG time. The only drawback is the long hours. He leaves around 5 each morning, and tonight he's working at the office with the branch manager until 11. BUT, he said he'd rather do 70 hours a week than no hours a week! :)

We have to return to Wilmington this weekend to clean and paint our house before the tenants move in next weekend. I have a Facebook acquaintance, South-Eastern Commecial Services, scheduled to come on Friday to clean the great room carpet (let's hear it for networking!) and then Saturday will be a full work day and hopefully we will be able to return to Linden on Sunday knowing that the work is all done!

I also have a lot of work to do in the coming days on the new business I'm starting. I haven't quite settled on a name yet, so suggestions are still welcome! I'm planning a social media/internet management company that will (hopefully) stay focused on hospitality. I hope to market ~5 non-competing businesses in different geographical areas via the internet. The basic services that I will provide will be akin to what I do for the Holiday Inn Express:

• Manage private and/or franchise web sites
• Manage Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Ning, etc. accounts
• Work closely with sales department to ensure that sales and marketing efforts are all on the same page
• Monitor the internet for customer comments and complaints
• Respond to communications received from customers (in the form of surveys, emails, etc.)
• Attend local business networking events
• Publish employee or client newsletters.

I would also love it if anyone wants to write a brief recommendation of my skills for the web site I will be putting up advertising my services. If you'd be interested in doing something like this, please let me know!!! This is very exciting for me (and I am TERRIFIED of failing...but I will never know if I can do it until I try); it's a great opportunity for me to keep my children out of daycare and for me to do what I love - meet other people and market brands that I love! So, wish me luck as I take this big step!

I hope that you all enjoy the rest of your week! I'll keep you posted on our lives, and please keep in touch about yours!

All my love,

Is this really happening?

This week has been one of the longest, yet quickest, in memory. Let me explain. On Sunday night, we celebrated my husband's new job and packed his truck for the week ahead. That night, the monsoon rains arrived and by the time he left Monday morning at zero-dark-thirty, our street was completely flooded, there were branches down everywhere, and the wind was blowing so hard that the rain was coming down sideways. He did make it safely to Fayetteville though, and enjoyed his first day at the new job, though he did say it was sort of like a first day of school...

(taking a break to make some oatmeal for the girls...always fun being a mommy and a blogger!)

...where everyone else knew each other and he was on the outside looking in. Monday night brought a disaster of sorts when a hotel that I had chosen for him turned out to be in the slums (sorry sweetie!) and he had to spend time driving around town looking for an establishment in a better area. He landed at the Fairfield Inn (shh, don't tell the Holiday Inn Express!) and we got to video conference before bedtime. On Tuesday morning, the girls and I headed up to Fayetteville for our first trip to the city. We started at the Cross Creek mall for lunch, then headed out to Stedman and Wade. We didn't see anything of particular interest out there, so we crossed over to 401N and checked out North Fayetteville and Linden. There we did find a house that we liked and, more importantly, we found a school that rocks! Check it out here! After Linden, we went south through town and breezed through Hope Mills. We didn't have much time, but we gathered that it's a very typical suburban area with quaint neighborhoods and a few chain stores/restaurants. After Hope Mills, we headed back to the city to meet Scott for dinner and ended up getting horribly lost - lesson learned, 401 business is NOT the same as 401 bypass. We turned a 5 minute drive into a 45 minute one by making that error. We finally arrived at the ECS office and got to meet my husband's new boss (who seems like a really upbeat guy!) and see his work area. After the meet and greet, we took him out to dinner (one that included fruits, vegetables, meats that weren't fried...) and then got him settled in a hotel for the rest of the week (again, not a Holiday Inn Express...*they* wanted $139/night which is absolutely NOT in the budget). We left Fayetteville around 9:30 on Tuesday night and ended up getting home right at 11pm.

On Wednesday, I took Katelyn for her first dental appointment at the Cape Fear Community College Dental Hygiene Clinic. She was an awesome girl and very patient as my friend Katherine did her cleaning, and then Katherine's instructor checked her work, and then the dentist gave everything a final once-over. I didn't know if she'd be that patient or not! Here she is sporting her super sunglasses!



All in all, I think it was a good experience for her and for me too, because it was only $15 and you know how I feel about saving money!

