Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. We waited out the evening shower in Trader Joe’s loading dock and headed back out as soon as the rain lightens. The storm moved through quickly and the clouds afterwards skittered across the sky like a rapidly turning kaleidoscope, attaching one to another and then splitting apart in new shapes and colors.

2. I ordered some new, highly discounted clothes a couple weeks ago and Friday the Post Office showed the package as delivered, even though it was nowhere to be found. At first I wasn’t worried — we’re a USPS family and I know sometimes things slide under seats, plus we fall at the end of our carrier’s route — but when it didn’t appear on Saturday and tracking hadn’t been updated, I filed a missing package report. (While we’ve never had packages stolen, we do live in a city and we know people who have.) Monday evening, the package showed up as if it was right on time, which, I suppose, it was.

3. We were out of bread products last week (by which I mean I hadn’t made bread and didn’t feel like running out to the bagel shop), so I opened a boxed chocolate chip pannetone we’ve had sitting around since the holidays. It’s okay toasted, but makes an amazing French toast, which is a very pleasant way to start a workday.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. In the last week, our local park and the fancy steps near it have been home to two proposals and one tiny wedding reception picnic. I don’t know how yesterday’s proposal went; we came from the same direction the beloved was expected from, so we didn’t have any clue until we got to the top of the steps, where there were signs saying “Proposal in progress. Please wait two minutes” on the ground and on the young man’s back.

2. I started a new book this week and it’s told from the first-person plural point of view. As an English major, I find this a fascinating choice for narration and less than a chapter in, I’m already invested in finding out what else the author has in store for me.

3. We had another mishap making ice cream this evening, where I decided to trust the one recipe I saw online that told me what I wanted to hear about timelines, rather than every other recipe that would have made us wait. I’ve learned from past mishaps, though, and just ladled some non-frozen ice cream into glasses and topped them with whipped cream and chocolate sauce and called them milkshakes instead. Tomorrow we’ll have ice cream.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Just a few buildings up from ours, we pass a foraging albino squirrel.

2. Local green grapes are now in season!

3. The weather has been cooler this week (high temperatures in the 80s, lows below 70, and sometimes even reasonable levels of humidity). It has made such a difference in my mood.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. A friend calls to catch up.

2. Rudi and I don’t feel comfortable eating out at restaurants yet, but when we pick up pizza at our favorite restaurant, we eat our first slice or two in the car so we still get to enjoy that fresh out of the oven experience that’s so crucial to perfect pizza.

3. The annual summer sidewalk sale that usually takes place in the next neighborhood over went online and citywide this year, which meant that both our local fish & chip shop and the high-end grocery in our neighborhood were taking part. The former had a discount on gift cards, and the latter had a deal that if you bought a gift card, they threw in their weekly food bag for free. The “provisions” bag contained enough food for at least four meals of salads and the instructions on how to put them together in creative ways.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. We had our monthly video chat with friends. Everyone had relatively upbeat updates to share, from remote preschool to exercise habits to interviews.

2. Isiais did not bring the fury here that he did in some other places. Indeed, in his wake, cooler temperatures have stuck around, which have been welcome after the 28 days of 90+-degree days in July.

3. The midweek farmers market included a man who heads back to his father’s village in Greece each February to harvest olives and bottle micro-batches of olive oil. It was a pricey splurge, but I’m looking forward to sampling it on Sunday’s capreses.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. I told you back in the spring about a project that Rudi and a friend of his started where they match bikes that people weren’t using anymore with essential workers who needed them. This week they were honored with a microgrant from The Awesome Foundation.

2. Several abstracts my department submitted to an upcoming conference were accepted, so my younger colleagues and I will all be giving short, pre-recorded talks this fall. (The fact that they will be pre-recorded, rather than live and in person, is what makes this beautiful, rather than nauseating.

3. A friend’s birthday was today. Usually we sing to his voicemail, but tonight he picked up the line, so we got to catch up.

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