Monday, August 24, 2009

Class of 1990, Girls Night!



Saturday night I had the opportunity to meet with several ladies I graduated with for dinner. We had a great time. It was just for us ladies, no men. We were expecting about 15 people but only had 7 of us show up. It was so awesome to see everyone. I did not make our 10 year class reunion several years ago and don't know that I would have gone had I even knew that it was happening, I don't have the fondest memories of my high school years. I had very close friends that seemed to turn more into acquaintances and everyone seemed to go there own way. The ladies I met with Saturday were friends that never treated me any differently after getting to high school.

I think so much of these ladies and admire them. After spending just a little time with them and seeing how strong they are in their beliefs and knowing I was still excepted for just being me, it was awesome. We have all been through a lot in our lives and we all have accomplished a great deal. This small get together has made me look forward to our next one and even has me considering attending the 20 year reunion that should be coming up next year.

Thanks ladies!

Monday, August 17, 2009

Thematic Photography - Abandoned




Go check out Carmi's weekly Thematic Photography

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Sunflower Festival

 
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Friday, June 12, 2009

HE WAS THERE

This past week a chain of events occurred that helped rescue a young lady and my family played a role. I would like to start off saying that I have always believed in God and have been saved, but this last week has truly showed me just how present he really is.

My family side of this story starts like this. My sister needed to take her two daughters to the doctor Monday, so she asked our new step mom to watch her two youngest sons, Coletrane & Chaz. These two boys were all about impressing their new grandma and were very excited about being able to go to her house and play but wanted to make a good impression. Coletrane went as far as putting on a button up shirt and his clip on tie and both were doing their best to be on their best behavior. They went over and had a really good time but when leaving,(here starts the real chain of events)Coletrane accidentally let her cat out of the house. My step mom lets her cat out regularly but always hooks him to a pet cable so as not to get into the street and so he doesn't run off.

He escaped...He ran off and no one could catch him. Coletrane was very upset and worried that his new grandma was upset with him. Ginger, needed to get the kids home with one of them being sick so she left (with the plan of returning) and on the way home Coletrane had to take a good razzing by his older sisters about letting the cat escape. His mom, Ginger, just reassured him that she would be going back over to help find the cat and that everything would be okay. Ginger called me with her concerns about finding the cat. Our step mom has emphysema and is on oxygen therapy so I told her that I would go over too and we would find him for her and everything would be fine.

We left for our step moms house, I called on the way over and found out that she had been able to get him back in the house before we got there. I had just ended my phone call with her and started to call Ginger and her husband when I drove up on an accident.

This accident had occurred on a rural road thats not heavily traveled. I stopped my car put my flashers on and ran to the vehicle. I found a horrible sight. A teenage girl just able to wave her arms above the steering wheel asking for help, she was trapped. I told her to be as still as she could and I called 911. While trying to keep her calm, my sister and her husband had stopped just behind me and came to help. My brother in law has had first aid and CPR and really took over the scene while Ginger and I tried to get help on the way. The car was smoking from electrical wires burning and was filling the car with smoke making it difficult for any of us to breath. Todd, my brother in law, had me cover the girls face while he broke out a side window and using the deployed airbag directed the smoke coming from the dash out the window.

We had help on the way, Todd sat with her trying to keep her calm and still as I fanned with anything I could find trying to keep the smoke away from her as best we could. In this time we found out her name was Katie, she is 17,and has asthma. She gave Todd her dad's phone # and my sister called him and tried to keep him from panicking on his drive to the scene. Katie's dad was able to reach his mom that lived just a few miles away and she was on her way.

A first responder arrived about 10 minutes after we got there. We continued to help how ever we could until the ambulance and other emergency personnel arrived. As emergency persons arrived her grandmother arrived and was able to let Katie know she was there and that her dad was on his way. It was heart wrenching to watch Katie's grandmother watch the scene that was occurring. I continued to reassure her Katie was going to be fine and God was there with her with all of us. Katie's dad arrived just after she had be removed from the car and placed in an ambulance to do a quick evaluation of injuries before being put on the helicopter.

