If it’s Thursday, it’s time to look back at three beautiful things from the past week:

1. The UConn-Notre Dame women’s basketball game was on tv, which prompted Rudi to see when UConn would be in town to play Georgetown. Turns out it was Wednesday. It was great to see some of the Huskies’ newest talent, including spirited play from first-year student Moriah Jefferson. Georgetown’s Sugar Rodgers, who is being talked about for this year’s WNBA draft, was everywhere on the court, keeping the game far closer than I’d expected. (By that I mean UConn only won by 25 or so points.) If this is the last year the Huskies come to town (due to Georgetown’s imminent departure from the Big East), I’m over the moon that we got to see the game.

2. I hit both the Arlington and D.C. libraries to return (most of) the last of my Cybils books. And I took out books that I picked out and that I wanted to read. The first time since September!

3. Russian Christmas was Monday, which marked the end of the holiday gift-giving season between Rudi and me. To celebrate, he gave me Jasper Fforde’s The Last Dragonslayer, which I’d had to put off because of Cybils reading (and which I plan to devour this weekend), and my favorite tiny notebooks, purple and the perfect size for carrying in back pockets, purses, and knitting bags.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this week?

Amanda usually wraps up her weekend with a bulleted list and invites others to do the same. This week, with three days in our weekend hopper, I accept:

• We begin the weekend with new life. Susan and Phillip have a healthy baby girl.
• Our typical summer Friday evening picnic at the Yards. It starts in daylight with feet in the pool, chatting, and watching the jumbotron in the distance after the baseball game begins. It carries on into darkness, through our supper (complete with macarons courtesy of Sarah) and a blue moon.
• Sleeping in.
• Watering the garden. A tomato and a pepper to pick. Squash to mourn. The pool looks crowded, so I carry on to elsewhere.
• Off to Georgetown. There’s a “new” pie place. Pricey, but tasty, with cupcake-shaped pies. Blueberry lemonade pie was excellent, as was coconut cream. Skip the lemonade itself.
• I finish my book at the waterfront park. A toddler wonders why I’m crying.
• Drama in the sky before me. Race the thunderstorm home. I win, although I admit to being nervous when I had to cross Rock Creek.
• Homemade tomato soup with tomatoes we picked.
• No berries left at the farmers market. Peaches are dwindling, as is the corn. Apples abound. I buy a fiery flower and paw paws.
• Knitting on my Olympic Affection once again. I’m back to virgin wool!
• A last swim at the pool for the season.
• Baseball vs. the Cubs. The Nats win their 82nd game of the season, guaranteeing them their best season since moving to D.C. and a winning year.

• More importantly, it’s Cora’s first baseball game.

• Homemade popsicles after a sweaty bike ride home from the ballpark.
• Cooking out on the stoop. We grill veggie hot dogs, corn on the cob, a pepper (for Rudi), and a peach. The perfect end to the summer season.
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The Olympic Games ended earlier this evening with a fun, music-filled closing ceremony. I have spent way more time in the past two weeks parked in front of the tv than I should have. I watched a lot of sports, from swimming to track & field, from volleyball to basketball, from rhythmic gymnastics to water polo. And I did a lot of knitting on my Ravellenic Games project.

The evidence:

That would be my Color Affection Shawl.

I’ll be ripping out quite a bit of it starting tomorrow.

See that bunchy edge? It’s not supposed to look like that.

The culprit would be the yarn I’m carrying up the side for the color changes. Even though I was trying really hard not to make it too tight, clearly I did.

I had deluded myself this was something I might be able to solve during the blocking process, but early this morning I realized that what was more likely to happen is that I’d catch the edge of the finished shawl on something and it would snap, leaving me with a big problem.

So, I’m sucking it up and ripping it back to at least the beginning of the three-color section. The two-color section is also tighter than I’d like it to be, but I still feel like that part might be remedied by blocking.

I’ll get my shawl yet, just not today.

