a little catching up...

It's been a while since my last post and life has been a little crazy! Kyla had a cold, Avery's eczema has been pretty horrible, I took Avery to 3 doctors in 5 hours, we've been doing End-of-Grade tests at school, I painted a bathroom, we rearranged the house, I balanced our finances, I planted some flowers, I dug up some dirt and laid down some brick pavers in the backyard for our grill, I finished my tutoring for the school year, we hosted a Memorial Day cookout, and we hosted our good friends Peter and Veronique Guy along with their three boys from Simi Valley for a few days! Whew, I get tired just thinking about all we've done in the past 8 days.

I'll try to expand a little on the important stuff above. Kyla's doing fine now, Avery has been very irritable and fussy as her eczema has gotten pretty bad again. I took her to the pediatrician yesterday after work to have some blood tests done for possible issues with her thyroid and other allergy-type things. She did fine except for the blood-drawing part. When we got home, I realized that she wasn't putting any weight on her right foot and she screamed every time I put her down on her feet. I thought she was just being ultra-clingy and that she didn't want to be put down so I was rather irritated with her. Then I realized that her foot was hurt and I thought it might even been broken or sprained! I took back out and went to the first urgent care who told me that their x-ray tech had gone home. The next urgent care was VERY crowded and we didn't get out of there until almost 9:00. Her foot wasn't broken and she was jumping around this morning like nothing ever happened...gotta love kids!

The good news is that our good friends Peter and Veronique visited us all the way from Simi Valley! They were visiting her mom in Atlanta and made the trip up Sunday night to stay with us through Wednesday morning. I was able to take Tuesday off for a 4-day weekend to hang out with them. It was so refreshing to catch up with them and spend time with them. They were always so helpful to us when we lived in LA and helped make us feel like we were with family even though we were 3000 miles from our families! We hit the pool, the park, went out to eat, and cooked out with Megan and Patrick on Memorial Day. I'll write more hopefully this weekend. I gotta get some sleep. Avery kept us up quite a bit last night and I have Field Day with 500 6th graders in the morning!!! Six more school days left!!!

rainbow...

Last night, around 30 minutes after we had put Kyla down for bed, we heard her feet hit the floor above us as she tore out of her bedroom and into the hall. We both jumped, knowing for sure that she was showing some kind of disobedience by getting out of bed and also because she tends to wake Avery up when she makes that much noise. At any rate, when she hit the top of the stairs, we could hear the sheer excitement in her voice. She shouted with glee that she looked out of her window and there was a rainbow!!

I ran upstairs to check it out because I had just stepped out of our front door to see if I could find one because we had some very crazy storms blow through and the sun was coming back out in time for sunset. I pulled up the blinds in Kyla's room which faces the back of our house and revealed this beautiful, full rainbow. It has been quite some time since I've seen a rainbow, and I can't remember ever seeing one so complete. It was even a double rainbow for a while.

So when Sarah reached Kyla's room, I grabbed my camera and headed outside. I learned something important. Shooting rainbows is difficult! Especially, when you're standing in the rain trying to keep your camera dry. So hats off to all the good rainbow photogs! Here are two of the shots I got.

bricks and noses...

We all learned a valuable lesson Saturday evening...bricks and noses don't mix. To all the kids reading this at home, don't forget this lesson and you'll go far in life.

We went to an outdoor concert Saturday evening with Megan, Patrick, Stacey, and Matt and our six kids. Avery loves steps and refuses to get help going up and down. Unfortunately, she lost her balance and took a nose dive! She's fine now, but she was pretty pitiful that evening especially with the puffy upper lip! Below is a bonus picture of Kyla for equality!

Walden...

While perusing the shelves of the school library where I work a few weeks ago, I came across Walden by Henry David Thoreau. I was surprised to find such a book in the midst of books on spiders, airplanes, spooky stories, Harry Potter, and various coming-of-age books typically found in a middle school library.

I remembered having to read some of Walden when I was in high school and I can even picture the pages of Emerson and Thoreau’s writings from our textbook. Don’t ask me why I can picture those when I never really read anything I was supposed to read in high school, but for some reason those stand out to me.

