Last night was one of those times when I dozed off on the couch with audiobook and cat and knitting before writing my blog post. So you get my three beautiful things from this past week, which also counts for Carole & Kat’s Think Write Thursday, this morning instead:

1. A group of us gathered for a Friday evening picnic. The band was doing ’80s covers, there was a breeze (which admittedly turned into a bit of a less beautiful wind strong enough to throw Sarah’s beer at her), and we could see fireworks in the distance.

2. We’re now fully into outdoor movie season where you can catch a flick nearly any night if you’re willing to travel a bit, so Rudi and I tempered hot days of a heat wave spent indoors with nights spent in parks. We watched A League of Their Own on the riverbank in Georgetown and Raiders of the Lost Ark in the park by our house. Living in a city, anytime you can find a grassy area, the temperature is at least five degrees cooler and proximity to a river will drop it another five.

3. Every year, the Smithsonian puts on a FolkLife Festival in the two weeks on either side of July 4th. This year marked its 50th anniversary, so they did it up big by taking us to the circus, giving us trapeze artists, aerialists, acrobats, jugglers, tightrope walkers, and even one of the 70 remaining sword swallowers left in the United States:

(All those indoor shots are of the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus.)

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. This week has held lots of chances for hanging out with friends: Susan & Phillip had us over for a barbecue, Sarah invited me to a ballgame (which ultimately got rained out, but not before we spent two hours in the stadium chatting and eating supper), my coworker & I walked over to the farmers market this afternoon, and tonight our friends invited us to attend a play with them. We also got to spend the evening at the ballpark with a couple of Rudi’s cycling friends, whose company I enjoy.

2. My office decided it was cheaper to give everyone the day off than to expend the energy to open on a Monday just to close the next day. I responded by asking for last Friday off to give myself a relaxing five days out of the office. There were naps, outdoor movies, swims, work in the garden, Tour de France watching, reading, knitting, a trip to the library, and a couple meals out — one at a restaurant that was closing and one that opened earlier this year.

3. Between Monday’s post-game display and Tuesday’s A Capitol Fourth, we got to see lots of gorgeous fireworks:

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

Three beautiful things from this first full week of summer (besides our first Sunday of summer supper — corn on the cob and caprese sandwiches):

1. Rudi’s friends, Eric and Idit, invited us to their wedding last weekend. Held in a backyard in part of Rock Creek Park, the ceremony was sweet and quick, the brunch was delicious, and the blue skies glorious. The couple seemed extremely happy, and the small group of friends they’d assembled were ecstatic for them.

2. We watched The Princess Bride on Friday at one of the outdoor movie screenings around town and then caught a second showing of Wonder Woman at our favorite single-screen cinema. (Incidentally, did you hear that Wonder Woman is now the most successful DC Comics film adapted by Warner Brothers? Suck it, haters! Ahem, I meant, bring on more female-fronted superhero movies!)

3. I had a work conference to attend the past two days, which required getting in early (for me) and, therefore, getting to leave early, too. I had a volleyball game on Tuesday, but yesterday I spent the extra time lounging on a bench in the park and reading.

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

Before we get going on today’s topic, I wanted to share my unraveled photo for yesterday, because book and project coordinate so well today:

The knitting is the baby blanket, which is noticeably longer than last week (although still a substantial ways from being large enough to cover a baby). The book is Julie Murphy’s Ramona Blue, which I’m just a couple chapters into. I’m also a little ways into The Princess Diarist, Carrie Fisher’s final book, on audio. So far, so funny.

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. The library hosted Roxane Gay for a sold-out, rock-star event of an evening. I’d procured two tickets, so Julia was able to go with me. Because I wasn’t attending alone, I’d made sure to get moving early, which was crucial, since they’d overbooked the venue and later line-goers were turned away. Roxane was as thoughtful, brutal, and funny as her work would lead you to expect.

2. Knitters especially will want to click over to Flickr to look at the original-sized photo of this bike, which does not, in fact, have an ombré-colored frame, but a ombré-covered frame, in one of the most impressive DIY bike fancifying I’ve ever seen.

3. I had to work last Sunday at Awesome Con, a fan-going convention in the tradition of Comic Con. We had a very specific dress code, which ruled out costumes, but I really enjoyed the work and unabashed enthusiasm that others put into theirs. We had a photo booth area set up and two ’40s-inspired cosplayers stopped by. “He’s Captain America, so does that make you Agent Carter?” “In the flesh, ma’am.” We bantered for a bit, before she broke character to thank me for recognizing her. “I’d worked out a whole back story and then no one asked, so thanks for letting me use it.” Later on, a boy of eight or so gently put his costumed hand on my arm to ask about our (family-friendly) props of “f” words: “What does ‘foxy’ mean?” I paused to come up with an age-appropriate answer: “It means cute.” “Oh.”

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

In addition to not having to hear the details of a murder, three more beautiful things from my week past:

1. A guy heads into a shop carrying a pile of boxes. He gets the door open himself and swings it wide, and a woman walking past doesn’t even break stride to grab it so it doesn’t slam into him before he’s fully inside.

2. A friend brought his five-year-old daughter to the baseball park with him, telling us that reading had suddenly clicked with her in the past few weeks. She had a backpack full of books, but she also kept turning her attention to the scoreboard to read all the words to be found there, too.

3. The contents of my underwear drawer had reached a shameful state, so when Target recently had a sale, I stocked up. Last week I wore new undies every day.

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

Some weeks I have to scrape my memory barrel to come up with three beautiful things that I haven’t already shared in some form, but (in part because I didn’t write the weekending post I’d intended), I have an overabundance! So many beautiful things:

1. Tuesday night, we were sitting in a park watching an outdoor showing of Rogue One when a neon green light flared over the screen, dissolving into sparkles. Murmurs flew through the crowd, as we realized it was a meteor, rather than a firework set off in the adjacent neighborhood.

2. A house between home and the metro station has lavender growing next to the sidewalk in its front yard, which means I run my hands through it at least twice a day.

3. My volleyball team won our division’s championship, which has never happened with any of the teams I’ve been on in the 6+ years I’ve been playing rec league volleyball (or my high school or college teams, either, for that matter).

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