As we were getting ready to leave we overheard someone say that she would be lucky if she ever walked again. The three of us, my sister, her husband and myself were just a mess after we left. Very shook up and very worried about this girl and the horror she had just been through. I don't think any of us slept well that night worrying about her and still visualizing what we had just seen. I know for myself, it took me quite a while to get to sleep that night without seeing this girls face reaching and asking for help.

Morning came and Ginger received a call. Katie's dad. He told Ginger Katie was going to be okay. Her left hip had been dislocated and her right femur had been broken and her lungs were bruised, but the doctors had done surgery during the night and put her hip back in place, put rods and pins in her leg to fix her femur and said it would take about a year of therapy to get her back into the shape she was before the accident. Ginger immediately called and we were all breathing a sigh of relief.

Thursday night, Ginger, Todd, and I were able to go see her and her dad at the hospital. What an awesome day. Katie was able to walk down the hall earlier in the day with a walker. She is still in a great deal of pain but she looked great. She was very happy to see us and we were extremely happy to see her. We had a great visit and plan on keeping in touch which won't be hard considering she lives 2 miles from us.

This girl has impacted us so much. We talked on the way to the hospital about how this experience had impacted us and what we get out of it. We all agreed...God is awesome. We all felt his presence in this whole event, from the escaping of the cat down to the the realization of how much worse this event could have been. This was a horrible accident but as Katie put it "We have focused so much on the positives that came out of this". This has really brought a different perspective on our relationship with God and how he works.

GOD, He was there with us all that day. So those sister's that razzed Coletrane about the cat should remember God has a reason and purpose for everything even if we don't understand it at the time. And Coletrane should be proud that his mistake at the moment wasn't really a mistake at all, it was something that was meant to occur. And now Coletrane that felt that he had done something really bad became our hero for the day. If he had not let the cat out, this chain of events that brought help to Katie wouldn't have happened the way it did. Thank you Coletrane. We love you! Thank you God...We all needed you and you were there. You gave us new friends and we look forward to this relationship with them for a long time to come.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Class of 2009


May 29,2009, my son graduated high school. I am so proud of him. He is planning on going straight to work for a while doing electrical work with his Uncle. I am hoping after a break he will want to go back to school but we will see. I know what ever his decision, he will be successful. He is a really smart young man with a good head on his shoulders.
Saturday after graduation, we had a cookout for John and had a blast. We ordered John a 27 inch pizza that we had custom cut a board for (pizza place didn't have a box big enough). We cooked out hamburgers & hotdogs and had lots of other goodies. He received several gifts of money, gift cards, and a first time flight experience with a friend of mine that owns his own plane. John wants to open his first checking account and savings with the money he received and is still in awe over being able to go flying. I can't wait to see his face that day.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Walk For Lupus Now

Please check out the newest post from Keely's blog for updates on the Walk for Lupus Now event at Piedmont Park.

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Crazy life

Hey everyone...just wanted all my blogging friends to know what's been going on with me. I have been dealing with bad allergies that turned into bronchitis this last week. Monday and Tuesday were the worst days of it. After a round on a steroid pack, antibiotics and horrible cough medicine (that made me even more sick) I am doing much better. Even with all my illness I had several commitments over the weekend. I did the Walk for Lupus Now at Piedmont Park in Atlanta, Saturday afternoon and had to be in Athens to support my husband's bosses new bar opening at the Twilight Criterium ( A night bike race that happens yearly in downtown Athens). We got to our hotel about midnight that night. I was pretty wore out. Pretty much laid around Sunday trying to recover and still not feeling well. Monday...I was up at 3:30 in the morning to get to a friends house to help her move. We had her packed and moved out by 9:30 in the morning and settled in her new home by 2:30 that afternoon. 3:15...I finally got into the doctors office...so by that night I finally had some medication in me and then had a reaction to the cough medicine that made me very ill until sometime in the middle of the night. Tuesday morning... I could not move, I was so sore and exhausted that I could not get out of bed. My sweet hubby had spent half the night being so attentive and then had to call my boss and tell her I wasn't coming in. I think I slept till 4:30 that afternoon. I made it through though and I am feeling much better now. As soon as I can get things together at home and catch up I will have several pictures from the Walk for Lupus this past weekend. It turned out to be a really great day and look forward to sharing that experience with everyone. I will go for now... I have got to get to work. Please check back in in a few days and I should have a new post in. Thanks so much again to Sally and the award she sent my way. It is greatly appreciated!

