Since I blogged? Wow. I have been so busy with work that I guess I've neglected to update much on here. I do keep up on a much more daily basis on my political blog Loud Majority.

We've reorganized our home office recently - actually moved it into another room which is quite brighter and nicer. I feel so much more alert and less claustrophobic now, but it has kind of left the house torn up and we've been trying to recover from that for the last week with reorganizing things. A lot of the stuff we discovered will end up on the yard sale we're planning to have this weekend. Also, our town is having a Centennial Celebration which we're planning to turn out in force to photograph. Hopefully, this will draw more traffic to our yard sale that morning.

Another thing that I've been trying to focus on more is my songwriting. I recently finished a song called "Dead Man Talkin" that I still need to mix a beat for and put some keys or guitars into it. Last Sunday, we were doing our worship time, and I started an impromptu freestyle rapping session. Everyone thought I should write the lyrics down, but I didn't remember most of them. Yesterday though, I went back and started to try and remember/rewrite the basics of them. I've gotten a pretty good start on that, so hopefully that will be become something. And, two weeks ago I wrote a song called "The Reason We Are Free". Hopefully one of these days I'll record a video for that and upload it for everyone to hear.

Here's some recent photography that I did that I thought turned out pretty special. Hope you enjoy! We also have a blog for Live View Studios that is linked at our website if you'd like to keep up on what we're doing, or look us up on Facebook.

So, today I saw a disheartening video where our liberal minded and double talking President stated before the country of Turkey - "We (America) do not consider ourselves a Christian nation .."



Excuse me, Barack? You might not want America to be a Christian nation, but we are, and as long as there are God fearing Christians around to keep it that way, we will fight tooth and nail to remain the way we were founded, under God.

I forwarded the video onto my Facebook wall, as well as Loud Majority and then tonight, got this email from someone on my political friends list on Facebook.

"Brent-God Bless you and your little dingbat wife- you make our Christian community look stupid more times then not"

Why, for being aware of what's going on? For being overly concerned that there is a President in office who not only has no respect for our constitution, but also has no respect for the moral and biblical foundations that our country was founded on? This was supposed to be someone from my 'conservative' leaning friends list. Ha!

My response: "So, we should not be upset that he said that? Just roll over and agree that America is not a Christian nation? You have real tact, I have to say. And I'm being completely sarcastic."

Call me crazy, and call my wife a dingbat - but I will remain concerned and vigilant, and I have the best wife in the world! :) Come and say that about her to my face ..

"The more the words, the less the meaning, and how does that profit anyone?" - Ecc 6:11

I've been dealing with a loss of voice for several weeks now. What started out a few weeks ago as the standard flu that was going around (with a lot of coughing) has now resulted in a loss of voice for me. Oh, I can still talk (sort of), but singing of any kind is out as I can't hold any kind of tune. This is pretty aggravating and really makes me realize how much I was using to just breaking into song whenever I want to. Since I have phone meetings that are work related fairly frequently, that's also been frustrating. Heck, I couldn't even order a pizza tonight without the girl on the other end asking if I could turn up the volume on my phone.

Well, since I can't talk well, I can at least still write well - so here's a few words.

So far our new business venture is going well. God keeps bringing in new work as we need it, and we're keeping the bills paid with some left over. Sometimes not knowing what's around the next corner can be unsettling, but remembering that God has never left his children go hungry is a good promise to keep remembering. Seeing His faithfulness always come through is totally sweet.

We did a photo shoot a few weeks ago for Jamie & Cobey (we're shooting their wedding in July). A couple of pictures are below. Also, you'll want to bookmark or add to your RSS feed our blog for Live View Studios. We'll post more photos there as we take pictures for clients over the spring and summer.





















































Anna's brother Jeremy goes out shooting with us on Live View Studios work, so a couple of these photos are his also. We all enjoy doing it together, so it makes for a good family enterprise. Hopefully it will continue to grow and take off and we can continue to integrate it as a major source of income for us.

It's been rainy for quite a while, and there was tornado warnings a few counties east of us, but we've just had several periods of solid, heavy rain. Thankfully, it has finally started to warm up for which I'm thankful. The winter this year was so cold compared to the mildness we usually see in NC. Now it's nice to see trees starting to bloom and flowers popping out everywhere. North Carolina is definitely beautiful in March when spring comes. :)

Angel of mercy
How did you find me?
Where did you read my story?
Pulled from the papers
Desperate and hardened
Seeking a momentary fix
-Mercy, One Republic

Last night we watched 22 Weeks, which arrived in the mail yesterday. It's a short, 30 minute long indie film based on a true story about a woman who goes to have an abortion done, and the baby is born still alive. Every person who believes in the sanctity of life should have a copy, and show it to your friends. The DVD is only $10 - and will help the producer get the movie out into some more theater releases. Pretty gripping, and very graphic.

One of my prayers for 2009 is that God will open up doors for me to reach out to my neighbors that live around me. We had some friends over for dinner last night, and in the middle someone rang our doorbell. There was a guy at the door who said he lived down the street in one of the not-so-good neighborhoods, and he had ridden his bike up to our house because he has no car. His wife is in the hospital at Chapel Hill with some type of cancer, and he said the doctors needed him to come sign some papers, but he had no money for gas to get someone to drive him up until someone paid him in the morning for some work he had done for them. He knew the people that lived in this house before we did (they were missionaries) and thought they would maybe help him out. He started talking about how, even though I was white and he was black, we were all children of God. He seemed sincere and not like someone just trying to get a couple bucks for booze, so I invited him inside. Apparently he grew up in the area, played basketball and football for the local high school, but had to drop out of school early because of hard times going on in his family, and so he never learned to read and write anything except his name. He said he does lawn work and car detailing to keep himself going, and told us some sad stories about how his brother had cheated him, someone robbed $200 from him the other night, and boys in the neighborhood he lives in have been trying to get after his little girl (he has 3 children). He talked a lot about the value of family, and told Anna and I that if we have parents that love us we need to hang onto that and cherish it.

He said he's been going to the 'white people's church' a couple blocks down, because they are the only ones who reach out to him. "Sometimes", he said, "I'd just like to have someone read the Bible to me."

So I invited him to come worship with us on Sundays. He has no car, but I told him he could come to our house and ride with us over to Anna's parents. I gave him a time, and he said he would come. I really hope he does. I feel like it was definitely someone that God sent to our door in need of help. This to me, is how the church, which is the people of God and not a building, should reach out into all the world.

John MaCarthur (www.gty.org) joins the ranks of the 'big pastors who want to kiss the feet of the new Messiah' - (not Jesus). Does his poster remind you of anything?

"At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. (Matthew 24:10-14)