Author Archives: JJD
Rivers and Plantations
For the last day of Heather’s visit to DC, we decided to leave the museums and monuments behind (even if we’d tried, we wouldn’t have been able to see them all) and get out of the city for a while. We started the day with a drive up the Potomac River to see the Great Falls. From […]
Labor Day
Labor Day is one of the better holidays for visiting DC — you get the benefit of a holiday (no commuter traffic, parking regulations aren’t enforced) but it’s late enough in the year that the masses of tourists are gone (yay!). This means we had the place essentially to ourselves. Capitol TourWe started with a tour […]
Sunday Touring
So, day two of Heather’s visit to DC: We started out with 9am church meetings, which consisted of Fast & Testimony Meeting (for which we did not fast) and a debate-heavy Sunday School class regarding the meaning of the word “covenant” (there are, after all, lots of lawyers in this ward). After a little socializing […]
Heather’s here!
Having sent her husband fishing and her children off to the mines their grandparents’, my darling twin sister has arrived in Washington, DC, for an extended Labor Day weekend. It’s her first visit to the nation’s capital, so there’s no end of Things To Do — and believe me, I’ve created quite the itinerary. When I asked her what […]
A room with a view
After four years of working at a purportedly awesome address, I finally have visual proof of such awesomeness before my eyes. Behold the view from my new office: That’s the view down Pennsylvania Avenue to the left. The Capitol Building is just barely out of sight, but the big grey thing with the tower is […]
Life in the margins (plus, a shower curtain)
Oh man. It’s been one of those months. Way too much work, unrealistic deadlines, unpleasant clients — all of my time is still not enough. Even if I’d been willing to pull all-nighters, the clients and partners would still have wanted more. So, of course, my personal life has been pushed yet again to the margins. Family, […]
Nephi and Naaman
I had the missionaries over for dinner tonight. Interestingly, it’s the first time since I got home from my own mission 11 years ago that I’ve fed the missionaries; it’s only the second time since then that I’ve spoken with them more than to say high in the hallways on Sunday. I guess that’s one way that life in […]
Hiking the Piney Branch Trail
After a week of too much work, with an equally demanding week ahead of me, I needed a break. So I met up with Amy and her sister Julie for a hike in the Shenandoah National Park. We did a twelve mile loop through lush green forest. Part of time we were on a fire […]
In which I rant about not having stuff that I want
I feel like I’m having a lesson in not being materialistic — and it’s driving me nuts. I blame every single maker of shower curtains in the world. When I was in Morocco, I bought a cute little kilim for my bathroom. The colors don’t quite go with the current decor but, I though, it’ll be fun to update […]
Water Hyacinth
I looked out the window, and what did I see? A sprig of purple flowers emerging from my water hyacinth! I’m so pleased. Everyone I spoke to (and all the books I read) while preparing this summer’s water garden cautioned me about buying flowering plants: Apparently they need something like a gazillion hours of direct sunlight before […]
A More Gentlemanlike Manner 