Some things were incredibly positive, others incredibly negative, and then there was everything in between that made it next to impossible for me to not only edit and Photoshop the work I’ve been doing every day, but made it even more unlikely that I would have time to post a new blog.

But today is my first empty day on my schedule in almost 2 weeks… and I’ve got a lot to catch up on before the next wave of work comes in this week.

First and foremost, the incredibly positive.

There’s a reason I took a picture of the calendar day, March 9th of 2009 (although technically I took that the day after). There’s a reason I posted a picture of the Belgian flag, the country I am a citizen of. And if I had one in the house, I would have taken a picture of the Lebanese flag as well (I was born in Lebanon but grew up in Belgium).

Here’s the Lebanese flag, cause hey, I’m proud of my origins.

Anyway, getting to the point. Here’s the reason I’ve been doing all this.

I got my green card on March 9th, 2009.

Did you see that? Did you see how I wrote that? I really thought that if I were ever going to write that sentence anywhere and share it with anyone, it would have been followed by about seven thousand exclamation points and that I would have been running around town, cheering loudly and swinging a t-shirt over my head like a drunken idiot!

But no, it feels right the way I wrote it. Quiet. Kind of subdued. Easy to miss in this ocean of words.

Because the road to my green card was long and often painful and unfair. I can’t tell you how much 9/11 complicated my life. I don’t mean that to diminish in any way the tragic importance of the day, just to point to the dramatic turn that it forced on my personal life, as I’m sure it did on the lives of many others, immigrants and Americans alike.

But after all the “fighting” to get to this point, a quiet, peaceful resolution, even in writing, feels more appropriate.

So no exclamation points. And no loud cheering or swinging a t-shirt over my head like a drunken idiot either.

The 9th was also why I scheduled so many shoots before and after. A couple of models cancelled on me, no surprise there, but I scheduled enough shoots to keep me so busy that I would stay focused on the work rather than worry about the outcome of the 9th.

At this point you might be wondering what the “incredibly negative” was. Well, it was more of a shock negative than a lasting negative.

The house was broken into. About $6,000 worth of stuff was stolen.

This happened not one week after I got the green card. Hmm. Coincidence? Intentional? Who knows. Probably just a coincidence. We came home late from being with friends all day, giving the burglars enough time to go through the house, take what they wanted and get out.

The reason it’s not so much of a lasting negative for me is that we’re covered, so we’ll probably get every cent of that $6,000 back, not to mention that the cops did catch a break by finding a fingerprint and we’ve given them serial numbers on almost all of the stolen items. It goes without saying that we’ve had a security system installed in the meantime.

The only stolen item which had no real monetary value and that I’m never going to be able to replace was my late father’s film camera. I had almost filled up a roll of new pictures with it and was planning on showing you all… Oh well… Maybe I’ll catch a break and get it back someday. Here it is from the very last time I took pictures of it:

But hey, life goes on, and the positives in the last couple of weeks far outweigh the one “big” negative.

So moving on, here’s a shoot I did on the 11th at the Salt Flats.

Day 59/365

Tyler and Katerina:

Day 60/365

Baby pictures for a friend of mine. This is Trinity:

Day 61/365

Fashion shoot. This is Hailey:

Day 62/365

Here’s what my oldest son, Gabe, does 90% of his time… Video games. It’s hard to pull him away from it but we try.

Day 63/365

Charcoal is the best way to barbecue. The last owners of the house left a gas grill. In the almost four years I’ve lived here, it’s been used it exactly zero times.

Day 64/365

Mason and Emma are just bouncing around, while Gabe wrestles on the trampoline with his best bud, Luke.

Day 65/365

Party at one of my best friend’s house.

I don’t want to completely overwhelm all of you, so I’ll post an more in the coming days.