Drumroll, Please!

Ta-da! I'm finally posting photos from my photography trip to the mountains. I had a fabulous time, and learned soooooo much in the three days I was there! My mind is now full of information about aperture, shutter speed, exposures, bracketing, highlights, depth of field, you name it! Estal taught us to shoot entirely using the manual settings, and I'm going to try to continue to do that so that I can stay in practice. It was exhausting, but oh so much fun! We stayed in Cades Cove for 13 hours taking photographs!!!!! And we got there at 6:15 a.m.!!!!!!

I really branched out of my comfort zone that week. I don't normally go out in public without my hair being fixed, all my makeup on, and "dressed" for town, but that week, it was minimal makeup and cool, comfortable clothes and shoes. I know I looked like an elderly lady/tourist with my ugly Reebok tennis shoes on, but sandals just wouldn't cut it on moss-covered rocks and going in the woods! You know what, for once in my life, it didn't bother me! I was there to learn about photography and get some great pictures, and that's what it took! I even got within 20 feet of a REAL, LIVE BEAR!!!!! The first time we saw bears, I was pretty tentative, but as we saw more and more, I got more comfortable. I still made sure there was somebody between the bear and me though! Ha!


There are some of these that aren't as good as others, at least to the technical eye, but I wanted to share them anyway. My little bear cub is an example of that, but I thought he was cute. I am going to have some of them framed to go in my office at school.

So here they are....enjoy!

Update

Things are looking up a little bit since my last post. Didn't mean to depress y'all, but I was just in need of some prayers! Still are, but more on that in a minute....


Tracy finally passed the kidney stone this past Tuesday. We had just about given up on him passing it on his own. I had to run a few errands, and we had decided if he hadn't passed it by the time I got home that afternoon, we probably needed to go ahead and call the doctor to get on his surgery schedule for Wednesday. (The doctor was leaving Thursday to go out of town for 10 days, so we really didn't want to push it any further!) While I was in town, my phone rang and it was Tracy giving me the good news. This was our first experience with kidney stones, and what struck me most about the experience is how quickly it hit him, and then how quickly he recovered after passing it. He passed the stone about 1:00 p.m. or so, and in a couple of hours, he was as good as new. Praise the Lord!


The job situation: Well, he still doesn't have one. However, he has had an offer. We're just not sure that it is the job for Tracy. He is also seriously considering starting his own business, doing the same type of work he's been doing--industrial and agricultural repair , i. e. forklifts, bulldozers, tractors, farm equipment, etc. We feel like if he ever wants to do this, it might be the right time. Ordinarily, it would be hard to leave the security of a steady income to branch out on your own, but that decision has already been made for us!


Please continue to pray for us during this time of transition. We are still very secure of the fact that we know God will take care of us, and have done much better lately with accepting this new reality. We know there's a job out there for Tracy, whether it be working for someone else, or working for himself. However, please pray for guidance for us, that we'll have sense enough to know when the Lord is leading us in a particular direction. We just want to be sure that we do what is His will for our lives.


Thank you so much for the prayers that have already been lifted up for us! We have certainly felt them, and I know it's because of those prayers that we are dealing with this as well as we are.


I'll leave you with one of my favorite photos from the photography trip. I'll try to work on getting some more ready to post soon! Good night!

Not What I Had Planned....

This post is certainly not what I had planned to write about upon returning home from my photography trip this past week. First, I hadn't planned on returning home early. Unfortunately, a deacon in our church, who is also a dear friend & neighbor, passed away unexpectedly Monday afternoon. So Tracy drove to TN on Wednesday to bring me back home for the funeral on Thursday. Yep, he made the whole trip there and back in a single loooonnnnnnng day!

Next up is the biggie, something I never thought I'd be writing. Honestly, I don't know how "appropriate" this is (it's certainly not entertaining), but as I've said before, I'm learning about transparency from Darby....so here goes. My husband was laid off from his job unexpectedly on Friday. We never saw it coming. I knew things weren't going as well at his company, but his division was still actually doing okay, according to the numbers. However, seven people were laid off at his location, 32 at another, and no telling how many more company-wide that day. There appears to be no logical method they used of determining who to let go....some had been there longer than Tracy, some less, as well as some other odd things. Needless to say, we were devasted. I'm doing some better now; I know the Lord will take care of us and provide for us, and that He may have something even better lined up for Tracy down the road. However, the human part of me is not looking forward to this journey.

Finally, on Friday night (yes, the same day as the layoff news), Tracy developed his first-ever kidney stone. We spent most of Friday night in the ER. He still hasn't passed it, and has developed a fever, so it looks like we'll be heading back to the doctor tomorrow morning.

I sincerely ask for your prayers at this difficult time in our lives. Since I've started blogging, I've discovered that not only is it "fun", but there's quite a support network out there. I've met a lot of Christian people through the blogs, and I humbly ask that you remember Tracy and me in your prayers.