We spent Wednesday afternoon negotiating with the future tenants of our house and getting all of the little details hammered out. By the end of the night, we had a lease written and they were ready to sign and send the security deposit (woohoo!!!!). Now WE can go to Fayetteville and rent a house with more ease because our home being officially leased here provides us with extra income. Katelyn and I had a girls' night on Wednesday and enjoyed a "sleepover" in Mommy's room complete with snacks, a movie, and lots of giggling!

Yesterday, I spent the morning straightening up the house and then went to the hotel for the afternoon. Last night, I went to the January Wilmington tweet-up at Outback Steakhouse and had a fabulous time seeing all of my old friends and making some new ones, all while promoting the hotel! There is to be a joint tweetup between people in Raleigh and people in Wilmington either in February or in March, and hopefully all of the Raleigh people will know where they can stay while in town!!! One of the most active bloggers in Wilmington, Bruce Brown, has already written about the event, so I'll let you check out his blog for all of the details and pictures.

Today is going to be another busy day as I wait for my husband to return from Fayetteville and then I will be headed out to Circa tonight to say goodbye to a friend who is leaving the Wilmington area. And then tomorrow, packing and cleaning will resume in earnest. On Monday, we plan to look at another rental house in the Fayetteville area. This house is currently vacant and hopefully, we will have it occupied by the end of next week!

I've spent much too long writing this post between chasing snotty noses, making breakfast, and getting small people out of trouble, so I'm going to wrap it up for now. Hope that you all have a great weekend!

All my love,

We Had Chinese!

BIG NEWS for our family! My husband has been offered a job!!! He'll start tomorrow even...so this whole week has been a whirlwind for us. He'll be working with a company called ECS in their Fayetteville office. Here's what happened: on Friday the 15th, we knew we had an offer for a temporary position. It would've been a 4-6 week job with a different company and there was no guarantee that it would become permanent, and even if it did, their benefits sucked :(. However, at 4:45, Scott's phone rang and it was the branch manager of the Fayetteville office wanting to know if they could do a phone interview that night at 6:30. He said yes, and the rest of us (wouldn't you know it was family night?) tried to keep quiet as the time approached for the phone call. Of course, in true Dowell fashion, when his phone DID ring, all you-know-what broke loose in our house and an almost comical situation ensued as we tried to get him set up in a "quiet" place while attempting to keep the girls away while attempting to prevent the smoke alarms from going off because someone forgot that they were making turkey gravy in all the commotion and it boiled over onto the stove and into the floor. By the time all was set, the girls and the pets had been corralled into the front of the house and I was standing under the smoke alarm in the kitchen repeatedly silencing it with a Swiffer handle and Scott had holed up in our bedroom. After about an hour of going "shh shh shh," and starting dinner even, he came out and said that they'd had a rather nice interview (as far as phone interviews go...) and that he'd been invited to come to the office on Tuesday the 19th for a face-to-face interview to discuss the position and salary in greater depth. We all said a little prayer and tried not to get our hopes up over the weekend. On Monday, we decided that we would spend the morning doing household chores and then hit the aquarium in the afternoon since it was free admission day. I stayed at the house with Kate while Abby went with Scott to Wal-Mart, and out of the blue, they called him and told him they'd had meetings with the clients of the first project he'd be doing, as well as with the principals of the company and that there was no question about it - he HAD GOTTEN THE JOB. All they would do Tuesday would be iron out the details and get him set up for a start on the 25th. WHEW! Big weight off!!!! And finally no longer living off the government! I am so proud of my husband for hitting the streets so hard looking for a job...he was unemployed for 1 day less than 3 months in the WORST economy of recent memory.

The only downside to him finding this job is that it IS in Fayetteville, so we'll have to move again. That means we've had to list our beautiful house for sale or rent, with more focus on finding a renter. Here's what it looks like:



We think that if we can just wait a year or two for the builder to get finished with our neighborhood then we won't get into a price war with them because we can't afford to play that game. If we list our house for sale, they'll drop their prices, and we can only drop our price so far before we go upside down. So we figure if we wait it out for awhile, we'll have more control over the price (and we'll have more recently sold comps to get price points from). Hopefully, we're figuring right! :)

I have been told that I will be able to keep my job and I am extremely thankful for that!!! I knew there was a reason I created a niche for myself in social media and internet management...LOL. I plan to return to Wilmington at least once a month to attend the #ILM Tweet-Up and re-connect with my friends and business contacts. Hopefully I will be close enough to Raleigh that the company will use me as an asset at their Raleigh hotel as well...or maybe that's just me dreaming :).

