My husband and I have decided to visit every statue in (and around) Washington, DC. Right now my list consists of 121 statues in Washington, DC – that’s a lot. We work in DC and drive by these awesome monuments every day without a second thought. We stumbled on one the other day and I thought who is this guy? Why’d he get a statue? What’s his history? And then Statue Quest was born!
The first stop on our quest was to Theodore Roosevelt Island. It’s right across from the Georgetown Waterfront off of the GW Parkway on the Virginia side. First of all, I didn’t even know that this little island existed! I feel like I just wasn’t in the know until now.
This former overgrown farmland has been turned into a forest memorial to conservationist and outdoorsman President Theodore Roosevelt. There are trails to walk and in the middle is this gorgeous monument to our 26th president of the United States.
There were four large stone walls with quotes from Roosevelt about manhood, nature, youth and the state. Oh and the statue of Roosevelt is HUGE!
That’s my husband trying to give the President a high five. He’s just a few feet short.
And I seem incredibly small in comparison. I think I’m going to like this challenge to finding all the statues in DC. And the added bonus is I might learn a few new things along the way. For more information on Roosevelt Island please go to the Parks Department for information.
Posts from the “Green” Category
I’ve been blogging now for five years – FIVE YEARS. I can’t believe it but I’ve gone from the Art of Accessories to I AM DWJ and have had a million adventures and experiences in that five year period. It has been great. It started as a class project and a way to share my love of makeup and accessories, things I’ve always been obsessed about. As I’ve gotten older I’ve fallen in love with even more things and have found ways to explore my creativity and find what I really love to do in life. The biggest thing I’ve learned about myself is that I thrive off of creating things.
I read this post the other week about finding out what you want to do in life, what brings you joy. I’ve always been jealous of the fact that my husband loves being an engineer – he LOVES his work. Even when he is frustrated and tired, I still have to say ‘let’s go home, it’s quitting time,’ knowing he’s fully ready to get up and do it all over again the next day. He designs building structures and loves seeing the finished product – I realize I love knitting. Odd but true.
For my day job I work in websites for an association in DC. I like seeing the finished product, I enjoy figuring out a bit of code that was tricky or helping to create a new development tool for our site but if I didn’t have this job tomorrow I honestly wouldn’t miss it. I have always been able to move on to the next project or job with ease and use that experience to help me move forward. Don’t get me wrong, I like my job but I don’t LOVE work the way my husband does. What I do love is having a set of knitting needles in my hands on a daily basis. Since I learned to knit two years ago (something I wanted to learn for ages but was too intimidated to learn) I haven’t stopped knitting. I have bins with yarns, full sets of needles and a running list of patterns, projects and ideas I want to create. I knit in the car in the morning or on lunch breaks at work. It brings me joy to finish a blanket for a baby, a hat for a friend, a scarf for a sister – it calms me after a long and crazy day in the office. My hands seem to crave the clicking of the needles and at first I thought it was weird but I’ve slowly started to realize it’s what I love to do.
I don’t know if I will ever fully be able to turn this knitting “thing” into a full time or even part time job but I definitely know this isn’t a phase and it’s definitely something that feeds my creative soul. I’ve got an Etsy shop up (I was having issues with my in-blog shop). I hope to share my love of baby blankets, hats, scarves and accessories beyond my little inner circle.
I still love makeup and accessories and will share that as well but my knitting adventures will be on this blog more and more as I expand more in the store. So thanks for being supportive and thanks for reading!
If you’ve been reading this blog for a long time or you know me in real life you are quite aware that I’m very colorful. I pride myself on the fact that sometimes in a sea of grey and black coats I’m the one wearing hot pink, or apple green, or orange. My collection of tights is like a rainbow. My home is full of color and the artwork that I love is also colorful.
Yesterday we went to a celebration with friends in the afternoon and everyone kept commenting on how colorful I was. I had on a colorblocked dress with shades of pink, dark orange and purple, pink tights and a bright pink coat. That was just my normal work attire, nothing special but sometimes I forget that my normal isn’t everyone else’s standard of normal – and I’m totally okay with that.
This morning in the car with my husband we were discussing colors. He has mid range colorblindness, he knows colors but has difficulty deciphering them when they’re close together or too similar in tone. He saw something as black and I told him it was navy blue. His response to me, “the world you see must be really vivid, huh?” I laughed, realized it really is a vivid world I see and had to smile. I hope I always see the world in bright vivid color, it makes it so much happier to me that way.
Um…this doesn’t feel like spring to me right now. How has it gotten colder in March than I feel like it was in February?! There was snow in the morning on the first day of spring. It might’ve just been flurries but I wasn’t happy. My solution? Dress bright and cheery anywhere. Today I decided to rock a green pattern shift dress with a green cardigan and my favorite green ballet flats. Some women wear red to feel bold, I wear green!
Another green thing I love, brussel sprouts! And yesterday at lunch I had fried ones with a horseradish sauce. Soooo good. So bad since they were fried but still super yummy. I really need to spring to have sprung already, I’m in need of much warmer temperatures and lighter layers. Hopefully that weather is just around the corner. Have a great Friday!
I am enjoying 2013. In 2012 my goal was to stop being so overloaded with obligations and running around every day and to actually do things that I wanted to do, that I’d enjoy doing and doing things with the people that I love. 2012 was great. I spent a ton of time with my wonderful godsons, family and close friends. I had weekends were my husband and I could just leisurely hang out and do nothing in our pajamas all day because that’s what we wanted to do. I felt much more rested and happy. That’s also how I started to knit a lot, it is incredibly soothing and relaxing for me when work can be so hectic. I’ve been keeping this lifestyle change up in 2013 and I’ve continued to knit. You saw everything I made for the holidays and if you follow me on Instagram you’ve seen even more stuff in my feed. I like knitting because it’s relaxing, a good creative outlet and at the end of a project I’ve created something special for someone. The best part? When someone loves something I’ve made them.
Yesterday I got one of the best pictures, my close friend Steven got my very, very belated birthday gift in the mail. In October when I saw him he asked me if I’d knit him a hat. I could pick whatever color and he gave me an example of the kind of hat that he wanted. I of course got overloaded and didn’t get to his hat until after the holidays and I finally mailed it to him this week. He told me he hadn’t taken it off since he took it out of the package…and then he asked me to make another one for his friend in a different color. When I said I was happy that he liked it he corrected me and said, “no, I love it.” It’s a small thing but when someone loves something that you’ve made them and it makes them happy it makes me feel so good. His comment truly makes my heart sing and I’m sure I’ll be knitting and smiling all weekend. I hope you have a happy weekend too!
