Another Wait......

Well, Yesterday Steve was notified of his interview date in London at the US Embassy.
The big day is January 9th.......... now we have to sit and wait again. I just hope we have all of our paper work in order and they are happy with everything. This is such an ordeal. I don't think until you actually have gone through this kind of thing
you would ever know what patience is. For the past 8 months we have gone from one waiting situation to another and I have to admit it is taking a toll on me.
I am ready for all this to be over and hopefully we can start our life together soon.
It is not easy to fall in love with somebody from a foreign country. The falling in love part is not hard, but what comes after if you want to get married and be together is hard. I had never imagined it to be this complicated. The INS wants to know every detail of your life. Pictures of the people applying together (which in my case is hard, because I always took pictures of Steve, but we had very few of us together), airplane tickets (when he started to visit me we did not plan on this so
we did not keep those). I think if you start dating somebody from overseas you need
to have a how to book for idiots............what you should know and what you need to do from day one. KEEP EVERYTHING :) because you might just need it in the future.
In 12 days we will know, I HOPE and I pray that everything will go through and we
finally can get married.

It is the night before Christmas.............

and I want to wish all my friends, old and new a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Getting into the Christmas Spirit!

Last night we had our little local Christmas Parade that turned out not to be so little. It was a lot of fun watching the floats go by and seeing all the little beauty queens sit on the back of the cars waving to the crowd.

I had not been to any of the parades in years and was glad that I went even though I felt so badly with that cold that everybody around here caught, but it was the perfect time for me to take my new camera on a test run. I decided to shoot everything without flash just to see how much I could push this BEAUTY...........and I have to say...............I am in love :) This is a wonderful piece of equipment and a pleasure to be able to shoot in total darkness at ISO 25600.

AMAZING! I thought I would share a few of the pictures.

I Can Sleep Tonight!

They found water, LOTS of water 40 gallons a minute at 147 feet. I am the luckiest person in the world today :) Now I really have something to be thankful for at Thanksgiving besides all the other good stuff that happened to me this year!

The Day is FINALLY here.......

The well drilling company came by last night and brought their drilling rig over. It took over my entire driveway. My Golden Retriever Lacy was totally freaked out and it took every kind of persuasion I could think of to talk her into going potty late last night. She did not like the looks of that huge truck.

Early this morning the crew came and started drilling. They could not have picked a colder day and the wind is awful. Before they started they had to cut one of my price hemlocks, it broke my heart since I have spend the last year injecting the trees so they would not die from the decease that has afflicted all the hemlocks here in our Georgia Mountains. One thing I did notice after they cut the tree was that it did not have the nasty little critters on it that is killing these beautiful trees, so the injections seem to be working. That is good thing :)

Anyway, after they got the tree out of the way they started with the actual drilling.

After an hour of that they had to replace the PVC casings with steel casings, because they were hitting rock and needed those to make sure that they would not break as they went deeper.

It is afternoon now and they just hit 60 feet and I was just told that they have not even looked for water yet, because they had to get everything set up for it first. Now they are ready to go down to serious drilling............. and they have started as you can see from one of the photos even the tires of the rig are up in the air..........but don't ask me why.

Anyway I will keep you posted on how the day goes.........wish me luck that they don't have to go to deep to find water, because the deeper they go the more expensive it gets. Maybe they will find oil instead :)

Hidden Beauties

I had an email today from my sister in law looking for some kind of special piece to hang in her house and I came across these two pieces, thought I would share them.

I did them this past year when I felt like reaching out to my creative side.

A Little Break!

Today I finished the post work from a wedding and decided to treat myself and get some pansy
plants to fill up my flower boxes. It always soothes my soul to dig around in the dirt, specially after a rain. I love this time of year.........the colors of the leaves laying in my front yard give me so much joy, the smell of fall in the air and the prospect of all the holidays to come.
Thanksgiving and Christmas are almost here and I am starting to think that I might just put up
my little Christmas tree after the 27th of this month just so I can enjoy it most of December.
Everybody that knows me well also knows that is totally against my believe..........because I never put up a tree until the week before Christmas, but this year I will break away from what I have done for most of my life. Maybe putting up a tree early will give me the hope ........ the hope for a better new year for everybody in the world, we all need to believe that there is HOPE that things can change again and with that hope we need to move forward and do our best to help each other through this difficult time.
Let's be thankful for all the things we do have..........family, friends and the joys the past year brought us. I want to wish everybody a Happy Thanksgiving just in case I don't get a chance to post another message in the next couple of weeks.

Magic Moment

Laura covered a wedding for me in the Atlanta area and caught this magic moment.......

Thank you Laura for a great job and giving me so many wonderful photos to work with. Congratulations to Kelly and Wes!

Fall Engagement Sessions

Fall engagement sessions are so much fun............

At Last......