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

I am still alive

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to drop a line and let you all know that I hope to have a new post up by this weekend. We have had family in from out of town and been extremely busy the last 2 weeks. I plan to update everyone on our latest events by Sunday. Hope everyone is doing well and will be checking in on everyone soon.

D.K.Fisher

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Thematic Photographic 43 - Reflective




Going along with Carmi's theme this week is reflective. Here are a few of my photo's that I feel fit this weeks theme. Go check out Carmi's blog on Thematic Photography. Awesome site...Really cool photo's.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Drab- Thematic Photography




I stumbled upon a cool web site this week Written Inc. Carmi host a photographic theme each week. I thought I would join in for fun. Check it out. This weeks theme is DRAB. I think these photos fit. What do you think?


Saturday, March 21, 2009

March Birthdays

Two of my nieces just had birthdays and my brother in law's birthday is tomorrow. I am going to create a birthday collage for each birthday and post them. I promise I will not post everything as a mosiac ...I just got a little carried away today. This is my niece Paige. She is so sweet. She is our little take charge girl and super smart. She is definatley going to be a leader.
And here is my neice Allissa. She is our little song bird. She is big into reading and movies. Favorite right now "Twilight". And she loved her pet rock....


She has started a new tradition. I asked her what she wanted for her birthday and she kept telling me she didn't know. I told her that she was going to get a pet rock if she couldn't tell me something. She made the mistake of telling me that I wouldn't do that. She named her pet rock Patricia. (She also got money and a card.) LOL.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Our Anniversary

Last weekend Robert and I had our 6 year Anniversary and we decided at the last minute we needed to get away. The last weekend we had had alone was our anniversary the year before so we were due. We had an awesome trip.


We decided to take off towards Gatlinburg, TN as soon as we got off work Friday. I couldn't get home fast enough! We left about 6 in the evening and wanted to take our time and explore along the way so we stayed over in Clayton, GA. My grandparents retired to Clayton from Florida sometime in the 70's, so I wanted to show my sweet hubby where my grandparents lived and some of the places us kids liked to go, plus this was a great opportunity for me to get pictures for my genealogy records.


Our first exploration early Sat. mourning revealed my grandparent's home had changed very little and the pond across the street from my grandparents house that has a gazebo right over the edge of the water is still there. As kids we would run over and feed the fish my grandmother's sugar free candies she would give us. The fish loved them!


We then rode up to Black Rock Mountain state park and watched the fog roll over the mountains, it was so beautiful. This was another location my grandfather would always take us when we would visit.





From there Robert and I rode up Hwy 441 into the Smokey Mountains and stopped along the road side and grabbed a few more pics at the Oconaluftee River, stopped for a little gold panning in Cherokee, NC, took a few shots of the Rockefeller Memorial where President Roosevelt dedicated the Great Smokey Mountains National park in 1940.




We rode into Gatlinburg about 1:00, found a room, and decided to walk to the Aquarium. We loved the Aquarium! I captured several nice shots there. My favorite was the sea dragon.




After the the Aquarium, we rode into Pigeon Forge and explored a little bit, came back to have dinner in town. We had a great meal at Lineberger's Seafood in Gatlinburg for our nice meal of the trip. We wandered around for a little while and decided to get some sleep, we were exhausted. We left about 10:30 the next morning and headed back down 441 south, and thought we would just have another long day of exploring on the way home.


