This time of year, I have no need for an alarm clock. The birds awaken as the sky begins to light and there is no sleeping through their cacophonous greeting of the day. It is odd that in a world where most city dwellers are awakened by traffic noises, I am awakened by birds!

On a warm February afternoon, while much of the northeast was digging out from a major snowstorm, the family and I went to visit one of our favorite local parks — Oakland Cemetery.

I tend to tuck things a way. I was reorganizing some books and came across a photo album from long ago and far away. Glancing through the pages, I found my self reliving events that had fallen far away from my active memory.

As I was “stumbling” through my weekly Stumble-on suggestions, I hit upon this photoblog from the Denver Post. Entitled Captured: The Ruins of Detroit.

I have had a love affair with pattern for as long as I can remember.  Perhaps that is why one of my favorite tasks is being asked to help select the tile for a client’s project.

Every Wednesday during the school year, I pick my older son up from a school built in the mid-1920s. It is a wonderful old multistory brick building, complete with lots of cast stone trim, tall multi-paned windows,  tiled-wall halls, and a great plastered proscenium arch and balcony in the auditorium.