Love It!
1. Making New Friends! Last week I attended a photography workshop hosted by Melissa Jill, check the blog later this week for more on that! The best part about workshops I’ve found is the new friends I make. There is something so great about meeting people that share a passion with you for something. Our passion is obviously photography but we bonded over other things as well. It can be so relieving to sit and talk with someone who is going through the same things as you in their business but they are on the other side of the country. I love walking away from these workshops with new friends to help push me to reach my goals and the invitations to come visit them when I get the chance! I had a wonderful roomie, Claire and made some new friends in Melissa Pardi and Nicole Pfieffer. I was seriously blown away by the talent of Claire, Melissa and Nicole, they are amazing photographers!! I plan to keep in touch with them and watch their businesses boom 🙂
2. Moto Mail! For all the wives, family and friends of deployed service members check out Moto Mail as a way to get letters to your service member. My Family Readiness Officer posted the link on my husband’s unit’s facebook page. I wasn’t sure what it was all about but since he wasn’t getting my letters or care packages through USPS I thought I would check it out. It is a program you download to your computer. They ask for the address of your military person and then you write a letter in this program and when you click send it gets printed and delivered to your service member within 24 hours according to the site! It has been working great for us and he has been getting my letters within a day or two of when I send them!
3. Stories! This ties in with the Moto Mail. David and I have been able to email each other while he is on this deployment but I knew it would be nice for him to have something he could keep in his pocket to read whenever he wanted. I also felt that since we are able to email about the day to day stuff I wanted to make the letters special. I’m a sap I have a vision of taking all of our letters and tying them together with a ribbon to save for our children to read 🙂 So I use Moto Mail to write him stories, my first letter was my side of our first meeting on a white water rafting trip and the second was my side of our first date! I think it will be a fun way to chronicle our relationship and keep the romance alive while he is gone! In addition to our stories I was able to tell him the story of my great grandparents and how they were apart for two years during WW2. My Gram shared the story with me when I was visiting last week and all I could think about what how spoiled we are with the communication we have now. They wrote letters for those two years he was gone and I wish I could read them now. I’m so lucky that I know when David will be back and I can talk to him on a regular basis. Of course I started crying while she was telling me the story because I’ve become a huge sap and I cry at the drop of a hat! So far the verdict from David has been good, he said he likes getting the moto mail more then the care packages!
Hate It!
1. Sleeping Alone! It is so weird but since David deployed to Afghanistan I can’t seem to sleep through the night. I used to be the one that slept through thunderstorms and my little sister screaming when I was a kid. I was even sleeping fine when he was in San Diego but since he left the US I wake up several times during the night. It sucks. I don’t feel like I’m getting a restful sleep. I hope that once he comes home I’ll be able to get back on schedule, too bad that isn’t for many months.
Melissa Arlena is an award winning lifestyle newborn photographer in Charlottesville and Richmond, Virginia who has earned her Master Photographer Certification from NAPCP in maternity, newborn and family photography. Her natural and simple work has been featured in magazines and online blogs worldwide. She has been named Best Maternity and Newborn Photographer in Richmond and Charlottesville, VA in 2023.