We finally got the long awaited letter from the State Department. The Fiance Visa that I requested was approved on this end. Now we have to wait for the embassy in London to contact Steve for his appointment. I hope we have all the papers in place that they might ask for. I did some research and I think we got everything he might need so things won't get delayed any longer. I still hope that we will be together for Christmas, but in my logic mind I also knows that between all the holidays it might not happen..........but you can't blame a girl for hoping.
It would be so nice if we could start the new year together instead him in Wales and me here in the mountains.
He still has not sold his house, things are just as bad in the UK as here, but he said that would not stop him from coming. His sister will take care of things so he can come as soon as they give us the final ok. We have not seen each other since early April and it would be so nice.
It is so hard to be apart for so long when you love somebody, but I keep thinking of all of our soldiers being apart from their loved ones and that gives me the strength to wait this out.

A Beautiful Day!

Yesterday I had one of the happiest surprises of my life. My niece who lives in Brazil came to visit me with her husband Martin and her little 7 year old daughter Kim.

The last time I saw Anik she was 6 years old and it was such fun to look at her and find out that she is so much like me even though we had never been much around each other.

Her loves and dislikes are almost like a mirror image of mine, down to our love of dogs and cats.

The only difference is that she has 15 dogs and I only have 3 :)

I was so sad to see her leave and I wished we would have had more time to visit, but she did promise me that the next time she comes to the USA she would come for a week long stay.

I can't wait!!!!!

Busy October

I have not disappeared from the face of the earth.....

October and November are real busy months for me and since I try to get

everybodies photos from their weddings online within a couple of weeks there

is not much time left for much else. Even my blog has to take a back seat this time

of year.

Weddings and engagement sessions take up all my weekends and during the

week I am working on the photos. I had some lovely couples in those weeks

and as always enjoyed myself covering their weddings.

I am still waiting on Steve's visa which is still not here, so it looks more and more like a winter

wedding for us.

The drought finally caught up with me, my beloved gravity spring water supply to my

house dried up.........so I am forced to drill for a well this week.

Since you get charged by the foot I am praying that they will find water as close to the

surface as they can. Like I always say..........IT IS WHAT IT IS!

What do you call a wedding.....

What do you call a wedding that was magical and fun .......... PERFECT!

Laura, Ellen and I had the great fortune to record the special day

of Katy and Dan two weeks ago.

After this couple had spend the weekend with me this past summer

I could not imagine not to be there myself to catch some special moments.

Laura was all for it since we love working together........

over and over again I see what a great team she and I make.

Thank you Laura for not only being my trusted associate, but also

such a great friend.

Congratulations Katy and Dan................thank you for trusting us with your memories.....

Engagement Session on St. Simons

This past Sunday I was asked to fly to St. Simons to do an engagement session. I had never been there so the thought of doing romantic pictures on the island seemed like fun. We left early afternoon and had a wonderful flight thanks to the father of the bride and his co pilot Meredith, my lovely bride. Yance, the groom and I settled in in the back of the plane and enjoyed the view.

After arriving on St. Simons we drove around and took pictures at various beautiful places. It was a joy to have so many nice backdrops to chose from. Meredith and Yance were great and I believe they had as much fun as I did. We ended the day on the beach. Everybody got wet including me :) but that was no problem because the weather could not have been nicer.

After spending most of the day with this lovely couple I can honestly say that I can't wait to be part of their wedding and I know their wedding pictures will be as lovely as their engagement

photos. I feel so lucky that my couples are such a joy and so wonderful to work with.

Thank you Meredith, Yance and Scott for such a wonderful experience!

Congratulations Kyle and Randy!

Yesterday was a perfect wedding day............ the weather was incredible and so was the entire wedding. Love was truly in the air :)

Congratulations Lauren and Jamie!

I hope Lauren and Jamie get a chance to check on their photos as I post them this week while they are on their honeymoon and enjoy the moments over and over again. I also want to thank them for the oportunity to cover their day and the special Thank You that came from their heart.

Messengers of love!

It is said that kisses are the messengers of love.............

It is what it is in my mind!

Sometimes I enjoy taking a photo and making it a bit more then just a photo.
My girlfriend Catherine McIntyre has always been my inspiration when I decide to do that. She is the best in the world with this kind of work and she always surprises me with her talents. Photography is beautiful and art, but taking a photograph and transforming it to what my mind sees is very special.........it is an extension of my inner self and my love for art.

Finally!

I finally find time to write again.
It has been hectic with weddings, engagement sessions and just the normal post work. Saturday was one of the few weekends I did not have a wedding and I accepted a dinner invitation that I received last week from a couple whose wedding Laura and I covered a few weeks ago. It was so much fun to see them again. Sometimes I love my job even more then I normally do, specially when I connect with a couple as I did with this one.
They brought pictures from their honeymoon and the evening was very special to me.
Thank you Meghan and Shaun for the lovely dinner, it meant so much to me to know that Laura and I made you happy with the photos we took, happy enough to extend this lovely invitation.

This must have been the beginning of a great week...........
When I checked my emails this morning I found a mail from an old friend from 20 years ago. His wife apparently found my website. How nice to hear from him. I can't believe we ever lived without Internet. How many friendships were lost forever when people lost touch with each other before cyberworld. Sometimes things happen, we move or whatever and even good friends just disappear, but now we at least have a chance to reconnect.