As you know, the Olympics begin on Friday, which means that I have slightly less than 48 hours to figure out my knitting project to work on during the Games.

As with every Olympics since 2006, knitters, crocheters, weavers, and spinners around the world will begin a new project or pick up a long-lingering one with the intention of completing it before the torch is extinguished at the end of the closing ceremony.

The first time this massive knit-along was conducted it was known as the Knitting Olympics — a brainchild of the Yarn Harlot. In 2008 and 2010, the field of play expanded to include crochet and moved to Ravelry, where we dubbed it the Ravelympics. This year, due to a cease-and-desist order from the U.S. Olympic Committee (accompanied by a poorly thought out letter that ended up eliciting a slew of bad press before an apology was issued for the wording), the knit-along once again has changed names. We have henceforth dubbed it the Ravellenic Games.

I already have the project I’m going to work on picked out. I’m going to knit a Color Affection shawl.

What hasn’t been decided is what colors to make it with. I’d like to use up some of the yarn I already have on hand, as it calls for three skeins of sock weight yarn, and, frankly, I have a lot of sock weight yarn. My solid/semi-solid choices are decidedly more restricted than would be my variegated options, but I think I like the way a one-color yarn works more than a multi-colored one in this instance. And I’m not above a trip to the yarn store to supplement the stash, but I’d like to rule out what’s at home first.

Normally I’d go for three bright colors — probably blue, green, and purple — but the completed shawls on Ravelry [apologies if you can't access that link] suggest that picking at least one neutral/dark might make for a more striking accessory. Unsurprisingly, neutrals are few and far between in my stash (and life), so if I go that route, I’ll likely need to hit the store.

So, if it were you making/buying this shawl, what colors would you pick? Leave a note in the comments to help a girl out.

I’m still picking salt and sand out of my hair, but Thursday is waning, so I’ll post first and then shower.

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Rudi and I took the day off to head to the beach. It was our first time visiting Bethany Beach on a weekday, and the vibe is much more laid back than on the weekend. We picnicked on fresh fish sandwiches, played in the surf, read as we dried off, and played tag with the tide. (It won the first round, but we were victorious in the next two.) The sky was blue, the humidity was low, and if it was in the 90s, the beach is the ideal place to weather that kind of … weather. After we changed out of our suits, we bought ice cream cones and ate them as we walked along the boardwalk before heading back south.

2. The drive home across Delaware and the Eastern Shore is to the west, which meant we were chasing a large glowing orb for the first half of the trip. Because the skies were clear, the color changes associated with the sunset were particularly lovely.

3. I spent Monday night at the ballpark, but at a different one than usual. I headed out to Bowie to catch the Baysox, the Orioles’ AA affiliate, play the Redding Phillies. It’s been a decade since I’ve seen a minor league game, and I had forgotten how enjoyable they are. It was dog night, so my aisle-mates included a white husky with different colored eyes; the passel of children sitting behind me reminded me of the Peanuts gang with their chatter; my seat was in the seventh row, behind home plate; and the Baysox won (three RBIs off two homers). The stadium employees were all pleasant, and the stadium itself features a carousel. Plus, I got to have a tasty stadium dinner of a veggie burger, tasty fries, and pink cotton candy.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this week?

I meant to post yesterday, but our internet was giving us fits, so walking away from the computer seemed a far saner idea.

A quick update on things:

• I finished a book on Friday. It’s the first book I’ve finished since February. Pathetic? Yes.
• I planted potatoes at the garden this weekend. Fifteen starts each got chopped into at least two pieces, often more. I’m hoping that makes for a generous crop.
• We went to our first baseball game of the season. Rick Ankiel, the center fielder, had the most impressive throw home I may have ever witnessed in person. It was like he and home plate were having a game of catch. A throw to be remembered. Plus, the Nats won.

• Sock Madness round 3 has begun. That means I knit everywhere. As opposed to when it’s not Sock Madness time and I merely knit nearly everywhere.

