More photos & some explanation

Well, we're consistent if nothing else. This semester, just moving into the trailer, re-doing the floor, painting all the rooms & building porches wasn't enough of a challenge for John & I. So we added two dogs, a new shop and college to the mix. John is keeping his full time job at the bank & pursuing an MBA degree in the evenings. We're very blessed because Texas pays for veterans' tuition & fees, and the bank is paying for all of his books. And I'm also back in school, non-degree seeking, taking a photography class with my sister & her mother-in-law. It's a wonderful class & the reason you're seeing more photos on the blog. I've been shooting in RAW the past couple of years and while I love the flexibility the format offers, I never seem to get around to editing & printing my photos. I've learned so much about photography & photoshop in this class, even though it's very time intensive. I'm also doing my second Beth Moore study, Esther, at our church with my mom.



I'm betting that a lot of you have already done a Beth Moore study but if you haven't I cannot urge you to do so enough. I put off doing one too - it just seemed like a lot of time. But the payoff is great - I've learned so much about God, the Bible and myself through these studies, as well as getting to know some wonderful ladies. Even though most of the ladies at our church have already done some of the earlier studies, I want to go back & work through them myself and borrow the videos from the church.

This little guy was sitting in my front yard the other day. I was running back into the house to get mom to call the vet for a sick cow but had to stop & take a picture.


We had to do a fashion photo for an assignment - they really wanted us to do some high fashion poses from magazines but I went with a more rugged look because my model is such a handsome cowboy.


Everything's blooming out right now in East Texas - dogwoods, azaleas, wisteria, fruit trees, violets - it's my favorite time of the year. Right now it's 45 degrees & raining but hopefully I'll get more flower photos over spring break.


Sunset from my front door.


The view from my scraproom. It's the church where we got married. Some people think it's weird to live beside a cemetary but I say that it makes for quiet neighbors & John says it's the live people that you have to worry about.


Not a view from my house but one on the drive home. I photoshopped out the high lines - am so excited that I can do that now.


Look for photos of my backyard in weeks to come. Why my back yard? Because we signed the papers on Wednesday and construction starts on the shop, or Man Cave as John calls it, on Monday. We are so excited about this! I'm sure some of you are wondering why we're taking out a loan to build a shop when we're repainting an older trailer. Well, we can't build our dreamhome right now & since we're only planning on doing this once since we want to use the land Dad left me, we didn't want to build a 'starter' home. John's Dad gave us the trailer to use as long as we want so we're not under a rent payment but since we've downsized each time we've moved, we're bulging at the seams. John does a lot of handyman work on the trucks, on electric & plumbing, fencing and builds my stuff from wood - so we've got tools, wire, pvc, etc all over the place. Plus his Twilight bowfishing stuff. So once the shop is complete, all of that will go in it plus he's building me a storage room inside for all of my stuff, like Christmas decorations, luggage, etc. It is wonderful to finally be on our place, building the things we've dreamed about - God has blessed us so richly.