Intrigued, I picked it up and checked it out recalling how challenging of a read it was 11 years ago, but hopeful that I’ve become a little better of a reader since then. So here I sit several weeks later and only on page 35! This is indeed an arduous read, but man is it fascinating! I am amazed at how much I think like Thoreau, although he is much more extreme than me.

If you’re not familiar with Walden (and if you are familiar, please excuse my poor synopsis), the gist of it is that he spent two years in a 10x15 house he built himself for $28 worth of materials in 1845. He spent that time reflecting on life, society, and other topics that I’ve yet to discover since I’m only in the first chapter. He was, in every sense of the word, a minimalist and enjoyed challenging trends of his day.

So far, the most challenging thought I’ve hit is thinking through what really is a necessity? Going way back in history, fire was not a necessity until it was discovered. Then, once fire was discovered, pots and pans became a necessity. Today, we need sponges, dish soap, a drying rack, dish towels, and arguably a dishwasher! Then there is clothing. The purpose of clothing is pretty much to keep us warm, to protect our bodies, and to keep ourselves modest. But look how quickly and deeply we get obsessed with what we have to wear – endless racks and drawers full of clothes that quickly don’t fit or go out of style. Then we need to run out and buy new clothes. How many shirts have I thrown out simply because I spilled coffee or ketchup on them?

The thing that has me thinking the most through this is our society’s housing trends (and I’m not talking sub prime mortgages here). In light of this way of thinking, homelessness, especially in this country, is a severe travesty! Our standards for quality housing have risen so high, that we literally throw people in jail for sleeping on a bench in the park. Now, I know you think I’m crazy here, and I certainly agree that the problems of homelessness protrude past my thinking here, but humor me for a second.

Take for instance, a family whose father loses a job and then the family’s house. They are forced out on the street with no place to go because they cannot afford to pay for quality housing. If they have family nearby, then good for them. If not, imagine the desperation and despair that would overcome them. The most dramatic picture that I have in my head is in the movie “The Pursuit of Happiness” where Will Smith’s character is forced to sleep in a subway bathroom with his son after being evicted. That scene literally made me sick to my stomach!

Now, in days past, that newly homeless family could possibly relocate to an unclaimed spot, cut down some trees, build a humble shelter, and eek out a living until something else came along for the father to do. But today, that shelter would be condemned and the family kicked off of the land because someone else probably owns it and wouldn’t want a bunch of freeloaders building an ugly shack on his/her land.

I look out at our neighborhood’s common area across the street from our house. There is a beautiful pool, clubhouse, and manicured field 15 feet out of my front door. How would I feel if I woke up in the morning to see a tent or two pitched in the field with someone cooking breakfast on a campfire? I would probably be outraged and begin to worry that my property value would decrease! I’m sure the cops would be called and the squatters kicked out immediately! But wouldn’t I rather someone use that open space to live in a safe place than on the street or under a bridge somewhere? Obviously this is a wild example, but I thought I’d share the thoughts bouncing through my mind as I read this book.

I’ll leave you with this quote:

“The very simplicity and nakedness of man’s life in the primitive ages imply this advantage at least, that they left him still but a sojourner in nature. When he was refreshed with food and sleep he contemplated his journey again. He dwelt, as it were, in a tent in this world, and was either threading the valleys, or crossing the plains, or climbing the mountain tops. But lo! Men have become the tools of their tools. The man who independently plucked the fruits when he was hungry is become a farmer and he who stood under a tree for shelter, a housekeeper.”

more pictures...

Here are a few more pictures from Saturday's wedding...

more wedding pictures

I got through a few more of the pictures from Saturday's wedding...

wedding pictures...

Sarah and I shot a wedding here in Charlotte on Saturday night. It was a beautiful wedding outside on a gorgeous night. Here are three pictures from the night. As I finish editing them, I'll post a few more up here.

my most dangerous post yet...

I am glad gas prices are rising.

Don't get me wrong, I don't like having to pay more money out of my pocket. I don't like the fact that my available income is getting eaten away at the pump. But I am not upset about rising fuel costs.

