Blah

I've got a blogging block. I can't think of anything to write about. I feel like I want to write, but nothing sounds good or interesting. Everything just sounds "blah". Even this picture is blah. I don't dislike it, but it just doesn't grab me, I don't just love it like I have some of my other pictures. I noticed it on Thursday when I was at St. Luke's. The side entrance into the garden patio area is lined with this ivy and this one hibiscus plant with it's one yellow flower. Everyday for the past week we've been having what the weather man called "micro-bursts" in the afternoon at varying locations around town - meaning it dumps anywhere from 1 to three inches in a matter of minutes, blows everythring around like a tornado and drops the temperature a good 20 degrees. They're kinda fun. But they only happen in isolated areas, and that seems to vary from day-to-day. Well, that day it was my third day in a row to experience one. The first day was Tuesday when I was down in Clear Lake, then again on Wednesday when I was up in the Woodlands (a good 60 miles apart) and then again on Thursday when I was in the center of town at St. Lukes. I think these things are following me. So anyway, there I was on Thursday after a micro-burst noticing this hibiscus and feeling like I "should" take a picture of it, so I did. And so here it is on my blog. And my intuition is telling me that you feel the same - "It's okay, it's not great...I mean, it is a pretty flower, but it seems to just be missing something...I'm not sure what...but, yeah, Derek, you're right. It is just sort of blah. Oh well. Better luck next time. I mean, the next one better be better or I'm going to quit reading your blog. So you better start finding something inspiring!" Yeah, I hear you. Perhaps something will jump out at me today.

Wow! Just as I typed that last sentance above, I heard a cardinal singing right outside my window. I jumped up, grabbed the camera, and cracked open the door. He was sitting RIGHT THERE in the tree, looking at me! As soon as I raised the camera he flew off to that other tree (to the right in the picture below) and sang a little more. For the two seconds he was in my tree he looked striking! - his bright read feathers against the yellow-green of the sickly magnolia tree ;-) So I guess while I was whining about not feeling inspired, God put that cardinal right there in the tree - and for a moment I felt inspired :-)

And what you can't see too well in the picture below is the family of 7 0r eight dragonflies that are flying around my tree and my part of the courtyard. Perhaps if you click on the picture and blow it up to full size you can just make them out between the railings to the right of the tree. Which reminds me, I've noticed at my office at work in Clear Lake, that birds keep coming and landing on one or more of the several windowsills that I have. And it seems to me that they are not landing in anyone else's. Hmmm. Is it God? Alfred Hitchcock?