The signs in the tire store window shout “Brakes, Shocks, and Wheel Alignment.”  That describes my week, I think to myself as I take the picture.  I’d been trying to realign my attitude for several days.  

After I was unsuccessful uploading photos from the Web into my blog on Tuesday, I realized I can start my photo library. That insight starts my attitude alignment.

On Thursday, I wear a watch that’s still on Daylight Savings Time, but don’t notice this until I’m downtown to meet a friend for lunch.  This gives me an entire hour to walk around Pasadena and begin my photographic adventure. I walk along a tree-lined street, looking for blog photos.  One jumps in front of me after just a few steps: “Wrong Way, Do Not Enter.”  I take a picture of the sign and keep going.  Then I hear the tire store window calling, “Brakes, Shocks, Wheel Alignment.”  In the process of taking pictures, my attitude starts getting realigned. 

After the tire store I see a new, forest green wrought iron bench shaded by huge trees.  Who could ask for a more peaceful image?  As I frame the picture, I notice that the red curb needs paint and there’s a fluid stain under the bench.  I hope the stain is from someone’s coffee, but who knows?  Some days are like a beautiful bench with a urine stain under it.  Other days, it’s just coffee.  Click, goes the camera again.

I begin to see humor in the day.  I take pictures of potted plants, a stone eagle perched regally on top of a wall, bizarre birds of paradise in bloom.  As I wait for my friend, I brainstorm other pictures and my mood lightens so much that when he forgets our lunch, I have a margarita and lobster/spinach/eggplant quesadilla on my own. 

As I return home my attitude creaks into even better alignment.  Since the backyard is fragrant with roses, I take close-ups of their blooms.  I photograph our lime tree that’s so laden with fruit a friend propped up its branches with thick poles this week.  I’ve watched that tree grow slowly for 12 years and never seen such abundance on it.  Thank you, God, for the bounty that comes after steady care. Click.

Then I turn to a Christmas cactus on the patio and takes its picture.  It was so dry and shriveled just five months ago that it looked like wasted use of a good pot.  Just before I threw it away, a wiser gardener than I told me it just needed a different kind of light to thrive again.  Now the old stems are firm, vivid green with fuchsia colored blossoms in time for Thanksgiving.  God brought life where it seemed hard to find.  Maybe the same is happening for me. 

Looking through the photos I’ve taken along the street and in my backyard, I’m grateful.  As I pause over the photo of the Christmas cactus blooming, I hear the words of a hymn echo in my mind:  “Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were a present far too small; Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all” (When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, Isaac Watts).

Note to readers:  I exhausted myself in my exuberance and still need to download camera software.  Therefore, my Friday post is being published on Saturday, and without photos. Stay tuned. Remember, it took time for the limes to ripen and the flowers to bloom.  So, too, for my blog to develop.