So today we packed up Scott's truck and he'll strike out tomorrow morning for a week in Fayetteville. I pretty much have my week already planned out so that I don't get too lonely during the first week. I am going to attend a Mommies dinner tomorrow night (at Flaming Amy's Bowl - YUM) and on Tuesday I'm going to Fayetteville with Jan (it'll be the first time either one of us has ever been to the city). Wednesday will be Katelyn's first dental exam (she's seeing a friend of mine who's in hygiene school - let's hear it for saving tons of money with great deals! - check it out if you have no dental insurance!). Thursday I get to work at the hotel on-site and on Friday, Scott comes home! And somewhere in there, I will probably show the house a few times...and I'd like to clean out my minivan. But tonight, also in true Dowell fashion, we got ready to send Scott off with a very special "we've had great news" dinner - we had Chinese!

All my love,

You Can't Save a Dollar You Don't Have

I was unable to find many outright freebies during last week's coupon promotion at Harris Teeter, and that limited my Super Doubles shopping to only 2 trips. I made the first trip (that I blogged about) and did one more trip on Tuesday, where I cashed in some internet coupons for free Select Harvest soup, free yogurt, dirt cheap coffee creamer (which is a necessity in this house...we don't drink coffee without it!), and some frozen pizza. Money was tight this week because we still needed to pay the January mortgage, and the problems were compounded when Scott's Paypal account that he's had since college was compromised in some sort of Skype fraud ring that's been going on for years. So, hopefully when triples roll around again, we'll be in a better financial position to cash in!!! This week, I have my eyes on Progresso Soups (Buy 2/Get 3), Old Orchard Juices (B2, G3), Smart Balance Popcorn, Betty Crocker Mashed Potatoes, some Lysol cleaners, and my usual discount meats and produce.

In the hotel world this week, I finished my monthly newsletter for the employees, was provided with some "Facebook Friends" rates to promote (Click here!), and we decided to participate in the 1st Annual Hospitality Olympics (Click here!). We also discovered that the Friends and Family rates are still available (Click here!) - these are GREAT deals for leisure travel!

Katelyn and Abby have enjoyed going to the pool this week. Both girls are like fish is the water (well, Scott says Abby is...she was too cold to enjoy it tonight when we went) and Katelyn is now doing flips off the wall into the water. Scott and I both think that she'll be doing backflips by the end of the summer! Stay tuned for video of that... :) We're also very excited that it looks like the weather might get a little warmer for the next week so that we can all enjoy being outside more. Both of our vehicles are in desperate need of a wash and the girls could use a few healthy doses of sunshine. Generally, the coldest month in the coastal Carolina area in February, so it will be interesting to see if that holds true for 2010. I would love to see a significant snowfall this winter, but we probably won't luck into that in Wilmington 2 years in a row.

The builders in the neighborhood started building the fence in our back yard today!!! We feel so lucky that we didn't jump the gun and build it ourselves before the had the chance to give it to us for free. :) Perhaps after Scott gets a job we'll finish out fencing in the side yard, but just them doing our back yard will save us a good thousand dollars! I <3 getting things for free!

(BTW, I just lost a bet with my husband...he said CSI had been on for at least 10 years...I said no way...Wikipedia says he wins because the 10th Season premiered in September 2009)

We hope to have an enjoyable weekend getting lots of quality time in with each other and perhaps cooking up the 2nd turkey that I bought pre-Christmas (the price was just THAT good...I had to get 2!). Scott has an interview tomorrow for a short-term contract position and we still have our fingers crossed for something else to come through. I am tired of living off the system and am ready to hang up the money worries!!! I want to just return to being a happy family that works hard so that we can play hard! Maybe soon...who knows?

All my love,

Are you talking about ME?!?!?!

