Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. This was a good week of volunteering, with the kids being attentive and having fun.

2. I harvested a pint of strawberries from the garden. They were delicious!

3. Most of the team went for drinks after the game on Monday. It was really good to catch up with folks!

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Purple irises for the kitchen

2. I’m hanging out at our local yuppie grocery store/cafe, and they bring out bags of sourdough bread to take home for free.

3. Rudi makes a frittata from seasonal nettles, asparagus, and spring onions.

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

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday from That Artsy Reader Girl invites us to share the first ten books we pull from our shelves.

Here are the first ten I grabbed from piles/bags near our couch (which admittedly include a good number of my library books):

1. In the Lives of Puppets by T.J. Klune
2. Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li
3. The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise by Colleen Oakley
4. An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good by Helene Tursten
5. Check, Please!: Sticks and Scones by Ngozi Uzaku
6. Not Your Villain by C.B. Lee
7. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
8. I Came All This Way to Meet You by Jami Attenberg
9. Lark and Kasim Start a Revolution by Kacen Callender
10. She-Hulk: Jen, Again by Rainbow Rowell, with illustrations by Rogê Antônio & Luca Maresca

The Wind in the Willows, which I’m behind on a readalong for, is the only one of these I’ve finished. Have you read any of them and do you recommend them?

We had a day of rain today and expect another full day of rain on Sunday. What does that mean for a weekend plan when there probably won’t be any volleyball, but that also will not require watering of the garden? Here’s what I’m hoping the next couple days include:

• Stop at the library for the new T.J. Klune novel
• Buy strawberries at the farmers market
• Do laundry
• Take bins to storage
• Read
• Switch out the summer and winter clothes
• Bake cookies and maybe bread
• Drink lots of tea
• Get May birthday cards written and in the mail
• Knit
• Deal with some of the paper recycling (how do we have so much of it?!)
• Maybe visit a local yarn store or an independent bookshop, since both of those types of retailers are being feted this weekend

What are you hoping to get up to this weekend?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. The lily of the valley bulbs I planted … five? … years ago finally blossomed.

2. My volleyball team added a new teammate who my friend Chris and I played with this winter and welcomed back several others from injury and time away. And then we faced off against most of the folks Chris and I play pickup with and got solidly beaten. But we had fun being together and that’s most important!

3. Grilled pineapple on our Tuesday tacos.

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

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday from That Artsy Reader Girl asks us to share our audiobook narrator recommendations. Here are ten I’ve enjoyed (in addition to the celebrities who’ve read their memoirs:

1. Kate Reading (The Lady Sherlock series)
2. Neil Gaiman (Norse Mythology)
3. Kirsten Potter (Fortune Favors the Dead)
4. Adjoah Andoh (Get a Life, Chloe Brown)
5. Lauren Fortgang (Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts)
6. Claire Corbett (The Lido)
7. Eunice Wong (The Verifiers)
8. Kevin R. Free (All Systems Red)
9. David Thorpe (A Marvellous Light)
10. Julia Whelan (The Vivian Apple series, Thank You for Listening)

How about you? Do you have any audiobook readers you particularly recommend?