Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. My Saturday team wins our volleyball league championship.

2. My Wednesday team makes it into the playoffs and all the way to the semifinals. I have a couple of really good games, and my serving (often a weak spot) is off-putting enough to the other team that they call a time-out to try and throw me off.

3. Rudi and I listen to a bunch of the cds we bought in London. They range from collections from a decade ago to this year’s dance club hits.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Chris, Julie, and I went out for tea after our volleyball game on Sunday.

2. I had told them that D.C. was a bit behind London in our spring weather, but I was expecting us to catch up this week. I was excited when the flowering trees near me didn’t make me a liar.

3. I hadn’t loved the first two-thirds of the novel my book club chose for its first 2024 offering, Amanda Peters’ The Berry Pickers, but it got better toward the end.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. I got to see two of my cousins, Caroline and Élissa, this week and meet two of our family’s next generation, Izzy and Alfie.

2. The London Bookshop Crawl was so much fun and I had such a good time. I’ll put up a separate post on it later this week, but in the meantime, I’m sharing this photo of Bex and me. (Bex is the organizer of the Crawl and someone I’ve known online for ages.)

3. Fortnum and Mason, one of the U.K.’s preeminent department stores, has a shop and a “bar” at Heathrow. We’ve cleared security long before our gate has been announced, so we have elevenses in style. (Mine is tea and crumpets.)

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

Three beautiful things from my 50th-birthday week:

1. The weather in D.C. is lovely for February, so my pal Mario invites a small group out to play volleyball all afternoon.

2. Spring flowers are in full bloom in London, where I’m spending this week.

3. Friends of a friend of Rudi’s recommend we visit the Marylebone location of Daunt Books. I’d like to move in.

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

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday post from That Artsy Reader Girl invites us to share our favorite reads that contain “love” in the title. Here are mine:

1. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
2. Love Is a Mix Tape by Rob Shefffield
3. Beloved by Toni Morrison
4. The Game of Love and Death by Martha Brockenbrough
5. My True Love Gave to Me, edited by Stephanie Perkins
6. Book Love by Debbie Tung
7. Love That Dog by Sharon Creech
8. Love, Rosie by Cecelia Ahern
9. Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
10. Donuts and Other Proclamations of Love by Jared Reck

The History of Love was a five-star read, and the others all earned four. I recommend them all.

How about you? What “Love”-entitled books do you love?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. The weather in D.C. has been very temperate, which means between Sunday and today, the neighborhood daffodils went from dressing gowns:

to ballgowns:

2. Chris and Julie treated me to supper as an early birthday celebration, since they’re out of town this week and I’m away next.

3. Susan and I had lunch this afternoon, and then because I was feeling all sorts of over-achieving, I returned some books to the library and wandered over to Georgetown in search of sun and shoes. (I found one, but not t’other.)

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