A big thank you to StarNews reporter Shannan Bowen for her shout-out to Dowell Chronicles in her Talk & Squawk blog here. She makes me sound like such a fantastic blogger, and I've only just begun! I do hope that you all enjoy following my blog and my life - you never know what's next for the Dowell family!

Scott has at least one, possibly two, interviews this week. The one that is definite is in Tulsa, OK (boooo :( ) and that will occur over the phone tomorrow. The other potential interview is in Virginia Beach, VA (YAY!!!!). Either option would mean relocating, BUT it would also mean leaving the ranks of the unemployed, which for us is the "greater good." If we move, we'll be faced with the choice of renting our house out for a few years or trying to sell in a pretty significant real estate slump. We have noticed that prices in Leland are starting to creep back up, which is a good sign that we may just be able to walk away with what we put into it (which is all that we want...no profit needed - just no loss, please). We also found out that the builder for our neighborhood is planning to run a fence along the back of our property, which would increase the value if we wanted to sell our house! We'll have many decisions to make in the coming months, and I have no doubt that we'll change our minds many, many times before coming to any final solution. It would just be nice for us to get back to our usual family dynamic where Scott and I each have jobs that contribute to our household's financial success, we each get time alone with our girls, and we each get time alone with our jobs. I know from doing it myself for a year, it's HARD to stay at home with the kids all day, every day...but I will say that Mr. Mom has handled it very well. He even took the kids to the pool by himself tonight!!!

(My Hokies just lost to UNC!!! NOOOOOOO!)

I do plan to print off some internet coupons tonight when I get home so that I can do that segment of coupon shopping during Super Doubles. It's like a scavenger hunt to see what hidden gems you will find buried on different web sites. And on some sites, like coupons.com or smartsource.com, it's all about what zip code you enter - some zip codes get better coupons than others! My only other frugal words of wisdom to impart upon you tonight are these - always check for discount produce and meats! If there was anything WRONG with it, it wouldn't be on the shelves. But, if your family is like mine, a tub of blueberries or a bag of salad can disappear in less than a day, so why pay full price for the freshest stuff the store has to offer? Nope...grab the stuff that has the "sell by" date of tomorrow, save >70%, and enjoy! Scott and I celebrated our anniversary last night by grilling out. We each had a hearty ribeye I had scored from the meat department after it had been marked down multiple times. It was originally priced at $14+ and I paid ~$3.50. YUM!

I'm going to sign off for tonight, but PLEASE keep us in your thoughts this week and I'll keep you posted on our progress!

All my love,

Two Things...

First order of business this evening - Here are the coupon tips that had been given by me via Facebook a while ago:

1. Go to stores that don't double or triple coupons EVER (i.e., Food Lion here in Wilmington). Pull multiple copies of any coupon in a blinkie in the aisles. As long as the first digit on the bar code is "5" the coupon will double or triple...even if it says "Do Not Double" across the front. On coupon forums, these coupons are frequently referred to as "DND5s."

2. Make a friend....in another state! Have your friend send you their inserts!!! Most grocery stores are careful to not have a sale that combines w/ a coupon promo involving coupons you will have been given in your local paper. You'd be surprised what you can get for free (or really really close to free) just by combining out of area coupons with your store's sales!

3. Find a coupon forum - don't feel the need to pay for services like TheGroceryGame.com (they cut into your coupon "profits"!!!). I use hotcouponworld.com because each week (triples, super doubles, or not) they type out the HT ad (in advance of Wednesday morning) and match the items up with known coupons that are in circulation.

4. Get organized!!! Collecting all of these coupons will do you no good if you can't keep track of what you have, what it's worth, when it expires, etc. I have a photo album binder (the 3-ring kind you can add pages to) that I put all of my coupons in. It's roughly arranged by aisle @ HT so I can flip through, grab the coupons, grab the items, and go.

5. Know the rules of the game, and be ready to share. This tip is most handy (in my experience) at Wal-Mart. Every time I go couponing there, I make sure I have a recent printout from their corporate web site that states their EXACT coupon policy. More than once, cashiers have told me that they can't accept my internet coupons and I just whip out the policy and say "oh yes, you can."

Second order of business - I jazzed up my Foursquare account today and created a location for the Holiday Inn Express & Suites. You can become my friend on Foursquare by searching for me here. The venue I created for the hotel is here. Have fun exploring the new technology!!!

