Melissa Bartlett

It may be cold outside but if this story doesn't melt your heart you may need to get it checked out. Imagine being an eight year old and knowing your mom is not there every night to tuck you in because she is serving in the military.

I have never early voted during an election. Never. I have always just really loved the excitement of going on Election Day with my daughter and showing her how to vote. The excitement was real. Now my daughter early voted on her own in the Dallas area.

Who would have thought that when we started 2020 that not only would we have new words in our vocabulary. You know like social distancing, covid, maskne. We also had to deal with new conditions too.

As we are getting closer to the month of November there are some more changes coming to some of our local schools. When the pandemic hit in March the kids were all on Spring Break. So the schools ended up extended the break for a bit while they decided what to do with the outbreak.

I guess if you want to be that half glass full kind of person you have to realize that all this covid talk has brought us some good things. We have finally had the time to slow down a bit. We also got to spend more time with our family.

So early on in 2020 things already hit Family Support Services hard. Their office in Downtown Amarillo had a fire. A lot of damages occurred. In fact their building was destroyed. So they already had to find a place to home them.

This year has been challenging for a lot of our non-profits here in Amarillo. The donations have gone down of course. There have been a lot of cancelled events which usually brought them in money and donations too. After already taking this hit it is never good to hear news like this.

It was about two weeks ago when Hoffbrau voluntarily closed because one of their staff members tested positive for covid-19. They did the right thing. Now another Amarillo restaurant is doing the same thing.

Have you been taking the time to go to the dentist like you are supposed to? Do you go every six months? How about during this Pandemic. Have you made sure you kept your mouth health up to par?

I remember when I was going to school for radio at Amarillo college. I always had Wednesday's as my day to go to Kabuki for lunch. That was my first experience with Hibachi. It's fun to sit at a counter top stove and watch the chef cook your food in front of you.

Amazon Prime Day has become a thing for all of us addicted to Amazon. It's kind of like their Black Friday helping us to save some money. Usually it happens in July but because everything else has been delayed in 2020 so has that.

Nobody really thinks of Halloween as a holiday for healthy eating. I mean you go to someone's house to Trick or Treat and they hand you a bag of broccoli or a toothbrush you are not leaving happy at all. Halloween is fun and all about the candy.