Here’s what’s new with us…

Hey everyone, it’s been awhile since my last post, but we’ve been busy–which is a good thing.

Here’s what’s new with us:

• Sam and I rode in the 2011 bike MS: Pedal Los Pueblos charity ride.  It was exciting and lots of fun.  Thank you to everyone who donated and helped us help the fundraiser surpass it’s $125,ooo goal (last I checked, they were close to collecting $150,000!)
• I started my own photography business and have shot a few homes in the Albuquerque area and one in Durango–you can see some of my latest work here.
• I started a new job, working very part-time as a transaction manager for a local real estate agent
• Sam spoke in this years’ Albuquerque Wordcamp conference as a panelist and did an excellent job. It was a great opportunity to meet other web people in our area and I think he made some great contacts. He had so much fun that he is thinking about speaking at other conferences nationally and possibly internationally
• I got accepted to UNM, and am finally going to finish my degree. Go Lobos!
• There is talk of my brother and his wife moving to Albuquerque at some point in the near future–this would be wonderful and we are very much looking forward to them being closer

That’s about it for now.  We are heading into Fall and are looking forward to the weather being cooler for awhile. We enjoyed spending this Summer with our niece and nephews and miss them now that they are back in school!

We are planning a trip to Rockford in November for Thanksgiving, and we’re really excited about seeing everyone there. We will be in town for about 5 days, so let me know if anyone wants to get together!

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Hotchkiss Consulting News!!

Hey everyone! I just wanted to write a quick note to share with everyone the exciting news! We have moved our web development company out of our guest bedroom and into an office space in downtown Albuquerque. We are on the 6th/top floor of the historic Sunshine Building, which was Albuquerque’s first “sky scraper”. In addition to the new office space, we have hired another developer to work with us. His name is Adam Hurd, and after his first week with us, it is safe to say that he has already proven himself to be a valuable addition to our team. We are very excited to build our business and believe that this was the next step in our path to taking over the world! Ok, the coding world. Ok, we’ll settle for our corner…but still!! We emailed out a newsletter to everyone, and so if you are reading this, and didn’t get the email, shoot us an email and we’ll add you. We don’t plan to send them too often, so it won’t be bothersome. See some pics below!

Love to you all!

Becky & Sam

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Consulting, recipes and more…

Hey – I hope everyone is enjoying their last bits of Summer vacation, and I hope everyone who’s heading back to school is ready to conquer the new year. Good luck! 

I’m not sure what you’ve heard, but Sam and I recently quit our jobs. Together. On the same day. Not even sure you’d heard we had jobs? Don’t worry, you’re probably not the only one! It was a quick development, we gave it a shot, and it certainly was a bad fit. We were offered jobs at a company in Mancos..doing what? I’m not really sure. I know that I was never interviewed, never applied for the job, and never really spoken to like a real person. I know I was dealt with through my husband. I know I was hired because I was Sam’s wife, not because of any particular skill I possessed, except for speaking English with the ability to type. I know I was doing data entry and I hated it. Sam was doing work on their website and online store. Not so bad for him, terrible for me. Doing a job a monkey could do in its sleep made me feel awful, no, useless. This was a completely new situation for me, especially having come from a successful real estate firm, of which I was the manager, and which notably consisted of mostly females in the company. Not to mention, some of the products they sold were questionable (since when is it A-OK to sell ‘sexy teenage fairy’ costumes??? And that’s not the worst of it!). Besides these things, the job originally sounded great, but the terms we were tempted with were quickly changed and my job turned out to be not at all what they made it out to be. This lasted exactly 2 weeks. We did meet some nice people there, but the job just wasn’t for us.

Anyways, this is all besides the point. We no longer work there, and have since started our consulting business full-time and it’s going GREAT. We work from home, have a flexible schedule, can be with our dogs and enjoy our lives. I am taking classes online to learn XHTML (which I am really enjoying) and to expand my current Photoshop skills. We’re still working out the schedule details, such as when to work and when to stop working–but I know that we are both much happier doing our own thing.

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You’re probably wondering about the recipe bit in the title…well..I’ve recently been inspired to start trying some new recipes and have decided to share my adventures with ya’ll on this here blog. I’ve already posted my first recipe–you can check it out under the recipe tab–and keep an eye out for new ones. I’ll try to remember to let you know when a new one goes up.

Filed under What's new? | Tags: cooking, good news, gripes!, work | Comment (0)