We stopped at the Oconaluftee Visitor Center toured the farm site museum, left there and took a short walk down to Mingus Mill.





Our last adventure found us in Cherokee at Harrah's Casino. Neither of us had ever been in a casino and decided that we would check it out for fun. We each had a $20.oo spending limit and then we were quitting. Between the both of us, we lost $20.00, it was time to head home.


It took us only a few more hours to get home with another stop in Clayton. We tried to locate my grandmother's grave site but not planning this trip in advance I could not remember the name of the cemetery and after wandering through three cemeteries it was definitely time to get home. We got in just after dark and were wiped out but we had a blast. I can't wait to do that again, hopefully though, we won't have to wait another year to make it happen.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Snow Day in Georgia

Georgia had snow! I could not believe it, the weather man said it was coming but I just didn't think it would actually happen. I thought okay, if we do get any, it won't stick. Boy, was I fooled. It came....it stuck.... and it definitely caught me unprepared. We started off with flooding rain, moved into sleet/snow mix, to snow flakes the likes I've never seen. They were huge. I wandered around the property Saturday afternoon to capture a few shots of our stream behind the house that about flooded our backyard at one point. I also caught a decent picture of one of the cardinals that hang around our bird feeders.

Then... it came. It wasn't long before it started sticking. Time for more pictures...off I go wandering the property again to capture snow pictures. We had areas around the house that were 5 to 6 inches in snow. Definitely a rarity around here. I'm not missing this opportunity. I spent almost 3 hours walking around the place capturing everything white.

While I was out taking pictures...we lost electricity. Ugh...I didn't think we would lose power that quick, so I hadn't bottled any extra water, hadn't planned what we might eat with no power and no water in the tubs for toilet flushing. What a pain in the butt. Luckily, hubby had a generator on his truck from a job he had been on, so we were able to keep the fridge going and plug in the TV to catch the weather. We did plan ahead for no heat and managed to fill the kerosene jug for the heater. I had just made a pitcher of tea, so we wouldn't thirst to death for a little while. After a quick panic on the food situation I realized we did have milk, cereal and bread. We weren't going to starve. Okay we were good for the night except for the bathroom situation. Ah ha! Snow! I brought buckets of snow in and melted on the kerosene heater... toilets flushing... we're good now till morning.

We woke up and luckily my MIL had filled the coffee pot early in the afternoon yesterday for coffee this morning a quick unplug of the fridge and into the coffee pot. We have coffee ...Life is good. Time came for a hot meal, hubby and I wandered out to see if we could round something up in town, and as luck would have it Micky D's was open. On our way home, our son called to report we had power. 16 hours with no electricity. I don't want to repeat that again ever, ever, ever again. We got home, we had water, heat, and hot food. What a weekend?



Here are a few more pics of what I thought were worth sharing.








Thursday, February 19, 2009

Card Making Mood

I have had so much focus on my photography and photo restoration this past year to get my home buisness going that I haven't spent a lot of time on my scrapbooking or cardmaking. I have had to teach myself a lot with a new slr camera and photo restoration projects and still have a long way to go but decided to do something different for a change and make a few cards. I managed to make a couple of cards, two being for my dad and my MIL and one UN-Valentine card for a friend.
<<<< The Un-Valentine Card ;) for those friends that say they don't like Valentine's Day.
See there is a card for every occasion!

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Another weekend of Exploring

Last weekend, my MIL and I decided to look for another trail to explore. We had to make a trip to Monticello, Georgia, so we were looking for something close by to check out. Well...we thought that we might find a walking trail in the Oconee National Forest, Cedar Creek WMA, but wound up just riding down I think every dirt road in Oconee National Forest. We found several spots that we could have jumped on a trail but decided to just ride and see what we could get into. What we found.....



