Melissa the Fugazza

 We live in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, which is a wonderful city. If you aren't familiar with Tennessee, you won't know that there are SO. MANY. CHURCHES here. Tennessee is known as the belt buckle of the Bible belt. And most of those churches are Christian.  Here in the south, you hear phrases like, "Bless his little heart", "I'll be praying for you", and "You need Jesus". It's normal to hear about worship services and what so and so did on the weekend. This is one of the many reasons why I love where I live.  Another great thing about where we live, particularly due to our closeness to Nashville, there are many opportunities to see live performances of some of the biggest Christian bands in the industry. It was for that reason, that my family and I visited a megachurch back in April, called the World Outreach Church.  On Easter weekend, For King and Country came and performed after the worship services on the Saturday before Easter Sunday. ...

 There is no wrong way to do art.  My kids do an art class once a week where they study about an artist, and then they try to create a work of art using the same style.  Several prominent artists have been covered in the class over the past several weeks, and it's interesting to see how my girls translate what they see in the artist's work, and then try to figure it out on their own. One of my daughters is quite the perfectionist. She wants to do things with exactness and do it really well. Teaching her that we learn through mistakes has not been a very easy lesson. She takes it very seriously, and works hard on her own style.  When both of my girls get worked up or anxious about their artwork, I can reassure them with the fact that there's no wrong way to do art. And that gives them relief. In the world we live in, it's so nice and refreshing to be able to do something however you want, and it doesn't matter. Skies don't have to be blue and grass doesn't ha...

 Ever since the mid 2000's, I have had the hardest time finding shows to watch that are clean, uplifting and just...fun.  Now, because of streaming apps, it's easier to find older shows, so my family and I can rehash old memories with shows we watched when we were younger.  But after we watch them a time or two more, what will we watch next?  There are very few apps or networks that show current, uplifting shows. I'm suspecting it won't get any better.  What are the solutions?  There are some apps that are creating some clean content, but their slim offerings are discouraging.  Though I believe there are good things everywhere, now it requires a lot more digging to find it.

The favorite thing I have learned this semester in my Communications writing class, is the process of creating and writing a feature article. I hadn't realized until this class, that I prefer feature articles over other types, and going through the interview process with curating deep and thought-provoking questions for the interviewee kept me engaged and interested.  I also enjoyed interviewing people and learning more from them and their experiences. I hope to work in some field after school, where I can dive deeper into peoples' lives and learn and report on amazing things that regular, everyday people are doing. It was uplifting, inspiring, and it helped me to see things in a different light.  I feel like the world should have more regular, every day people honored and praised for living a great life in its simplicity. I also know that our world is fast losing human connection, and if we read and studied and learned more of those around us, maybe we'd grow closer togeth...

 For this week in class, I am creating email newsletters for my Bella Luna Keepsakes music box business. I have learned that creating a newsletters for a business is tricky, because "less is more". That's harder to accomplish than it sounds, because it takes time to compound the most important material into short phrases or statements.  I also have realized that I appreciate email newsletters more than I thought. In studying to create a newsletter myself, I have researched email newsletters from other businesses, and realized I learn more about my favorite places to go, from newsletters.  Though social media posts have their place, email newsletters are unassuming, passive ways to bring information into the lives of the consumers, such as myself. I find that I don't feel as much pressure to buy, don't scroll through as quickly, and think deeper about products when I read through an email newsletter. Because of this realization, I will work harder to make a newslet...

 Summer comes around the same time every year. I am always aware of the time arriving, with the weather warming up, the kids acting up in school because they're antsy, and the deluge of swimwear and pool gear filling the aisles at stores.  Yet, every year, summer takes me by surprise. As I sit down and plan with my family, I suddenly feel overwhelmed like getting smacked in the face by a wave at the beach.  There is SO. MUCH. GOING. ON.  Family vacations, reunions, birthday parties, wedding anniversaries, etc. They are all happening in the summer time. Top that off with youth activities for church, For the Strength of the Youth camp, and other activities, and things just get kicked into overdrive. Even "lazy pool days" are now becoming a production. Scheduling fun is no fun at all.  I miss the spontaneity of summer. Maybe it's just a thing that happens in childhood, but I sure wish I could get back to that attitude again.  Happy summer!