Dawn Downes
Hey, y’all! I’m Dawn – a native Tennessean who could not wait to escape the small town for the big city. After attending a women’s college in Atlanta, I took root there and stayed. One marriage, two homes, two kids, and 25 years later, here I am, back in Tennessee. My husband moved here in January of 2016 to start a new job while our two boys, Brendan (born 2003) and Beckett (born 2006), and I stayed behind to finish the school year and sell our house. We arrived in July 2016 and have been working to make a happy new home here since then. We love living on the North Shore and I am enjoying finding unexpected beauty and little joys throughout our new city. I am also mama to fur babies, Josie the Rhodesian Ridgeback/Lab mix, and Miller, a sweet orange and white tabby cat. I'm into art, movies, music, TV, pop culture, nerdy stuff like Doctor Who and Game of Thrones and I know more than my share about the DC Universe, Pokemon, Minecraft, Battlefield, and all things LEGO thanks to having two boys.
What I Learned About Parenting From Leslie Jordan
Leslie Jordan’s sudden and tragic death on October 24 hit me hard as I know it did so many others. Especially Chattanoogans. Whether he was hunkered down here in his hometown tending to his...
Halloween And The Great Glitter Compromise Of 2022
In my last post, I shared my love for all things Halloween as I began counting down the days to its arrival. And now, October is finally here. I started my decorating a bit...
Come Little Children: Only Three Months Until The Most Wonderful Day Of The Year
Halloween is just three months away…minus a day, really. And I can barely contain my excitement!
As horror writer Stephen Graham Jones has said, “Some people are born for Halloween, and some are just counting...
Why Are We Silent About Perimenopause?
“You know that’s a menopause symptom, don’t you,” asked the beautiful grey-haired woman selling jewelry at the farmers' market. “Ummmm…no,” I replied, “I assumed it was just allergies.” We had been talking about how...
The Five Friends Every Woman Needs In Her Life
A couple of weeks ago, two friends of mine who live in Atlanta collaborated to send a handmade gift to a friend of mine in Virginia who is fighting breast cancer. None of the...
Standing With Our Sisters In Crisis: It’s What Mothers Do
I sat down to write about a different topic. Something light and good-hearted about friendship. But as I sat there organizing my thoughts, a friend texted me a news story out of Ukraine where...
Survival Is Insufficient: Getting Unstuck From Your Pandemic Depression
January 2022 has been the most brutal of months. More than once I have apologized to friends for my depression or my anxiety or my disillusionment with the world or all of the above....
After 18 Years, I’ve Learned I Was Never Doing It Wrong
Dashing through the aisles at Target on a mission to grab a few more storage bins for packing, I skid my cart to a stop and reach for the Corn Flakes. This deal is...
Got Big Feelings? Make a List!
Like any major life transition, graduating brings on a whole lot of emotions for both the kid graduating and their parents. If you're like me, you might want to keep those emotions in check,...
It’s Never Easy, but It Doesn’t Have to Be So Hard: Raising Emotionally Intelligent...
Do you remember being a teenager? Riding on bright white crests of joy and excitement one moment before being pulled into a dark, swirling vortex of inexplicable sorrow or anger and frustration the next,...