macro jewelry

Took a little time to do some macro jewelry shots.

 mother and daughter rings

 Turtle necklace

 art deco necklace

 til we meet again

 eye of the tiger

Mickey is so Charming

Healthy Recipe, Avocado cucumber salad

I love avocados! In fact my whole family loves avacados.   I make the absolute best guacamole around! but there is a limit to how much guac one can eat.  I also like to put sliced avacados in my salad.  But i was trying to come up with a way to eat them as a side dish with dinner, or as a nice lunch.  This salad is really good stuffed into a wheat pita pocket, or along side your favorite dinner item.  We had it with a roast last night, and it goes really well with grilled chicken.  Try it, I promise you will love it as much as we do.

2 ripe avacados
half cucumber
2 tbsn red onion
half chopped jalepeno
juice from a lemon (or lime)
one small roma tomato

Dice everything and mix together, add a pinch of salt.  Easy peasy, and so delicious!

life as we know it

I never got to finishing my blog posts about our wonderful trip to Disney World.  Complications came up and life became very hectic.  What is most important in my life, became very prevalent.  I decided to not try and stretch myself so thin, not push myself so hard, and just do what was most important.

 So what does that mean really?  It means I am backing off from the business of photography.  All the logistics just became too much for me to deal with at this time.  It means photographing people I care about, and doing it for the love of photography.  It means alot less time on the computer.  It means dedicating my life to being healthy and happy.

I have made some really huge life altering decisions in the past 2 months.  And life is changing, and I am happier, and healthier, and things are looking so good to me.

Change is scary, and can be very hard to do.  There is no doubt about that.  But embracing the changes I needed to make, and being my normal stubborn self, my life has greatly improved.  I put so much more trust in God, than I knew I was capable of.  I still feel like somehow I have control over everything, and get arrogant enough to think I can outsmart Him and do it my own way.  But I am really putting all my effort into putting all my faith in Him and giving my entire life to Him.  Saying the prayer "Your will be done" and trusting  His decision for the next step in my life, helped me let go of all my fear and worry.  Knowing that He has forgiven me for all the mistakes I have made, and all the bad choices.  And that He will always be there loving and forgiving me, even when I don't love or forgive myself.

For a long time I was arrogant, I thought well that could never happen to me, I am healthy.  I had no idea that my body was on the way to betraying me, after I had betrayed it for so long.  I never expected to go to the doctor and get all the bad news, that I received   I had no clue I was so sick, when i thought i felt just fine.

My dad told me, that he knows I can change my life, that i can make it all better.  He told me, I am strong willed and stubborn, and if i can accomplish all that I accomplished through my photography, he knew I could do whatever I set my mind to.  He told me to just put all the effort into myself, that I put into my photography, and I will see big differences in my life.  Knowing that my dad has faith in me, has probably been the thing that kept me going the most.  I promised him, I would fix this.  I have only made 2 promises to my dad in my life.  The first one, was to quit hurting myself, when I was a teenager.  I saw the pain in his eyes, after he learned of my nasty little secret.  And I never hurt myself again after that.  I guess this new promise is kind of the same.  I promised to heal my body, and live a long happy life.  Because I heard the pain in his voice, when I told him my diagnoses.

Its been 6 weeks, since i decided to make a change.  I have lost 23 lbs, got my blood pressure under complete control, all my other blood levels came down to a normal level(sugar, cholesterol), and my heart is doing really well.  I still have surgery to look forward to, but i can go into the surgery now, knowing im healthy enough to go under the knife.  And its really just the beginning for me.  Not only am I eating healthy, but I work out almost every night.  I love working out.  I love the way it makes me feel, i love the energy i get from it, i love the tension release.  I love just turning on my playlist and hitting it hard, til im sweaty and out of breath.  But most of all, I love watching my heart rate.  It never gets too high, no matter how hard I push myself, and it recovers so quickly now.  I can retain a normal heart rate in less than 30 seconds!

I am trying not to take anything for granted, trying to put all my faith in God, and trying to be the very best person I can be.  I guess those are the keys to true happiness.