Fire!!

It still blows my mind 10 months later...

After 5 years in rural South Carolina, where we rarely saw our neighbors and our peace & quiet was interrupted only by the loons and tree frogs, it is amazing to me that we are now living in a city as populated as NYC.

If I didnt encounter poverty, pollution and prostitution on a daily basis here, it would be easy from pictures to believe we were living in the center of a posh, clean, modern, metropolitan city.

Dont be fooled.

The beautiful sunrises and sunsets are however, lovely bookends to my day!  There is a narrow window between 2:00am and 6:30am when the work crew on the construction project beside us goes home before the morning replacements come in.  If you can catch a cup of coffee and a few moments with the Lord before the jack-hammer starts pounding and the crane starts hauling bricks up over your head, you can almost find silence and solitude for a brief time!

Such a difference from our slow, fall, foggy mornings on the lake in Columbia!

There was a dramatic apartment fire a few nights ago.  

(The 3rd!! apartment fire we've seen in recent months - eek!!)

It was almost pitch black outside, but we could see billowing smoke rising from our balcony.  I bumped up the ISO on my camera and set a slow shutter speed to capture what we couldnt see with the naked eye.  A fun little experiment and I loved the sparkly skyline results.  

(Ok Jenny Jackson....Im ready to try and get your panorama next:)