Make sure you take a chance to read all about the rest of the Moms too!

Kymberli Mulford
Amy Giampetroni
Laura Thomas
Sherry Carr Deer
Rachelle Beckner

Kymberli Mulford

Kymberli Mulford has been an educator for over thirty years, but happily admits that her best teachers are her sons. Andrew and Alex don’t let a day go by without teaching her something – about wonder, about humor, about dreams, about friendships, and mostly about love. (And patience. And hard work. And determination.)

Her two boys, she says, are as different as night and day. Her youngest, Andrew, is boisterous, gregarious and outdoorsy. Alex is pensive and quiet, already an accomplished artist, author and composer as a young teen. She sees a little of herself in each of them, and a little of her wonderful husband — of almost 20 years! — in each of them, too. Since most of the bloggers on This Mommy Gig are mothers of younger children, Kymberli hopes to share the perspective of moms of ‘tweens and teens. Also, as the stepmom of her husband’s now-grown son, she’s been down the road of being the “other mother” and is now even (gasp!) a mother-in-law and (gasp!) a grandmother four times over. (By the way, she LOVES people who tell her that she’s not old enough for that… hint, hint.) At any rate, these children have all brought new joys and challenges into her life, and this has made her life fuller and her perspective broader.

As a teacher, an administrator, and a parent advocate for children with special needs, Kymberli has been in many different school settings and situations, but she’s happiest when she’s wearing her “Ed Tech” hat in a classroom, surrounded by students exploring a new way to use technology to learn and share knowledge. She presents workshops on all things related to technology in the classroom, and is a self-professed Ed Tech conference junkie.

You can find Kymberli on Twitter or follow her ed tech musings on Onionskin.

Amy Giampetroni

Amy Giampetroni is a thirty-something, happily married, PAC Manager-turned-stay-at-home mom from southeastern Wisconsin. As wife to forty-something Dan, stepmother to 12 year-old stepdaughter Alexis, “real” mom to 5 year-old son Angelo, and “dog mom” to 7 year-old yellow Lab Josie, Amy’s BA in Psychology and Social Welfare from the University of Wisconsin – Madison comes in very handy.

Amy became a stepmom after marrying Dan in June of 2000, when Alexis was just 4-years-old. Suffice it to say that being initiated into parenthood by way of someone else’s preschooler, who is only with her and Dan every other weekend, proved to be an interesting challenge with unique rewards, all of which prepared her well for becoming a real card-carrying mom to her son Angelo in May of 2003. To add another twist to the picture, Amy and Dan are also trying for another baby.

Since college, Amy has worked full-time in association management, pharmaceutical sales, and – most recently - in the legal and government affairs areas of a top national distributor to the Long Term Care industry. Prior to becoming a stay-at-home mom, Amy worked as a Political Action Committee Manager, having created and run her employer’s very successful political action committee for nearly four years. Amy loved her job and took great pride in her work, but in 2007 her son’s chronic health problems ultimately forced her to make the change to being a full-time at-home mom, something she had wanted to do for a long time. Much to everyone’s relief, Angelo’s health improved 100%, and Amy and her husband were pleased to find that their lives in general became much more peaceful and enjoyable by removing Amy’s demanding career from the picture. Nonetheless, with Angelo starting full-day kindergarten in the fall of 2008, Amy will be returning to the workforce on a part-time basis in some capacity.

In her free time, Amy is an avid reader, and enjoys working out, knitting, spending time with family and friends, traveling, antiquing, movies and dining out.

Amy is thrilled to be joining This Mommy Gig, as writing has long been a passion and hobby of hers. Toward that end, she began work on her first novel in 2007 and hopes to be ready to shop it around in the fall of 2008. Amy also started her own blog – Average Everyday Super Woman - in January of 2008. In addition, Amy joined a group of aspiring Milwaukee-area writer moms seeking freelance writing opportunities in May of 2008. If anyone has any good tips or contacts for Amy, or if you just want to say hello, please email her at amygiampetroni at gmail dot com.

Laura Thomas

Laura P. Thomas is mother to 5 (and a half!) year old Anna, and wife of 12 years to Mark. They live with a hyperactive Terrier/Heeler name Lilo in Austin, Texas, because it’s just such a super-cool city. The “P” stands for Pevehouse, her maiden name, and she uses it for a couple of reasons. One is that both Laura and Thomas are very common names. Google it and you’ll get a real estate agent in Los Angeles, but Google it with the “P” and you’ll find this Laura. The other reason is that even though she grew tired of constantly spelling Pevehouse for people only to hear them say “Oh, just like it sounds”, she’s actually quite proud to be a Pevehouse from the middle of nowhere in northeast Louisiana.