I don't know what you may be going through in your own life right now, but I want to share something that has kept me going over the last two days. I've heard my Aunt Lucy and Uncle Amos sing this song my entire life, but it's never had so much meaning as it does now.

"I've never said a prayer that He could not answer.

I've never shed a tear that He could not dry.

And when the waves of life, they are so high you can't mount them,

I know He'll roll you over the tide."

It's Here!

It's finally here! I've been planning for this photography trip for months, yet you would think I just found out about it a couple of days ago. Why, oh why, did I wait until the last minute to start getting my things together? I spent all day Friday running around making last minute purchases!

I really hope that I can do this! I spent some time today reading my camera manual.....GREEK, I tell you! I have no clue what a lot of that stuff means! I really hope it becomes clear to me this next week!

I am taking my laptop with me, but I'm not sure if I will have Internet access or not. Even though we're going to be super busy, I just have to check my email and blogs once every couple of days! And, if I get a chance and have any pictures that are decent enough to share, I'll try to post a couple!

Please say some prayers for me this week. I'm sure my family will be fine without me, but I'm not sure I'll be okay without them! I'm not big on being away from home by myself! I hope I don't get homesick!

Back soon, hopefully!

Why?

Why? That's a question that I'm pondering this morning. Why do I love this new medium of expressing my thoughts? Why will I sit down and blog, but I won't write in a journal. Why do other people read my blog. I'm not a great writer like Abby, not crafty like Darby, not funny like Hillary......you get the idea. Why do we all do this...pour ourselves and the little mundane details of our lives out for the world to see? Part of the reason is obvious; we all have family and friends that we're too busy to call or visit, or maybe they live hundreds of miles away, and this is a way for them to stay part of our lives. But the other reason, I think, is that we just need a little camaraderie...that even in the normal, everyday stuff that we deal with as women, wives, and mothers, to know that we're all in this together! Maybe we need to make sure that we really are "normal" like everybody else!

There is a small part of this that I struggle with though. How much info is too much, from a safety point of view. Some of you know exactly where I live, or we've met in person, and I actually feel okay with that, because we know some of the same people, or I've heard of your family, etc. But what about that person in Canada who is reading my blog? I don't know anybody in Canada! (That's what my Sitemeter said!) I guess what got me to thinking about all this is that there is apparently a little case of "blog fraud" going on out there. I don't know the details, but it sounds like a lady mislead a lot of people about a situation with her child, and even received money from a lot of readers. So, I worry, am I too trusting? You know, this is far-fetched, but I've told where I'm going next week....is that really a smart move? And we all have pictures of our kids up on the blog. I don't know....what do y'all think?

School's Out for the Summer!

Finally! The last day of school for students was Tuesday, but teachers had to work the rest of the week. And what a busy week it was, hence the lack of blogging! In addition to the normal end-of-the-year craziness, my father-in-law was in the hospital. He's okay; he got an infection in his big toe, and because he is a diabetic, the doctor put him in the hospital to give him IV antibiotics, to get it cleared up as soon as possible.

We've had more rain this week, but finally Matthew has been able to get in the pool! In fact, he's in there as I type. Tracy is out there with him, and I'm inside while Luke is getting a late afternoon nap.

Have you noticed there are never any pictures of Tracy here on the blog? Tracy hates to have his picture made, so it will be a rare occasion if you get to see him here! Matthew and I, on the other hand, are camera hogs! I can't tell about Luke yet!

So next week "officially" begins summer vacation. Let's see....Luke's 18 month checkup, a dentist appointment, a hair appointment....sounds like lots of fun, huh? However, the following week will make up for it. I'm going on a week-long photography trip to the mountains! My photographer has organized a "class" where there will be three of us going with him to the Smokies to spend a week learning about photography. I am really, really excited! Nervous about leaving my family for that long, but really excited at the opportunity to learn so much in such a short amount of time. The mountains are my favorite vacation spot, so that makes it a double treat! I just hope I can remember everything I'm taught next week! He's not going to let us use any of the automatic settings on our camera; we're going to be shooting entirely on manual. Say some prayers for me that everybody here will be okay, I won't get too homesick, and that I'll have peace about going off and leaving them!

Nothing else to post about right now. Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

And the Winner Is.....

#1.....Lauren!

Y'all, I promise I did this randomly, through Random.org. It's just so odd that the random number would be 1, but I guess with only a handful of comments, it's much more likely!

So Lauren, email me with ideas for your mousepad, and I'll come up with a design and send it to you for proofing.

For those who asked, yes these are for sale. My digital design class does a lot of custom printing, and this is one of our projects. I'm just purchasing one to use as a giveaway. We probably sold 40+ of these around Christmas. I'm not sure who had more fun, the students or me!

I had really hoped that this would help me get some more blog readers and commenters. According to my Sitemeter, there are people out there reading, in places that I don't even know anyone, but hardly anybody posts comments. Do any of you have any suggestions for getting new readers, and then getting them to comment?

A big thanks to all of you who did comment for my giveaway! I appreciate you so much! Have a great weekend!