Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. It was cold and rainy last Friday, so Rudi and I went and bought seedlings for the garden — endive, herbs, strawberries, beets, and flowers. It made us feel very cheerful about the spring gardening season. Now I just need to finish putting it all into the ground!

2. One of the things that I grow in the garden are violets, and the image above is why. When you pick a single violet, you don’t get the scent. If you pick an entire nosegay, on the other hand, you are treated to a gentle, but heavenly perfume that fades after a day or so.

3. Even though our local schools are on spring break this week, my coaching volunteer gig kicked off its outdoor season. It was good to see my fellow coaches and to get to start teaching kids volleyball again.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. The UConn women won the NCAA Division 1 basketball championship by a considerable margin. I was really glad to see Paige get her big win and for UConn to take home its 12th title.

2. Chris, Neal, and I went out for supper at a well-respected Filipino restaurant in Mount Pleasant. The food was delicious, and it was great to spend some time off the court with the two of them.

3. Baseball season has begun, and we got to our first Nationals game of the season on the chilliest day in weeks. (Rudi and I love going to spring and fall baseball games.) The Nats won decisively, holding the World Series champs to just a handful of runs and Ohtani to a single hit (he did then steal two bases, but we didn’t challenge him, given the score and the temperatures, which were in the looooow 40s).

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Rudi is home and put back together in one piece.

2. I went out to the park to read Monday afternoon, and while my phone assured me that we weren’t due for rain for several hours, Mother Nature had other ideas. By the time I realized I was going to get very wet on my way back home, I decided to stick around to see if a rainbow would appear. And lo! Not one, but two! (I finished the latest Linda Holmes novel, in which the protagonist also gets caught in a D.C. afternoon rainstorm, from the steps outside the Phillips Collection.)

3. There’s a house in the neighborhood, where the owners take a great deal of care with their front garden. The daffs and early bulbs are past, but the tulips are out now in force.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world as March transitions to April?

Apologies for disappearing. I was packing Wednesday for a trip to a funeral when I heard from Rudi that he’d broken his arm on a ski vacation and needed outpatient surgery. Honestly, while I knew what I wanted to write (and packed my laptop so I could do so), I just lacked the mental energy to get it done until I returned home tonight.

But the cats and I are reunited! Rudi is recovering and generally is in decent spirits! And I got to see my folks and my bff and some extended family!

So, to get us back on track, here are three beautiful things from before this past Friday:

1. While I was away for peak bloom, I still got myself down to the Potomac and to the Tidal Basin for just-prior-to-peak cherry blossoms. Lovely, as always. (It’s one of the things here that always lives up to the hype, even if I don’t always choose to brave the tourists down by the water.

2. Last Saturday, I had set up my volleyball net down on the Mall and about 10 of us were playing when we watched a mounted park police officer pass by. We noted it as unusual, but resumed play for a bit, but then I realized the officer had brought his golden-maned horse right up alongside the court. Honestly, I was expecting him to chase us away because we lacked a permit (technically you need one for any activity attracting 10 people or more), but he just said, “I think this is the first time my horse has seen a volleyball.” Clearly, everyone rushed over to pet the horse and then we had to wait a bit for the crowd that had gathered on & adjacent to the court to shift. Then, the officer asked us to gently hit a ball over the net so he could see if his horse reacted. “A helicopter could land 50 feet from here, and he wouldn’t blink. But if there’s a fire, he’s bolting. So it’s good to see how he responds.” The horse was fine with the ball, but failed to return it over the net.

3. A creatives networking group Rudi and I belong to usually holds its meetings early on Friday mornings, so I haven’t attended many recently. But they generally hold their anniversary celebrations in the evenings, and this year Rudi and I were both in town. We metro’ed over to the newish Latin American food hall, La Cosecha, ate some tasty Salvadoran papusas, and got to see an art show for free. It made for a very nice date night.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Wednesday was a gorgeously warm day, so I spent a good portion of the afternoon and evening outside. As I was talking with my mom on the phone, I caught the reflection of the sunset and moved to get a better angle. Wow!

2. Usually dinners when Rudi is away are a pretty hit-or-miss affair. Sometimes leftovers, sometimes bowls of cereal, and occasionally something easy I can cobble together on my own. Last Sunday’s fell into the latter category, but was a fresh baguette, microwavable fondue we bought earlier in the winter for just this occasion, and a glass (in a real wine glass!) of sparkling cider that’s been sitting unopened in the fridge for months.

3. Mulch is one of those scents, like fallen ginkgo fruit, that is mostly unpleasant. But it’s also so specifically of a moment in time that when I smell it, I’m immediately moved. Workers have been redoing beds all over the region this week in the lead-up to the warmer weather and cherry blossom crowds, and it’s hard to walk for far without the pointed odor of worked tree and planter boxes and front landscaping poking your brain and reminding you that spring is here.

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

Three beautiful things from the past week:

1. Saturday was too windy to play volleyball outside, but that meant I had time to check out a new-to-me bakery (excellent croissant, mediocre chai) and have Rachel come over for a cuppa and to pick up the tea she had included with our annual order.

2. This week’s floral bounty included the magnolias and the first hyacinths.

3. This week’s lunar eclipse was kind of a dud with low clouds appearing just at totality, but there were some lovely sunsets to make up for it.

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