Birds of Flight

Coming home from church today, I was traveling down Aviation Parkway back toward the condo when I came across this egret (who often seems to be standing alone along the western portion of Lake Crabtree) and decided that today was the day to stop and take his picture. I pulled off the side of the road, took one picture and remembered the camera was still in manual mode from last night, and so I missed the first shot. It does annoy me so when I fail to check myself before shooting...

As I took a couple more, I noticed a plane coming into RDU and realized that the two aspects of this piece of the world that often struck me -- that egret and the planes coming into and going out of RDU -- and readjusted to capture both. It was the perfect capture of the battle between natural and modern aviation... and made me glad that I stopped.

Today was cleaning day -- Drew's once annual bedroom project to bring chaos and the thousand started projects and then dropped, deposited or disapparated into his room only to be discovered one day in the future as one worthy of rejoinder or wondering what he was thinking about when he started that one... and was beginning to fill his room. But tonight he is sleeping in his bed, with his clothes filling his drawers. There are no shards of Coke cans in the floor and an amazing dirth of paper clips or scotch tape on the carpet. It makes a daddy happy.

MK and I got some good time to ourselves today as well -- on the drives to and from youth group, and sitting and working on a school project or discussing the latest drama while Drew was delaying his bedroom work. It is amazing how their observations, their dispositions, and their absolute spirit makes me feel so at home whenever I get to partake in their wonderment. It does a mind, and a heart, and a body good. Much better than milk, if you ask me.

I did return to Centerfest to buy the Pilot Mountain photograph I liked and got everything hung on the walls of my stairwell. Being at the festival for just a few minutes today really has made me realize that I need to budget $100 a month toward printing and framing a couple photographs just to hang on the wall. I think that would really give me a better perspective on my art -- away from the pixels and the screen and into printed form where I could better understand its place against the works I enjoyed today and yesterday.

And I agree that a photomosaic project may be my next "thing" to plan for. I just have to think of how I will do it.