Our family loves going to the beach. We are lucky to live only about an hour’s drive away. While we all love visiting in the summertime on a gorgeous afternoon, some of my favorite trips to the coast were not during the summer months, rather from trips that we have taken in the fall and winter.
If you would have told me 48 hours ago that I would be standing 5 feet from NBA star Damian Lillard on the court before the Portland Trail Blazers game I would have thought you were crazy, but that’s just what happened last night at the Moda Center as I photographed him meeting one of the sweetest women I know, Merle.
Merle lives at the company that I work for a few times a month and I’ve known her for several years now. Ever since we met I felt a connection, though I’m sure most people do to Merle. She is the kind of person who is full of knowledge and genuinely cares for you. Every time I come in to work she asks me how my family is, and what sports my kids are doing now – and she always gives me updates on her family and what all of her children and grandchildren are doing.
Merle has told me that some of her favorite years were the years she spent traveling with her family, and she was one of the people who really inspired me to make memories daily with my own family.
After Noah’s field trip to the pumpkin patch yesterday I rushed back to the school to help organize papers and count money for the grade school’s annual Read-A-Thon; the P.T.S.O.’s first big fundraiser of the year.
After a couple of bumpy roads with my time with our school’s Parent Teacher Student Organization, this year I’m finally beginning to feel a little more confident in it, and have a handful of other parents who are just as supportive as I. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
Sunday morning’s sessions began with a lively blogging panel which included Madeline from WineFolly.com, and Jana from MerlotMommy.com Their wittiness and sense of blunt humor made for a very entertaining hour, where they discussed questions from the audience. After one last panel, we all headed outside for the final lunch, and I learned a new food: spiedies. Here in Oregon I had never heard of them before, but they are chicken prepared on a skewer, then you take the chicken off of the skewer and place it on a bun, then from what I heard you scoop up more sauce on the bun.
I generally keep the daily news topics far away from this little space I’ve created on the Internet. So often they are filled with tragedy; sad things that I choose not to dwell on because focusing on them only brings me down and quite frankly scares the living daylights out of me because I begin thinking of all of the “what ifs” and “what could happen” scenarios and when you have children, it’s the worst feeling in the world that instantaneously makes you nauseous and want to cry.
But with that being said, this time I can’t get Roseburg out of my mind. I grew up in Grants Pass which is a little over an hour’s drive from Roseburg. I’ve been in Roseburg many times, have friends that live close and grew up there, and my Dad currently lives 30 minutes from there now. I refuse to write or dwell on the perpetrator or gun topic issues, because right now is not the time for people to argue and debate such things. I will however, grasp on to any tiny amount of positivity that I can in this grave event that has left many people brokenhearted.
Why hello! My name is Melissa, and occasionally when I find time I actually stop by on here and write! I know, sounds crazy right? I’ve wanted to write and share so many things lately, but I’ve just been so tired I find myself falling asleep while browsing on the computer, and haven’t been able to stay up and actually write a post for a few days now.
