Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. The woman from my volleyball team and I finally got together for coffee this week. Then we went out for beers (full disclosure, I drink neither beer nor coffee) after our game tonight and our partners joined us.

2. One of the coffeehouses I like to frequent has Arnold Palmers on their menu and I decided to order one this week. They use frozen lemonade, so the drink was delightfully slushy.

3. My second movie screening this week worked out far better than the first. Poms was a charming look at female friendship and persevering when it would be easier to give up. It’s not a great film — it asks a few bigger questions (about multigenerational families and about adult children parenting their parents), yet never bothers to answer them, and most of the characters aren’t fully three-dimensional — but it was an enjoyable way to pass a couple hours and most of the audience (predominantly older women themselves) seemed to agree.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. A resolution to the conflict between the Parks department and the local Friends group of my local park that my volleyball league found itself in the middle of has been reached, at least as it affects our games. We’re moving to another nearby park, which means I’ll be able to continue going to mine without fear of angry looks from all my neighbors. Now, if we could just find a solution to game-time thunderstorms…

2. I took my laptop to a local coffeehouse for a sunny afternoon sitting at their picnic tables bookmarking job openings, including one I’d particularly like to fill.

3. When I stopped by the garden yesterday to drop off some seedlings (dusk was approaching too rapidly to plant them), I noticed the Parks department was doing their first test-fill of the pool. The cover had come off in April, so I knew we had to be reaching this point, but it was nice to have confirmation. They’ll use this fill to make sure there are no problems with the pipes or cracks that need fixing and then will drain the pool completely to do whatever maintenance they deem necessary and clean it one final time before doing a last fill before the Memorial Day opening weekend.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. People from across all aspects of our lives stepped up in a big way to support Rudi through his grief this past week, particularly knowing I was away. And Rudi has stepped up through his mourning to take his own street safety advocacy to the next level to help transform the direction the city’s streets will take in the years to come.

2. The first strawberries and asparagus of the season at the farmers market.

3. I invited a relative stranger out for coffee today and she accepted. We’re getting together next week.

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

Three beautiful things from my previous week:

1. I happened to glance up as I was carrying my lunch to the other room to see that my parents had a visitor. (Apologies for the photo quality; I was shooting through a window and a screen.)

2. At the garden work day, a few of us worked on a construction project that added some pvc piping to our infrastructure that should necessitate the garden’s master spigot, which is located in a corner of my plot, to be accessed far less often, which is more convenient for everyone.

3. Rudi and I were both home on Monday, so after mailing our taxes, we treated ourselves to a late lunch out at a local Cuban restaurant. We then followed it with a trip to Trader Joe’s, where the samples were plentiful and delicious (and included chocolate).

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Sarah had a birthday this week and invited folks to join her down at the new’ish beer garden next to the river for drinks. It had a shaggy, shabby backyard vibe going on — so, very relaxed and very comfortable — which was perfect for a group of middle-aged friends.

2. Rudi started a new position within his company this week. It’s doing outreach and promotion, which he’s going to be awesome at. I’m pleased for him that this is more in line with what he’d been looking to do and pleased for his company that they have found such a strong advocate for their products.

3. In the pre-dawn hours you can hear all the birds that live in the tree outside our building calling to each other. There’s at least one nest of babies, who are VERY HUNGRY!!!

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. There is a mini golf course at Hains Point — the oldest continually operating miniature golf course in the U.S., dating back to 1931 — that Rudi and I had never tried before. As we biked around looking at the cherry blossoms, we noticed it was not especially crowded, so we paused in our perusal to putt a round. We played 21 holes, because there was a family with small children ahead of us that we caught up to on the final hole, so we told them to take their time, since no one was behind us. The other benefit of there being no one behind us was that it allowed me to play my favorite version of mini golf, which often involves my ball gaining some altitude and speed and which is decidedly less safe and fun to play when others are around. Rudi was impressed when I sent a ball careening off the course and then, instead of taking the penalty shot and dropping it back onto the green, I chipped it back on. (I had to eventually take the penalty shot for the one that ripped into the (deserted) picnic area, because the curb to get back onto the hole was higher there.)

2. A friend emailed with very exciting news.

3. We got to our first baseball game of the season on Saturday, a gorgeous bluebird of a day, with a slight breeze off the river and temperatures in the 70s. The Mets got on the board early with three runs in the top of the first inning and kept adding to their total, but the Nationals regularly nibbled away at their lead, keeping the game interesting to us until the final out in the bottom of the ninth guaranteed the Mets their surprisingly fraught victory.

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