All my love,

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

So here we are...2 days until Christmas...NORAD will start tracking Santa tomorrow and I can't wait to watch him make his journey around the world and see the wonder on Katelyn's face!!!

The hotel that I work at is in dangerously low occupancy territory. There are plenty of extremely smart people on the management team here, yet no one seems to quite know how to fight the recession. I continue to expand my work in social media, and pitched to the other hotels in our group for me to do their social media too, but have heard nothing back and am unsure as to where to go next. I have had several interviews w/ other hotels, but nothing that's a "great" opportunity for me to grow in. There's no way I can earn anything close to what Scott was earning, and we need him to be blessed with another job or we WILL lose everything, but I also feel like, even though I can't earn anything CLOSE to what he was earning, I would like to explore my career options. I have toyed w/ the idea of forming an LLC and marketing myself to different hotel groups for social media services, but with us not knowing where we'll be in a month even, it's tough to make a decision and then stick to it.


In better news though, our girls are getting VERY excited for Santa to come tomorrow night. Let me reiterate, they are SO BLESSED. Our families have made sure that from Day 1 of Scott's unemployment, the girls have had no inkling that financial disaster is looming for our family. I have multiple bags and stacks of presents in my garage and in my closet to prove that.

I did tell Scott that he'll have it easy for his New Year's resolution - all he needs to do is find a job at some point during 2010! :) I applied the other day to be a JDRF advocate and assist them w/ their goal of finding a cure for Type I diabetes. I love this cause and plan to spend a lot more of 2010 raising awareness of (1) the disease itself and (2) how VERY close we are to finding a cure.

I hope that you all are ready for the Christmas holiday! We have made all of the major preparations and will now just focus on what's truly important - spending time with our families and cherishing every minute of it.


All my love,



Jessica

Bringing it all together

In this fast-paced, multi-outleted internet world that we have created, I hope to use this blog to just keep it ALL together. I will talk about things ranging from my wonderful family to my job to my famous coupon tips!!!

I am a 25-year-old mom of 2 beautiful girls. The oldest, Katelyn, is 4 and she is a great companion and we have had many great adventures together over the years. She is currently into all things Hannah Montana and can't wait to start kindergarten next fall. My baby, Abigail, is now 1 and I'm enjoying seeing her personality develop more and more every day. She's just starting to walk and has developed quite the vocabulary (much more than I remember her sister having at that age). I have been married for almost 5 years to my soul mate, Scott. We met in September, 2002 through a mutual friend and have been inseperable ever since. We both graduated from Virginia Tech and thoroughly enjoy every minute we are lucky enough to be in Blacksburg these days. We love to travel, play board games, hike, try our hands at gourmet cooking, camp, watch Harry Potter, and just have "family time."

With Christmas coming in less than 20 days, this is a very special time of year for our family to reflect on being truly thankful for the gifts that we have been given - our good health, a loving family, great friends, & opportunities to grow and succeed in work and in life. I have spent the last 5 years puttering in the hospitality field and have recently gone back to work full-time following Scott's layoff from S & ME, Inc. I am very blessed to have a job that I love and it's amazing to be the one trying to stay on the cutting edge of new technology (like figuring out all things Google Wave - jessicawdowell@googlewave.com). Older technology is still fun (http://www.twitter.com/portcityhokie ... http://www.facebook.com/jessicadowell ). And things I don't have access to yet (http://www.foursquare.com/) are a beacon on the horizon - constantly reminding me of why I love being in social media. I am hoping to get the opportunity to manage multiple hotels' social and internet marketing programs; stay tuned for details on that.

I also am a pretty thrifty person and 110% believe in the old motto - "watch your pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves." I LOVE to use coupons when grocery shopping and would never, EVER, make a purchase online without searching for "promotional codes" first. I also enjoy making great finds on the side of the road on garbage day! I'm not likely to buy the latest trend just because everyone else is buying it, and when the money runs out, it's gone. We live within our means and that means no cable TV, no fancy new cars, no new wardrobe every season, no replacing appliances just because a better version has been developed, etc.

I hope that you will enjoy following us on our journeys through this blog. It's always fun to see where life will take the Dowell family!