I’m going to be 26 in four days, which is really making me think about where I am in my life. I’ve still got a lot to work on, but I think I’m both happier and better at being an adult human than I was when I moved out west four years ago.

being a millennial who works in the arts/nonprofit field in Seattle and who grew up with parents who, among other incredibly hippie things, met most of their close friends through the Green-Rainbow Party of Massachusetts makes it unsettlingly easy to forget not that conservatives exist (who, truly, could forget them right now), but that centrists do

smithsonianlibraries:

The crowds may flock to Washington, DC for the National Cherry Blossom Festival around the tidal basin, but if you were to visit the same area a little bit after the last of the cherries, you should still find a number of crab-apple trees in full bloom around the FDR memorial. There is also a grove of crabapples lining the SE section of Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. Best part IMO – the pleasant fragrance is more noticeable than for the cherry blossoms. And less crowds – definitely less crowds!

The image is an apple blossoms design by Alice Wllits Donaldson in Keramic studio, v. 12 (May 1910-April 1911). The journal of ceramics is full of more wonderful illustrations, so go take a look. You can read more about the journal, and the woman who founded it, on in this blog post from a couple years ago.

Source: smithsonianlibraries