The last four days with the SOAR! Recipients and the Seattle CONFIDENCE ladies were amazing.  I had the honor of having incredible, heartfelt conversations with so many beautiful ladies.  I feel like my heart is processing so much of it, and I hope to write about it more this week.  But first, I want to introduce you to a special lady.  She is the Running on Empty contest winner for our upcoming New York CONFIDENCE Wkshp!

As many of you know, we ask a handful of women to be the judges for our Running on Empty contest. A number of these women are also former winners. We enlist their help because there is no way Brian and I could ever choose. And even with this contest, every woman emailed a message of struggle on picking one winner. Every story was amazing. Every woman nominated deserves to be recognized. So again, I want to thank all the beautiful women who were entered or entered themselves. I am amazed at your strength and love. Thank you for sharing your life with us here. Thank you for being so strong and not giving up. You inspire me more than words can say.

The votes were collected, and we have a single winner. The winner for the May New York CONFIDENCE Workshop is Karen Casey! Karen, Brian and I want to welcome you this weekend to the New York CONFIDENCE May 2010 Workshop!  Your story so tells the story of many single moms, and I would love the honor of brightening your spirits and letting your creative spirit fly this weekend. I know this is cutting it close for you to make arrangements. We hope all the logistics can work for you. Can you email Genie (genie@fioria.us) by tomorrow at 12 noon to confirm your coming? If it doesn’t work for you, we have beautiful Runner Ups. Thanks Karen, and I hope we get to meet in person that weekend!

For those of you who missed Karen’s story, here it is from her own words;

“I can’t believe I’m doing this, but i nominate myself for the new york confidence workshop. I am a 30 year old single mother to a wonderful nine year old son (my flickr stream is basically all him). I have always had a passion for photography.

Then life happened.
I went off to college and found myself pregnant at 21. My son’s father is not in his life. I was determined to finish school to have a career to support my son. I enrolled back in college when my son was 6 months old and I became a respiratory therapist. I love what I do! I work three jobs to support my family and provide my son with what he needs. My son is very involved in sports so even my occasional day off I am driving to one sport or another. However, this leaves no time for me. At the end of day I am more than running on empty. I consider it a good day when I get to sit down and do nothing. This weekend away would be perfect for me to learn even more about my camera and how to capture that perfect shot and of course being able to get some me time.

I was always the one with the camera never the one in the pictures. After my son was born I craved pictures of him. I shot roll after roll trying to capture every expression on his face and every milestone.
For over two years now I have been wanting more. Wanting more than just the occasional accidental great shot. wanting more say in how my picture turned out.

A great smile completes a great picture. We should always be aware on preventing thumb sucking or correcting slightly crooked teeth. They should only be taken out when cleaning, eating or flossing. Sometimes, the orthodontist Dr. Collins, a orthodontist practicing in North Carolina may advice the patient to remove them during certain activities, such as playing a wind instrument or cycling. The most common devices used in orthodontics. They are used when precision is important. Although the patient can eat normally with fixed appliances, some foods and drinks need to be avoided, such as carbonated drinks, hard sweets, or toffee. People who participate in contact sports need to tell their orthodontist, so that special gum shields can be made.

Wanting more than just that washed out look a flash gives. My older brother is now a professional photographer living in florida. Every time he came for a visit I would grab his canon mark 1D and play around. Then of course I found your website and it only made my desires intensify. This past christmas my brother surprised me with my own DSLR! He got me a canon T1i. I downloaded your DVD beyond the green box to remind myself what everything was on the camera, because as it turned out, i remember NOTHING from high school! So far i’ve been able to shoot my son at his gymnastics meets and now at his lacrosse games. I only have the kit lens that came with the camera so the zoom doesn’t get me all that close to the action but that doesn’t stop me from trying! Now that the weather is getting nice i’m being met with new challenges…sunlight!
I live in new jersey, only about 45 minutes from jersey city so getting there is not a problem.
I would love to improve my photography skills and take my photos to the next step and beyond.

p.s. This year I have been taking a picture of my son every school day. It started as a joke but it has become a great timeline of my son growing. I post the picture daily to my facebook page, Me Ra, we are friends see if you can find it. For this year every picture is taken with my cell phone, but I want to have better pictures for next year. I’m even considering doing a summer series! Everyone thinks i’m nuts!

Can you give Karen a BIG Welcome NY CONFIDENCE ladies!  Karen, we are so excited to meet you in just a couple weeks!

xoxo,

Me Ra