Working around Dell for more than seven years, Laura has built a background in the areas of corporate communications, employee communications, public relations, community affairs, branding and online communication. She is currently part of the Global Online group and is responsible for the home page of Dell.com, as well as all Dell.com content from Investor Relations, Corporate Communications and other corporate functions. She assisted with the creation of the Direct2Dell blog and is a somewhat-regular contributor. In her spare time she led Dell into the metaverse with the creation of Dell Island in Second Life. Every time she’s in-world from home, her daughter thinks it’s time to play virtual dolls, and wants to change her avatar’s hair and clothing.

Laura is proud to have earned the designation of Accredited Business Communicator from the International Association of Business Communicators, and to have received her News/Editorial Journalism degree from Louisiana State University. (Geaux Tigers!) If she had more time, she would spend it reading, traveling around the world and writing; so, her dream job would be to have someone actually pay her to travel to exotic locales and write about it! Until then, she will satisfy her need to explore by diving into all the latest social media trends. You can find her in Second Life as Pyrrha Dell, on Twitter as LPT, in Facebook as Laura P Thomas, on brightkite as LPT and on LinkedIn as laurapthomas.

Sherry Carr Deer

Sherry Carr Deer is the overly-caffeinated mom to three-year-old Nicholas, has worked in non-profit public relations for 10 years, went from reading several books a month to several books a year when her son was born, and spends way too much time daydreaming about sleeping. Sherry would do pretty much anything for her family as long as it’s legal, worries that she doesn’t spend enough time with her son, and wishes she had more time to scrapbook. And sleep…she misses sleep.

Sherry began dating her first husband at the ripe old age of 16, married at 20, graduated college at 22, started trying to get pregnant at 28, had Nicholas at 30 and became a widow the same year. Mark, Sherry’s husband and Nicholas’ dad, died suddenly of an unexplained medical condition when Nicholas was 5 months old. That was in November 2005 (one month shy of their 10th wedding anniversary).

In the 2.5 years since then, Sherry: grieved; began figuring out how to raise Nicholas as a single mom; left a wonderful job with a non-profit that she loved to move home and closer to family; got fired from a job she was never really right for in the first place; began working at an incredibly rewarding job with a non-profit that she loves; began scrapbooking; started dating again; grieved some more; and has now found herself engaged to William, an awesome man who loves her, challenges her, makes her laugh, and loves Nicholas.

She is constantly amazed and thankful for Nicholas who is wonderful, brilliant, sweet, and all boy. Sherry isn’t quite sure how it happened with her as a mother, but Nicholas is completely consumed by cars. During an effort to organize their living room recently, Sherry counted all the cars Nicholas has and stopped at 85. That’s not counting any of the assorted cars he’s got stashed at grandparents’ houses.

While trying to spend as much time as possible with William and Nicholas, be the best PR professional she can be, plan a wedding, and sleep some more, Sherry blogs for the San Antonio chapter of PRSA. She also kept a community journal about her life as a new mom and new widow for a couple of years on BabyCenter. If you’d like to connect with Sherry, you can find her on Facebook and Twitter as @prCarrD.

Rachelle Beckner

Rachelle Beckner is a thirty-something mother of two beautiful, rambunctious girls, ages 3 and 21 months. She lives, works and plays in Charleston, WV, the capital city of the Mountain State, with her husband of four years.

Rachelle totally bought into that myth that you could have it all – career and family. Determined to be a dedicated mother and successful career woman, Rachelle struggles to juggle the daily demands that all working mothers face (the biggest challenge being reliable, affordable childcare.) In addition, she is always in search of good coping techniques for the all-consuming guilt that comes with being a working mother.

As the Development Director for the YWCA of Charleston, W.Va. (which can be found on twitter at ywcacharleston or at www.ywcacharleston.org), Rachelle is responsible for all fundraising activities – including a $2 Million Challenge campaign and several high-profile fundraising events.

When she isn’t giving her pre-schooler and toddler a bath, reading “Are You My Mother” for the 100^th time or cleaning crayon off the walls, Rachelle enjoys social networking through Twitter and Facebook, dabbling in online and viral marketing, and volunteering in a grass-roots organization called Generation Charleston, which has the goal of improving life in the Capitol City for the next generation. Her online presence also extends to two blogs. Rachelle created her first blog when her eldest daughter was born in 2005 so she could chronicle her daughter’s milestones for relatives and friends who live around the country.

After many therapeutic conversations with other working mothers in Charleston, Rachelle realized that it would be impossible to form a support group for these local working mommies. So she did the next best thing: created a blog where the working mothers of Charleston could continue their conversations about pediatricians, childcare, and the latest illnesses. Her new blog, Mountain State Motherhood, launched earlier this month.

How does Rachelle accomplish all this and keep a semi-clean house? Her drug of choice is a Café Mocha from her favorite supplier, Starbucks. Some believe it’s pure evil, but Rachelle knows Starbucks was invented by a sleep-deprived mommy.

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