Let’s just say that blogging on this personal site has been on the back burner for 2011. But considering that it’s the last day of the year, I might as well post, just so that I can continue to call myself a blogger. Granted, 19 blog posts in one year hardly qualifies me for “Blogger” status in my opinion, but I’m taking on the fact that I’ve been doing some blogging on other important sites too.
In recap, 2011 had both highs and lows. And I’m not just talking about my blood sugar levels.
Early 2011 we took a family trip to Disney World and had a magical time and we also took a road trip to see family we have in Pennsylvania. One of the stops we made was in Hershey, PA where we toured the Hershey Factory and made our own chocolate bars!
Somewhere in the middle of 2011, things got super busy with work (common and typical). I again served as a Director on the Greater Springfield Board of REALTORS® MLS and in 2012, I will be the 1st Vice President and I’m looking forward to a term as President in 2013. The Board itself is doing some incredible things with an MLS Regionalization project that I’m very involved in helping with.
The Donald and I, working as a team, have continued to sell a lot of real estate, rent a lot of property and we spoke at the National Association of REALTORS® Annual Conference for the third year in a row! It was an exciting time in Anaheim, California.
I am very excited about what 2012 holds for my career with my work with the local, state and national Associations of REALTORS®. I am serving on quite a few state and national committees, including vice-chairing the NAR Property Management Forum!
In addition to continuing to write continuing education courses for REALTORS®, we also worked on a bigger web project called Landlord Red List. The site is designed to assist Landlords from across the country in how to process rental applications that they receive from potential tenants. The project has currently been put on hold as we are looking at some re-design and hope to launch it soon.
At the end of the year, my office moved into bigger and nicer digz. Since I’m still in the process of getting things settled and hanging pictures on the wall, I will have to post more pictures and invite you to our Open House soon. It’s an incredible building and we’re excited about the growth of Dizmang Properties. The new place has beautiful office space, including classroom space for us to teach real estate classes. There is also a large warehouse space in the back that will allow us to efficiently run our property management maintenance out of. It’s nice to ditch the 3 or 4 storage units we have had and have all the supplies and crews under one roof. However, watching them take down my old office was really a reflective moment for me. I had spent 11 years in that office and have accomplished A LOT.
JDRF has of course made some big changes including a new logo in 2011. It thrills me that they are somewhat re-branding themselves to be the ultimate leader for finding the cure for type 1 diabetes for BOTH children and adults. (See the “T1D” within the logo between the “J” and “D”?) They have seen that there are many adults that have type 1 and it’s not just the children that we are finding this cure for. Locally here, JDRF Ozarks held their 2nd annual Jingle Bell Bash in December and it raised $78,000 for type 1 diabetes research! Who would’ve thought that the our local chapter would have come so far, so quickly?
Thankfully, the hubs still has a cush job with AT&T and he really is my ultimate support to get the things done that I need to get done every day. He also leaves me sweet notes in the garage each week so that I see them as I’m coming and going out. Yeah, it’s the little things that keep me going. We celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary in October and had a good time gambling it up at Downstream Casino. Ahhh, the crazy things we do!
And today my sweet baby youngest child, Collin, turns 8 today on New Years Eve. He and his brother, Jake, and their Dad sure make my world go ’round.
I didn’t mail out Christmas cards this year, so if you’re a close friend/family member reading this post, don’t be offended. I still have a passion for shoes, I have loved watching my niece and nephew grow up and having them live so close… Sheesh! 2011 has been a wild ride. Clearly you can see that I’ve been pretty busy, hence the slow blog posting. I will make an effort to keep things fresh in 2012. Don’t call it a resolution, call it a comeback.
Happy New Year y’all!
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Very impressive Jessica. I’ve been reading your blog for over a year now. All of your success is well deserved – thinking out of the box works well in our social environment. I often bring up Dizmang Properties in my social media talks for NARPM and everyone loves Paul’s hot tub advice
Cheers and Happy New Year!