Murraytalk

I touched on how music and my poems got me through my dark moments, but what was also a huge part of my growth was my connections with people that God had placed in my path. He always had me connected with faith believing people before I had a true belief in Him. I didn't become a believer in God until 1989. I hadn't been walking in faith, I was just making my life decisions in the flesh with hopes that they would work out as I planned. In most cases they did, but I knew and felt that I was still missing something. I spent a lot of years just going through the motions of life never really being thankful for each day. I just expected tomorrow to be waiting for me. But all of that changed when I started having a reoccurring dream to move to Phoenix, AZ. I shared my dream with my husband and he applied for a job in Phoenix; went on the interview, and that was that. He didn't get the job and we didn't put much thought into it...we just continued going through the motion...

As I was shopping for my little fourth of July gathering tomorrow I started thinking about my first year of celebrating the 4th in Phoenix. It was 1989 and we moved from Tucson to the big city. As silly as it seems it was a culture shock for me even though I was less than 200 miles away from my old stomping grounds. It was a whole new ball game in Phoenix - difficult meeting people, everyone rushing, few mom and pops businesses, not so friendly people, and lots of traffic. Anyway, we decided to take the kids to one of the big 4th celebrations at Wesley Bolin Plaza.  On our drive home they all needed the bathroom, so needless to say the argument was who would be first to the toilet. My daughter Melissa jumped out of the car as soon as we pulled in the driveway and begin ringing the doorbell - little did we know that signaled the robber inside that we had arrived. My husband opened the door and I noticed his shot gun in the entry way. I asked him why he left his gun laying...

Yup, it's Monday and for me it begins with Makenna - luckily I was asleep when she was dropped off this morning so she fell asleep. Usually she stays awake and is a ball of energy from the time she gets here until bedtime. I had a really good day yesterday catching up with my niece Diana from Tucson. I moved to Phoenix when she was young so it seems like funerals and facebook have really been our only connection. We're really not that far from each other, but we hate driving from Phoenix to Tucson and vice versa. But we're both going to work on all of the family getting together more often. I'm lucky if I see my sisters and brother a couple times a year - that needs to change. Speaking of family and facebook - if you're not my friend on facebook you don't know that 2 of my granddaughters made the cheer squad at their middle school - really proud of them. Also, one of my grandsons tried out for the basketball team at his school. He's in second grade and...

Taylor Swift song 'Ronan' for Phoenix boy an artistic high

Lately I've been so busy praying and thanking God for hearing and answering my prayers - I feel like I've lost sight of some of the struggles that my friends are going through. I have three friends that I met in 1989 when I came to Phoenix. Each of them are spiritual women that have been instrumental in my life. I'm extremely close to one so I know what's happening in her world - the other two, not so much. But within the past week I've had contact with each of them, and each of them have stuff that they're going through. I felt self - absorbed after my conversations with them - I believe that was Gods message to me. We're all going through something, we all have stuff we need to deal with and get through, and we all need someone praying for us. I had a recent conversation with my friend that is going through some drug issues with her son about prayer. We talked about how exhausted and beaten up you feel when you're dealing with an addict and all y...

This image reminded me of a conversation I had this weekend with my husband. We seem to always have invites to go on vacations to places we haven't been, but we always have a handful of reasons why we can't go. Although we did take advantage of our San Francisco invite a year ago - happy that we did, loved it!  It's now my new favorite place on my list of places to live since my plan is to get out of Phoenix in the near future. So after this past weekend I told Tom we're going to take advantage of our invitations to travel - we need to get out and live life before we can't get up to get out. I guess you really don't realize how quickly the years go by until you experience a loss.                                                                                   I hope everyon...

Today is National Flip a Coin Day & National Go Barefoot Day... obviously the people that decided National Barefoot Day would be in June don't live in Phoenix, AZ. I suggest honoring the freedom of bare feet indoors. As for Flip a Coin Day - I'm always up for a decision based on heads or tails versus rock, paper, scissors. How about you?

It was a Huge Success! Last night after months of planning and at times very little sleep we unveiled all of our hard work.... The Shutter Release gave everything promised. We announced and presented our 1st winner of our $1000 grand prize , 19 year old Jearvin Bosi . He shoots 35mm and develops his own photos in his dark room. It seemed that Jearvin was predestined to win. I was walking the streets of downtown Phoenix on First Friday handing out fliers - working on recruiting photographers when I walked in a tiny coffee house and pinned my flyer on their board. Something led me to turn around, and as I did I saw Jearvin reading the flyer. I walked back asking him if he was a photographer. "Yes", he replied, and the rest is history. His work is truly amazing and I can't wait to see what's to come. Congratulations Jearvin! We had amazing photographers with beautiful and creative images which made it difficult for the judges to make a decision.       ...

I know you're probably sick of me talking, posting and making videos about The Shutter Release Project. www.theshutterrelease.com  But, I have a bit of OCD when it comes to projects that I'm involved in - I'm going to share some more. One of our judges is Patrick Darby from Tonic Photo Studios -10,000 sqft production boutique commercial photography studio in Phoenix Arizona, It's a division of R and R Images. http://tonicphotos.com/ My husband Tom works with Patrick, when he shared with him that The Shutter Release Project is to showcase photographers of all levels, he agreed to take part in it, and we're honored to have him. Patrick has 14 years experience as a commercial photographer. 8 years experience in management and new business development in the industry. He specializes in food, product and architecture photography. You can find Tonic Photo Studios on facebook ... take a look at Patrick's work. https://www.facebook.com/TonicPhotos

I'm torn on what I want to talk about this morning since I have a few things on my mind. But what I'm thinking about at this moment is my son moving back to Phoenix over the weekend. If you have read some of my previous blogs you know that my son's biological mother did drugs during her pregnancy and my son was born drug addicted. It has been a roller coaster ride for all involved for many years now. On January 1st he moved to Tucson so I thought maybe he had finally hit rock bottom, had an epiphany, or maybe he had just had enough. All that mattered was that he had removed himself from a toxic environment and was going to change. Although his initial intention may have been to get it all together, something changed. Unfortunately, that means it has changed for each of us. The lies, items getting stolen from the house, mood swings, no job or motivation to get one, and broken promise after broken promise. Every drug addict or alcoholic that I know all have the same stori...