Several sites for mating and nesting of the Red - Cockaded Woodpeckers. We stopped several times and listened to their calls and only caught a glance at one next to a creek. I tried to catch a picture but I believe that little guy was a bit camera shy. He darted around the tree hanging in the shadows making it just about impossible to get a picture. I hope to go back soon and see more and maybe I will get a picture then. Until then, you can follow the link above and learn more about these woodpeckers. A very interesting read...they actually form family groups with one mating pair and the group members help raise the young.




We also found several very well maintained ponds with duck nesting boxes. We did see a few geese and a wood duck but they were just to far away to get any good shots of them. I didn't have a lot of luck in the nature photography department this trip at all.






Our mystery find was Lane Creek Cemetery in the middle of the National Forest. It is very overgrown and has not been maintained at all. I believe it to be a family graveyard. At first, I was a little creeped out when we walk up to this site finding a fire pit at it entrance, like someone had been camping out right there in the cemetery. Don't know what that's all about and not sure I want to know but you wouldn't catch me wanting to be in a cemetery long enough to have a fire there. Anyway...we walked around checking out names and dates on the headstones that were readable and found one that really just caught our interest. Pictured here is the headstone for Corp. Littleton Johnston. He was in the Revolutionary War. I found on ancestry that he died July 7, 1842. I have requested more information on Mr. Johnston from his family through Ancestry but have not received a response yet...so he is still a mystery but I thought I would include him in my blog today to remember him.

My Blog message for today... Explore what's close to you, you never know what mysteries you might find.

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Pictures along the way

Today, my mother in law, Laura and I decided to go check out the trails in the Hard Labor Creek State park close to home. It was a gorgeous day for a walk. We walked both the Beaver Pond Trail and the Brantley trail and captured a few pictures along the way. I thought today I would share our walk in pictures.

























Sunday, January 25, 2009

My Friend Keely

I have a friend, her name is Keely, she has lupus. She's 10 years old and was diagnosed in March of 2008. I have not known Keely that long but I have an attachment to her already. I helped her grandmother with a project for Christmas and Keely was there several days while we worked on things. The day we finished the project Keely had been working on her Christmas cards for family and friends and she made a point of giving me a card. She overheard her grandmother and I talking about the project being done and asked me if we were still going to be friends. I am guessing she thought because we were done with the project she wouldn't see me anymore. I told her she would see me again and that I would always be her friend. I went home, which is just up the road from her grandmothers, and picked one of my home made cards with a quilled snowflake I had made and carried back to her. I think that sealed our friendship.

Keely, the last few weeks, has really been sick with her lupus and been in the hospital with a really bad flare up that had prevented her from being able to eat. The doctors have tried her on many medications trying to find that one that would put her lupus in remission to no avail. This last flare up has caused the doctors to resort to chemotherapy and it may be several weeks before her doctors will know if this is going to help. She is doing better and did get to come home this week. I don't know a lot about lupus but am learning more every time I talk to her grandmother and mom. Her grandmother told me that this is a disease you don't hear a lot about like other diseases and I told her that I wanted to help people learn more about this terrible disease.

Keely's mom and grandmother are working on getting together a team to walk in the Walk for Lupus Now campaign to raise awareness and funding to help patients and families and national research efforts. I have joined their team, Keely's gang. If you would like to make a donation to help Keely and others with this terrible disease, please follow this link. https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=292575&lis=0&kntae292575=1C8FE988E81749E294773210792B2740 Event information from the Georgia Lupus Foundation of America's website: The Georgia Chapter’s Walk for Lupus Now is a 1.5 mile walk, beginning at the Meadow at the 10th Street entrance to Piedmont Park, opposite Grady High School.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Crafty Salutations: Mushrooms!

Crafty Salutations: Mushrooms!

In the meantime....Mushrooms





I am working on a few different post, believe it or not. In the meantime, while trying to finish those up Crafty Salutations inspired me to post a few of my mushroom pictures.