Hello everyone, my name is Olivia Doherty. I am a Scotts Valley middle-schooler who has opinions just like you. I want to share with you my observations about what a middle-schooler thinks on a daily basis.

Submit Datebook items to [email protected], or drop off press releases or photos at 5215 Scotts Valley Drive, Ste. F, Scotts Valley 95066. Deadline is 5 p.m. Tuesday. Entries are subject to editing, and publication is not guaranteed.

There is often opportunity amid gloom. And, wow, do we have a lot of gloom in the real estate market:

I am a contract worker, and recently I may have put my job in jeopardy. I found that I am not a very “green employee.”

About three weeks ago, my wife asked me a rather unusual question: Could I marry her best friend from high school? Coupled with the recent marriage of Press-Banner’s hallowed leader, Peter Burke, and his columns as he approached wedded bliss, it seemed only natural that I should write about my first and likely only, experience performing the nuptials.

Submit Datebook items to [email protected], or drop off press releases or photos at 5215 Scotts Valley Drive, Ste. F, Scotts Valley 95066. Deadline is 5 p.m. Tuesday. Entries are subject to editing, and publication is not guaranteed.

Meru Garuda Besummer was born to Vanessa Kari and Brian Adam Besummer of Boulder Creek at 9:26 a.m. May 11, 2011. He was born at home in Boulder Creek and weighed 9 pounds.

What’s one thing you can do to improve your health, reduce your impact on global warming, increase food security in your community, help the local economy and rediscover the pleasures of good eating? It’s simple: Eat locally grown or raised food.