Uncategorized – Page 33 – Through My Eyes

To Be Or Not To Be…

In nature as in life a lot of things are connected but always have the opportunity of reinvention.

Lately I have been doing beadwork. What I like most about working with crafts is the ability to take something plain or raw and make something useful and hopefully beautiful out of it.

The above picture defines my point. I took a rough piece of Sun Stone Quartz that I mined out of the NC mountains, added some decorative black jewelry wire for a harness and now it will have purpose as a pendant.

Not unlike this rough stone we can reinvent ourselves. Sometimes this reinvention occurs as a result of an event in our lives or like me just a desire to be the best I can be.

Have a great Sunday.

Bead By Bead

So today I have been beading. I started out the day doing simple earrings:

This afternoon I started a Native American style fringe earring. These are worked with very small seed beads added to a beading needed. You first start by making a ring and then working back through half of them to start the brick pattern. These take quite a while to complete but worth the effort. There are patterns on pinterest and on the Fire Mountain Gem website.

Keeping Faith Alive

Good morning friends. This week I have again been reminded to keep my faith alive. While I know where my own personal faith lies, I try very hard not to judge others for what they believe.

Earlier this week I had an opportunity to visit the Freschoes of West Jefferson, NC. These paintings are not just pieces of art that are overwhelmingly beautiful but they relay such a strong sense of peace. See for yourself!

For more information visit the following wesite: https://www.ashefrescoes.org/churches.php

Mountain Journey Continued

Our journey this week began in this little cabin at Mountainside Cabins. We normally travel in an RV but when our refrigerator died, we decided to rent this little cabin instead of waiting to repair our fridge.

This one-lane road, which proved to be one of many, lead us up a mile to our cabin. Along the way were these colorful trees along with christmas trees on the side.

It wasn’t hard at all to find christmas trees. They are already starting to cut them.

A view from the pond in front of our cabin.

No mountain trip is complete without a stream.

Hopefully I will get to pain this one sometime in the future.

Hope you enjoyed these few pictures of our mountain journey.

Oh and meet our furbaby Roco. He didn’t hesitate to claim the deck chair for his own.

A Mountain Journey

Every year I just do not feel fulfilled until I take a trip to the mountains. Follow me on this photographic journey.

It’s hard to tell from the photo that it is fall here in the foothills. Slight golds and yellows but little else. We are at just a little over 3200 feet so we are hoping tomorrow we can venture out to a little higher elevation and see if the leaves have changed any more.

The Elusive Dragonfly

I have always been facinated by the dragonfly. They are colorful and fast but more importantly a symbol of peace and prosperity. Some years ago I was able to get a shot of one of these special creatures.

While he nestled quietly on top of an unopened day lilly, all seemed to be right in his world. Yes, this was shot with a film camera. A Canon AE1 to be exact with a micro lens.

We should all be like the dragonfly and seek to find peace not violence and destruction.

Peace be to you all.

Falling For Fall

I love the fall. While we are only seeing subtle color changes… there are also wildflowers.

Little surprised when I saw this in bloom.

I am loving the fall weather and the anticipation of the changing leaves that will soon come.

While the past months have given us little to be excited about, I am hopeful for the future.

Photography Sampler

I apologize for my lack of blogging lately. My time has been tied up with home renovation and fall cleaning. While cleaning I stumbled upon some pictures stashed in a container I had forgotten about.

This is a mixture of different types of photos, hope you enjoy.

Now this one is really old. A few old rusty cowboys at Ghost Town!

A special moment. This was part of a maternity package I shot in b&w.

Cowboy up! We used to love to go to rodeos where bullriding was the highlight!

Surf’s up! I am not really a beach kind of girl but love action shots.

For whatever reason, I have always been facinated by statues. Check out the face, while we may be wearing masks on the lower half of our face she looks like she is wearing one on the top half of hers.

These were the bikes of me and my two sisters. Over the years they just got tangled up in the weeds of our orchard.

Thanks for taking this short journey with me. These are not my best shots but probably some of the more unique. It is not as important what you shoot as it is how you shoot it!

Happy shooting!

Changing Seasons

I absolutely love fall! While the changes are slight right now, I will shoot anything with color.

Women Of The Bible IV

Leah

And now we meet Leah. Leah was not a strong beautiful woman like her sister Rachel. When Jacob the grandson of Abraham meets the two sisters he is instantly attracted to Rachel. Their father Laban told Jacob that if he worked for him for seven years he could claim his beautiful daughter’s hand in marriage. He doesn’t know until the seven years are up that his bride-to-be is Leah, not her beautiful sister Rachel that he desired. You can imagine Jacob’s disappointment.

Laban tells Jacob that he can marry Rachel in another seven year but in the meantime would have to act as a husband to Leah. Just so he can marry Rachel later, he does as Laban requested and marries Leah. Leah knew from the very beginning that Jacob did not love her but but felt she had little choice and would never be disobedient to her father. She still proved to be a dutiful wife. With each day of marriage she became more depressed and longed for someone to love her. God was not happy that Leah was still unloved. He opened up her barren womb and enabled her to conceive while her sister Rachel remained barren.

Leah joyfully bears four children by Jacob. Since the birth of her firstborn, Leah as a mother becomes stronger. She pours her whole heart into raising her children and devoting herself to serving God. It is he she knows who has filled her heart with joy.

What did we learn from this story?

Beauty is not always the path to love or righteousness.

A woman full of self doubt can become a strong woman.

The desires of our own heart may not always be within God’s plan for us but if you are devoted to him your cup will be overflowing.

Leah did not let the fact that her husband did not love her lead her down a path of darkness, instead she concentrated on her relationship with her God and her children. As much as God commanded us to be a helpmate to man, it does not mean women are slaves to man. A strong bond between a man and a woman is a beautiful thing but when there is no love there God steps in and will help you to find that love whether it is love of a child or just finding love of self.

Leah who had little self-worth in the beginning became a strong woman happy as a mother and a child of God. The fulfillment of self is often ignored. Find your faith and find true happiness.