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I love the springtime, but lately it has fostered jealous feelings as I enter my own neighborhood and find myself admiring the beautiful Flowering Dogwoods with white and pink blossoms that seem to adorn every lawn but mine.

No longer. Today we planted our own Dogwood, which is doubly appropriate being that it is Virginia’s State Tree, and since Friday was Arbor Day. On the way home from the nursery I asked my wife why it’s taken us 15 years to get ourselves a Dogwood tree. She responded that we had different priorities previously, and I regretted our late start in adding such a beautiful complement to our home.

Last fall a young man in his 20’s walked up our driveway. He told us he had grown up in our home (it was built in 1982, we became the third owners in 1990) and asked if we minded if he looked around. We invited him in for a tour, and he shared some nice memories. The best came outside, when he looked at the large pine tree that towers over our house. He looked up at it and said “That was our Christmas Tree for our first Christmas in this house”. I loved learning that. No longer just a source of messy needles, I have gained a new appreciation for that tree.

I hope that someday many years from now, if my kids every return to visit this house, they recall that the beautiful large dogwood was something we gave to our house in 2005. Arbor Day has passed, but don’t wait until next year. Plant a tree today.

For more info: National Arbor Day Foundation

New Category! Opposite of my previous new category Rants which is for bitching and moaning, this category Guide to Life is about solutions and lessons learned, forgotten, and re-learned in 40 years of living. Pay close attention to this category, there will be a test.

During the four years that I was self-employed and working at home my commute was basically from upstairs to downstairs. It was nice. But I have once again become a commuter, heading roughly 35 miles from my Northern Virginia home into Washington, DC. I’m fortunate to still be able to work from home a couple of days a week, but on the days that I do go in the commute has been worse than I can ever recall. Last Friday evening, it took me three hours to get home. Last week, heading into the city in the late afternoon, it took me two hours to cover a distance I should have done in 45 minutes. It sucks.

Happily, last week I re-discovered slug lines. Slugging is a term that describes informal, ad hoc car pools arranged for single trips into and out of Washington, DC so that the driver has the benefit of having enough occupants in their car that they can ride in the High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes, and the passengers or “slugs” get a free ride to or from work. For a few years I regularly slugged my way into work.

Last week after crossing the Key Bridge and passing through Rosslyn, I spotted the tell-tale line of slugs, looking for a southbound ride. The HOV restrictions are lifted at 6pm, but grabbing two slugs by 5:20 found us entering the slug lanes by the Pentagon shortly after. In no time we were homebound at 70 mph, flying past the more slug-like traffic in the regular lanes. The next day, I picked up three slugs at 5:30, and dropped them off at the Potomac Mills Mall commuter lot at about 6:15. It was beautiful.

Thank you slugs, I’ll be looking for you on my way home.