• I watched the space shuttle fly past D.C. yesterday. A post about that is forthcoming. Truly and surprisingly moving.
• I wrote a blog post for work that I was really proud of. (I love having written something well, which, sadly, is why you get a lot of lists like this right now, because I don’t want to spend the time and energy required to write good posts. This is a reflection on me, and not on you.)
• My volleyball team won all four games last night. We found a groove and communicated well, and it just felt right. It was nice.

That is all for now.

The final week of August was a productive one for me. Not only did I finish my Skews, but earlier in the week I bound off my baseball socks while listening to the Nationals game on the radio.

While the Nats did tie the game up while I was finishing the socks, sending the game into extra innings, unfortunately these are not magic rally socks and the Nats ultimately lost.

But I won because I got a great pair of socks out of it.

I bought the yarn during the marketplace at the Stitch and Pitch event at Nationals Park back in May. It’s Miss Babs Yummy Superwash Sock & Baby Yarn – 2 ply in the Nationals colorway.

I cast the yarn on in May to be a pair of Hermione’s Everyday Socks, but then I discovered that the yarn, when knit in straight stockinette over 64 stitches, striped. The original pattern was obscuring that, so I ripped back to the end of the cuff and started again for a plain vanilla sock.

I’m delighted with them and may wear them to the ballpark for the doubleheader we’re going to see tomorrow. Of course, the forecast suggests wet, so I may just stick with my galoshes. After all, I can wear my Nationals socks even after the team’s season is over.

That half hour between when the sun actually sets and when it really gets dark? That’s when it feels like it’s really baseball time — when the sky is still fading away and when the big ballpark lights turn on.

Yes, the sky really was that color tonight.

And, yes, the Nationals beat the Reds, 6-4.

It was a good night to be a baseball fan.

Dear San Francisco Giants,

Congratulations on pulling out tonight’s win. I appreciate that you wanted to keep things interesting for your fans and so heightened the drama by allowing the Rangers to pull within winning range in the final inning.

Honestly, when you were winning by eight runs, a normal fan would have felt confident that you had business taken care of. However, I am a Mets fan, and, as such, I have learned that it’s really never over until that final out has been called and no lead is so great that it can’t be overcome by iffy pitching (and questionable fielding, although that didn’t seem to be the case tonight so much). So I was not surprised (although disappointed would be a fair description) when you allowed Texas back in the game.

Cliff Lee had had two great division series, but his sub-1.0 ERA was doomed to rise. Tim Lincecum, who had a great many strike-outs but two losses during the NLCS, was due to finally get a win.

The Rangers helped by making a large number of mind-boggling errors, both in the field and on the base paths, but they’re a good team. You can’t count on them to hand you a win (even one you attempt to fritter away) again.

As a lifelong National League fan, I was delighted to see us claim home field advantage after the All-Star Game for the first time since the ’90s. I was thrilled when you beat Philadelphia in the NLCS (even though the Yankees loss would not allow a cross-country reenactment of the borough battles of 1921, ’22, ’23, ’36, ’37, and ’51 [1962 saw a California-ized Giants lose to the Yanks]). As a girl from the Northeast, I would have loved that. (Okay, I would have preferred the Mets to you, but I’m not that unrealistic!) But my loyalty would have been torn, so it was just as well that you ended up playing a team from Texas (who used to play in D.C., but I’m okay with that…).

Please don’t squander a 1-0 start to the Series. The Rangers are no hacks and they will not make it easy for you. It would be helpful if you didn’t make it difficult for yourselves, as well.

Good luck with a quick return to the spunky, superior playing ability you demonstrated in the division championship series. We’ll be rooting for you!

The entirety of D.C. seems to either be watching this stupid hockey game OR sitting in tea shops/coffee houses trying to escape everyone else watching the stupid hockey game.

I have been forced to return home to put on headphones and wait it out…