Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Today was a lovely birthday. Thank you to everyone who weighed in on how I should spend it and who wished me well! I spent the afternoon at the Library of Congress, walked several miles outside in pleasant weather, and ate a lot of delicious food. I heard from lots of loved ones and received some pretty spectacular gifts, including books and jewelry and clothing and music and food!

2. I needed a new driver’s license and the updated homeland security rules meant I had to go into the DMV in person to get one this time. I was in and out in less than an hour and had a pleasant chat with the woman helping me. I know lots of people have a tough time with their DMV, but I always find them expedient and courteous.

3. We headed to the movies on Tuesday and caught The Lego Movie 2, which was sweet.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. The weather was spring gorgeous earlier in the week, so I went for a midday bike ride up the river a bit. I stopped along the C&O Canal, where mallards were swimming amidst the cattails (which are the same as bulrushes. Go figure!) where the canal has become overgrown in the offseason.

2. The hellebore in my neighbor’s yard is blooming.

3. I woke up last night sandwiched between Rudi and Corey, who usually prefers not to cuddle while sleeping, but who is branching out.

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

Three beautiful things from a rather down week:

1. Trader Joe’s sells bouquets of ten tightly closed daffodils from a dry bucket. When you get home, you’re supposed to cut off the ends and put the flowers in water and then, à la peanut butter sandwich, the next morning you have a vase of sunshine.

2. We’ve largely been spared by the brain-numbing cold that has blanketed much of the country this week (don’t tell the Southerners who live in D.C. that; they were convinced they had it rough), but it did bring us a snow shower one afternoon that disappeared before the ground got cold enough for anything to stick. No shoveling and no ice and pretty snow falling from the sky is about as big a winter win as you’re likely to get. (I apologize to those in the cold to whom that sounds like gloating.)

3. A card arrived in the mail this week from an unexpected source, but was so kind and so appreciated.

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

Today has been an absolutely craptastic day. I briefly considered that nothing seemed beautiful, but I know that’s not true from the perspective of one less dented in spirit than I, so I capitulated to tradition, against my lesser angels.

Here are three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Our friend Heidi had not an inkling when she returned home from dinner with friends that her her house was crammed with guests who wanted to wish her a happy 50th birthday.

2. I surrender the joy of bashing graham crackers to smithereens to Rudi as we make chocolate-butterscotch bars for tea.

3. On New Year’s Eve, one of the films we watched was On the Basis of Sex, the biopic of Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s formative law school and early career years. I was so captured by it (and by its local subject) that I borrowed the documentary RBG from the library. I’m delighted to report that it is also delightful and you will find the justice to be even more captivating after watching it than you thought before. (And it’s nominated for an Oscar in the documentary category, in case you care about that sort of thing.)

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. It’s not getting dark until after 5.

2. I get to the bagel shop just after they open, and they have a single bag of day-olds waiting for me — and warm everything bagels fresh out of the oven.

3. I’ve been baking in the afternoons the past couple days so Rudi and I can have teatime when he gets home from work. (The cookies above are a variation on Gramma cookies I baked today on what would have been her birthday.)

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. I went to the store to find new slippers and came home with a cheerful orange dress that should be appropriate to wear to a new job — and that was marked down to $11 in clearance.

2. Although there was a gusty wind and a chill in the air, the sky was blue and the sun was out today.

3. Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas on Jan. 7, so thanks to Rudi’s mom being born in Russia, he grew up with a “Little Christmas” in addition to the more traditional Western celebration on Dec. 25. He gave me two very pretty skeins of fingering weight yarn and a purple faux fur pompom that you see above.

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