Engagements!

This past Sunday I had engagement sessions with two lovely couples. Those sessions give me time to get to know the couples before their wedding. The more I know them the better I can cover their event. I don't know how some photographers just go cold turkey to a wedding. Sure you can take pretty pictures even then, but somehow it seems to me that the more you know about somebody the more you can catch their true personality and those special moments. I love engagement sessions for that reason alone.

Congratulations to Laurie and James and of course Maggie and Donald too!

Rain induced thoughts!

Last night we had a lot of rain, more then I have seen in months, with so much rain coming down the mountain it was no surprise that the power went of.
I work 7 days a week on my computer to do all the post processing of the pictures I take and designing the albums for my couples, so much of the time I am to busy to let my thoughts wander to other things. Last night with the blackout in my little home all kind of things came to my mind. Most of all I was thinking about families..........
Almost every weekend I am surrounded by loving families sending their children of to a new life.
It warms my heart when I see that over and over again.
But there are other kinds of families, not just those bound by blood. I found that out when I lost my husband. Of course, my children were here for me and I knew their father would have been so proud how they stood by my side, but when tragic events happen you find out who your friends are.............those that go beyond the normal. Those people are our chosen families.......
people that love us not because it is expected, but simply because they do. Laying there in the dark last night I knew that I was very fortunate to have all those people in my life and all of a sudden I did not feel lonely or even scared anymore (that rain and wind in the darkness was somewhat scary) I knew I was surrounded by "my" big family ..........the phone calls I received last night from friends checking on me were proof of that.

On a more private level!

I am really enjoying blogging and I will over and over thank Katy for being instrumental in getting me started. Not only can I post work that many of my friends or even clients would never see, but it also opens up the doors to me to let those people that are interested get to know the more private side of me.

Last year my husband of 30 years passed away very suddenly and I prepared myself to a life alone in my little house in the mountains. But things changed when an old friend of mine came back into my life shortly after that tragic day. He was there for me during the darkest moments with his kindness,understanding and presence. Sure it was limited to phone calls and the Internet, but he was there for me even though he was all the way across the ocean in Wales.

Late last summer I invited him for a visit and our friendship turned into much more. More then I ever hoped for. This spring at one of his visits he asked me to marry him and I knew that I had found love again and that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him.

We are now waiting for all the paper work so we can start our life together. The months of waiting are very hard and I am just so glad that I have all the support from my family and friends. Work is helping me so much too. My busy season has started and I hope that it will make the days shorter and whatever time is left pass quickly.

In the meantime Steve stays in touch with me on a daily basis. We had wanted to get married on one of our lakes, but the longer this is dragging on I realise that we might have to get married on the top of a snow capped mountain. Well, like Laura and I always say, IT IS WHAT IT IS! When I start to miss him I keep thinking of the all the wife's and girlfriends of the sailors of ancient times. Their husbands and boyfriends would leave for years on end and they would not hear a word from them, at least we have the Internet to keep in touch.

Not long ago I made a portrait of Steve and I thought I would share it with my friends.

Creative Muse

Some days I feel like I have to create something beyond the box of photography. I love taking photos and making them into more then just another photograph of a pretty face. Taking the image to another level. Many of the traditional photographers frown on this, but to me it is just another form of artistic expression. Why no go into a fantasy realm if you are able to do so!

Why not take my knowledge of Photoshop and push it to something that is creative and art.

The artistic side of me

Many of my clients don't know that before I became a photographer with a passion for weddings I was a fine artist. I had 5 major galleries handling my work and a corporate agent. I did this for over 20 years and it was great. I was known for my underwater paintings of the reefs with all its natural wonders. Being a diver it came natural to me and I was told over the years that my paintings truly represented the world beneath our oceans.

At one point, I can't even remember when I started to feel that I could create my paintings in my sleep and even though I could paint other subjects well, the galleries that handled my work did not want me to present them with those..................I was known for the aquatic paintings and they were selling well so a change was not in the picture as far as the galleries were concerned.

More and more I felt my passion leave me and so one day I decided to take a break from creating paintings and give myself a couple of years to decide what I wanted for myself.

I pulled all my paintings out of the galleries and put them in my main one in Naples, Florida and took that break that I needed.

Being interested in photography all my life I decided to teach myself Photoshop and take pictures to manipulate into artwork. One thing let to another and one day a friend asked me to

cover a wedding and even though I really did not want to I did. THAT was the beginning of a new love affair for me. I loved every minute of that wedding. How could I not..........I was surrounded by people in love...........happy people that were there to celebrate that love, how could it get any better.

Well the rest is history.................I have not painted since and devoted my life to capturing the weddings of so many happy couples. I design all their books from scratch without the help of templates and my knowledge of Photoshop comes in very handy in all the designs. This gives me the freedom to make each and every book a one of a kind piece of art work and hopefully I will never get back into having to do the same thing over and over again just to make a living. I want my creativity to stay alive for as long as I am allowed to be on this earth and not die as it did when I painted.