Hi and welcome! My name is Michele Marcellino Somerville. I am a Beach Girl from Onset, Massachusetts, and a Boomer. I have been away from home for 50 years but….

Home has never left me…as a result, this is a memoir blog written by a story teller. There are stories here about growing up in a bar, The Union Villa,

Stories about my parents…

I am a retired United Methodist Elder, serving a rural church part time. That means I preach, teach and love a congregation and my faith is central to my life. It is not central to my blog, but it may be that you can take the girl out of the church, but not the church out of the girl. From time to time I do post thoughts about prayer, the Bible and other things.

I love water, so there are stories here about the beach, the bay, the Cape Cod Canal, bridges, and other bodies of water…

My husband and I will celebrate our 35th anniversary this summer and between us we have four living grown children. I wish I had a picture of everyone wearing dark sunglasses. I try to respect their privacy and keep them out of the blog so no real family pictures. Here is a picture of Roger and me at my retirement party, looking kind of shocky. I had been crying.

We have had four rescue dogs over the last thirty years and they have brought joy to our lives. There are shaggy dog stories in this blog.

I have had a life long battle, or love affair with all the wrong foods…

There are stories in this blog that chronicle my journey to health, many, but not all of them are titled: #Stronger Than the Cookie (#strongerthanthecookie ) It was an 11 month journey that took me from this…

to this, my goal weight picture…

I try to post about the ups and downs about once a month and plan to continue writing about being #strongerthanthecookie as I grow into maintaining the loss. One of my blogging friends calls this my graduation picture!
I love writing and sharing these stories and am glad to have you join me on the journey. I am just a simple country preacher with an amazing flock of sheep

who loves to laugh and tell stories.
I am grateful for our home in North Central Pennsylvania, for family and friends who nurture and enrich my life, for the blogging community around the globe who have made such a difference in me, for my husband who puts up with me (hint, we put up with each other). I am grateful for the opportunity to rediscover that basic part of myself I didn’t realize had stayed behind in Onset, waiting to be rediscovered, and all the stories yet to be written.
Not holding back the tide,
Michele
Copyright 2020-2024 Michele Somerville, The Beach Girl Chronicles and https://msomervillesite.WordPress.com