Now that you think I'm totally nuts, let me explain why...and I have to preface the rest of this post by saying that these are some preliminary thoughts that I'm just trying to get straight in my head.

I've been reading about how the U.S. has some of the cheapest fuel costs in the world. Most of Europe pays anywhere from $4-$7 a gallon. The rest of the world (except for some oil-rich countries that only pay $.14-$.90/gallon) is not far from that. Now again, why should we care what the rest of the world pays? We shouldn't have to pay that much, you might say.

Well, let's look at what cheap fuel has done for our country. It has pushed our city limits sprawling further and further to where the average commute time is somewhere around 30 minutes a day. That's about 52 hours a year if my math is right! The urban sprawl has led to a huge decline in public transportation/walking/bike riding which has led to sickening and deadly levels of air pollution, obesity, and arguably a decrease in sense of community.

Urban sprawl has also led to the boringization of America. Everywhere you go, all you see is Target, McDonald's, Michael's, Wal-Mart, Barnes and Noble, Costco, Wendy's, Target, Super Wal-Mart, McDonald's, and so on. Every shopping center looks the same in the suburbs. It's hard to find an independent store or restaurant in the midst of the corporate giants.

Another result of cheap fuel is that we as a society have not truly been seeking an alternative to oil. Sure, there are people doing real research on these things, but where is the motivation to ween ourselves off of a dirty, non-renewable resource when it's so cheap? Maybe if we have to pay five bucks for a gallon of gas and $8 for a gallon of milk, the powers that be will start to really pick up on the research. I mean, we have some stinking-smart people around here. Shouldn't we have an affordable electric, solar, wind-powered, or some other alternative fuel-driven car by now? And maybe if we have to pay $5/gallon of gas, more people will start riding the bus, train, or subway.

Who knows, if fuel gets so expensive that we start using alternative fuels, we might loosen the grip that foreign countries have on us and we might find ourselves in less wars and we might not have to worry so much about terrorism because we won't be shelling out bajillions of dollars each year to several countries that support terrorists.

I realize that these changes will not come overnight and I understand that there are some dire consequences to a sharp spike in fuel costs, i.e. recession, more foreclosures and bankruptcies and people closing businesses and losing jobs. I am definitely not a propionate of those things! I do think, however, that we as a country (myself included) need a little wake-up call in regard to our use of energy, where we're going, and what we can do to make some changes. I'll also close this post humbly by reminding myself that I am typing on my coal-fire-run computer sitting in the office of my comfy house in the suburbs.

getting back in the game...

After not having done much with photography for the past few months, I'm finally beginning to get back into it. The last wedding I shot was for our friends David and Noel in Los Angeles over Thanksgiving. I'm not really sure why I hadn't been advertising at all, possibly because of busyness of life and possibly because for a while we thought we might be moving overseas this summer.

At any rate, Sarah and I are shooting a wedding here in Charlotte next weekend, one I've had booked since last fall. Sarah has been my assistant for the last two weddings I shot which was quite nice. I shot my first several weddings on my own and after having help, I don't think I'll go it alone ever again! Sarah is a huge help, especially making sure I catch all the details. She also enjoys getting groups of people together at the reception for shots, which is not my favorite part. Her eye is getting really good and she's grabbed some great shots! The best part is that I don't have to pay her! :)

I posted an ad on Craigslist early last week and I booked another wedding for October! My hope is that I can get at least one photography job per month. I'll let you know how it goes! On another note, I had to cancel my website (www.peterdavisphotography.com) a few months ago because it was getting too expensive. It was nice while it lasted, but I just wasn't using it to its fullest potential. In the meantime, I've posted some pictures on my Flickr page and I'll be posting more as time goes on.

line of the day...

After the final bell at the middle school where I teach, students either head straight to the bus lot or to the front of the school to be picked up by a parent. By about 7 minutes after the bell, the school is pretty empty. But sometimes students linger about and they have to be paged to "report to the car rider line" so they can be picked up in the front.

Well, we have student with a famous name and he seems to always be a lingerer because they have to call his name several times a week. And every time they call his name, I can't help but stop and smile because I hear, "Jeff Gordon, please report to the car rider line."