Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. The Strawberry Full Moon stands out vibrantly against the evening sky.

2. Fireflies hit critical mass, and you can see them sending each other coded messages from every hedgerow, front garden, and field. One even finds its way into the apartment, much to the fascination of Corey.

3. Our basket of blueberries from last Friday’s pick-your-own adventure sits out on the counter, allowing us to grab a handful every time we walk past and encouraging their addition to everything from pancakes to salads to yogurts. It’s been a delicious week.

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

My rainbow socks will not likely be done by the end of the month, particularly with Tour knitting starting on Saturday. But I do have a finished sock, so that’s not nothing.

I am about halfway through both Arsenic and Adobo and Act Your Age, Eve Brown. The former has started irritating me less, so although I am relatively certain I know the who of the murder, I’m happy to read through to see if there’s some depth to the why. And the latter series of books is always enjoyable. Both Chloe and Dani have now made (phone) appearances in the story, so I’m even happier.

Head over to As Kat Knits to see what others are crafting and reading.

Work ran late tonight, and by the time Rudi and I decided we should run to the local shop for mozzarella (they were sold out at the farmers market on Sunday), it was just after 9. But they’d been open until 10 last week when Rudi went, so we weren’t worried. But, it turns out, that was a Wednesday, and today was a Tuesday, so we did without.

It was a nice night, so we wandered around for a little, debating treating ourselves to Thai takeout or a gelato, but ultimately decided it made more fiscal sense just to cook supper at home and buy a container of ice cream for dessert over several nights.

So, we walked up to Walgreens to see what they had on sale. But they’d closed at 9. (They used to be a Rite Aid and used to never close, so it continues to be a true surprise when we find they do now — and at random, early hours.)

But that was fine, because Safeway is open until 11, and it was a nice night.

We arrived at Safeway at 9:59 to find they’d changed their hours, too.

So back to the neighborhood with no mozzarella and no ice cream.

Would the ice cream parlor still be open, at least? (We were pretty sure we knew the answer by now…)

No shopping for you!

This is Alaina Reed Hall, who portrayed Olivia on Sesame Street, performing “Golden Slumbers.” The music was composed by Sam Pottle, with lyrics by Emily Perl Kingsley, and it was written for the Sleepytime Bird special, in which Big Bird sings his mother’s lullaby to Little Bird and then can’t get to sleep himself.

Pottle was Sesame Street‘s second musical director and is best remembered for composing the theme song to The Muppet Show. Kingsley was a longtime writer for the series and is credited with writing the special.

The soundtrack for the special was one of my favorites for overcoming insomnia in my teen years. I played it so often that I wore out the cassette (recorded either off the tv or off a library copy of the album). Rudi bought me a copy of the LP as a gift one year early in our relationship.

There are no photos of the pool, the park, or the pancakes (or Rudi, for that matter). But I’ve got photos of the library:

The ballpark:

And the garden:

How was your weekend?

Thanks to those of you who weighed in on the smaller shawls I was considering for the Tour de France Knitalong. Fully Charged and Winterberry both got multiple votes.

I thought I’d share a few more shawls, but this time they’re larger pieces, calling for three or more skeins of yarn. Usually, this makes them more wearable, but also it means they’ll take longer to knit, and the odds of finishing in three weeks the Tour lasts diminishes significantly.

I’ve been looking at Pressed Flowers since before last year’s Tour, and the fact that I’m still considering it bodes well. It’s a heavier yarn and requires 3-4 skeins.

Nightshift is another pattern I’ve looked at over and over again. Again, a heavier weight shawl.

Fernweh is a brioche shawl, knit with sock yarn.

Rodanthe is mosaic, knit with sock yarn.

Quicksilver alternates stripes with mesh lace.

The Everything Shawl combines two skeins of sock yarn with one skein of mohair.