Coffeeneuring Ride #5: Benning (Dorothy I. Height) Library (3935 Benning Road, N.E.) and Mason Dixie Biscuit Co. (2301 Bladensburg Rd., N.E.)

Saturday, Oct. 21; 17.4 miles

Arnold Palmer (iced tea & lemonade), biscuit

The Benning (Dorothy Height) Library opened in 2010 and was designed by the same firm that did the Shaw Library. It’s dedicated to Dorothy Height, a civil rights and women’s rights activist who headed up the National Council of Negro Women for 40 years and who spent the latter years of her life in D.C. (Interestingly, this is at least the fourth building in D.C. named in her honor. The others I’m aware of include a post office, an elementary school, and the NCNW headquarters.)

It’s an airy space, designed with a lot of copper on the outside to capture the afternoon sun and beautiful murals on the inside. The ones that line the kids’ section were done by the local artist coalition/nonprofit Life Pieces to Masterpieces. (more…)

Happy December 1, and welcome to the first day of the 2017 Virtual Advent Tour!

Today’s host is me!

Part of my holiday tradition these days involves going out on Small Business Saturday (the Saturday after Thanksgiving) to support local businesses wherever I am.

This year, my best friend, Karen, and I were in Putnam, Connecticut, that afternoon, where we discovered the town’s businesses had put together gingerbread houses/structures/engineering marvels. They all smelled wonderfully of ginger and clove and sugar and looked delicious, and some of them were remarkably creative:

(Created by a realtor)

(I really liked the Oreo grand piano in this one.)

(Someone clearly put a lot of work into this one.)

(This one was at the local bike shop.)

(My photography skills left something to be desired here.)

(This one is my favorite, but again, my camera and I weren’t up to combating the glare. Located in the window of the local comic book and record shop, this Transformer is at least two feet fall. Seriously impressive engineering here, even if there had been a mishap at some point.)

That’s it for today. Below you can find the schedule for the rest of the month as I have it thus far. (I have a couple emails out to a few other people right now.) If you’d like to join us by posting a holiday-themed blog post, we’d be delighted to have you. Just leave a comment to let me know you’d like to participate! Also, if you are participating, feel free to grab the badge at the top of this post. (It’s 400 px wide. I also uploaded a 200px one. Let me know if you want something in a different size.)

And be sure to stop back tomorrow for a new and wonderful Advent door to open!

Three beautiful things from this final week of November:

1. The sunsets in Connecticut were quite stunning. It was quite nice of my parents to order the premium ones for while we were visiting. (I know a sunset made last week’s list, but I just really don’t get to see sunsets that often in the winter…)

2. Karen and I stopped in to the comic book shop in Putnam and the owner shared that the way he stocks stuffed animals is by sitting with the catalog with his six-year-old daughter and buying whatever she ooh’s and aah’s at.

3. I was late getting to today’s Creative Mornings talk at the Renwick Gallery (shocker! It’s first thing in the morning!), but arrived in time to grab the free kolache for breakfast and hear most of the talk about art exhibitions that center around death. Then I got to walk around and look at these miniature homicide investigation recreations put together by the woman who inspired the character of Murder She Wrote‘s Jessica Fletcher. Think macabre dollhouses with an amazing attention to detail. Fascinating!

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately? (You can check out other Three on Thursday lists over at Carole Knits.)