Three beautiful things from the week before D.C.’s major snowstorm (the local meteorologists keep tossing around terms like “top ten storm” and “devastating”):

1. The cold air that comes off all my wool outerwear when I take it off inside a nice warm building (because it’s not coming off me).

2. I’ve added a second volleyball session this winter in order to help stave off my depression this winter. Both got started this week, and it seems like both teams (the other one is my team from the fall) will be good fits and lots of fun.

3. In addition to all the books I’m going to read, knitting projects I intend to finish, and treats I plan to bake, I picked up a bunch of films at the library to watch while I’m recovering from the snow, ranging from classics to superheroes to YA sci fi to Bollywood to a bawdy volleyball film starring Burt Reynolds.

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

I dozed off last night without hitting publish and awoke partway through the night recognizing I’d done so. I thought about getting up then and posting this then, but common sense prevailed and I closed my eyes and drifted back to dreamland.

Three beautiful things, posted slightly late, from my previous week.

1. The first dusting of snow for the winter finally arrived in the District. It quickly blew/melted away, which made it even more welcome.

2. Putting in a pair of new contact lenses.

3. A decadent, if overpriced, cup of thick hot chocolate, the memory of which lingered on the lips like a first kiss long after it was gone.

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

Here are three beautiful things from the first week of the new year:

1. Technically, this happened the week of Christmas, but I only heard about it this week (thanks for the heads-up, DOD!), so I’m including it today. Anyway, as people from the UK and anyone who’s watched Love Actually know, the British charts have a competition relating to the #1 song on the charts the week of Christmas. This year, the organizers behind a charity single mashup of “Bridge over Troubled Water” and “Fix You” benefiting small healthcare organizations and recorded by the Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Choir announced they were going to make a run at being Christmas Number One. Justin Bieber, who was heavily favored to take home the prize, asked his supporters to forgo buying his single that week and instead to buy “A Bridge over You,” vaulting them to victory. It was just really a class move, you know?

2. As of my walk home tonight, there are five Christmas trees piled at the other end of my block awaiting collection by the city for recycling purposes. Because their owners got them out so early, they smell especially pine-fresh whenever one walks past them.

3. Rudi, who spent an extra week in New England after the holidays coaching his ski team at a camp in Vermont, arrived back in D.C. Monday night. The cats and I missed him.

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

Three beautiful things from the final week of 2015:

1. The past week has been chock full of time with family and friends. Because of a last-minute job opportunity for Rudi, I got to spend a few extra days longer than initially planned with my parents. My aunt, uncle, and cousin joined us for Christmas dinner, and I got to spend wonderful afternoons with Karen and her children (when we discovered a new-to-us hiking trail) and Laura. Tonight, Sarah and I will ring in the New Year together, because it’s good to begin the year as you mean to go on — in this case, with good friends (and, hopefully, laughter).

2. Because Rudi’s ski school had temporarily relocated to Vermont (no snow in Pennsylvania right now), he needed our car to go north. Luckily, he found me a cheap flight home, so I took a fast route back to D.C. (As a bonus, there were no lines in Hartford and everyone there was very pleasant.)

3. This has been an abnormally warm December, so it was nice to wake on Tuesday to the ground coated in white, even if it was from an ice/sleet storm. It wasn’t a real hassle to push-shovel, although I’m glad my parents have a tractor for their 1/4-mile-long driveway.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world during these final days of the year?

Ahem. So you may have noticed (or maybe not) that last Thursday I shut the computer for a Christmas break without publishing a three beautiful things post. My run-in to the holidays got a little crazy and it just slipped my notice, and the people who would normally remind me that I’d missed it have also been celebrating and not paying attention to this space. However, the only time I totally failed to share three beautiful things was when my grandmother died and that was an intentional decision, and I’d like to keep it that way. So, here, belatedly, are three beautiful things from the week before Christmas:

1. Rudi takes back over the driving in central New Jersey so I can more fully enjoy the Christmas lights along the Garden State Parkway from the passenger seat.

2. Parking lots are full, but all the shops I run into on Christmas Eve have very short lines.

3. To my surprise, tickets to see Darlene Love’s holiday concert in D.C. were still available on the evening of the show, but spending money on yourself at Christmas is not really in the budget. I remembered suddenly I’d squirreled away as mad money two cash gifts from my uncle before he died — and that it was nearly the exact price of the tickets. My uncle had a great love of music and of Christmas so I felt certain that he would think this was a perfect use of his final Christmas presents to me.

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

(I’ll be back again on New Year’s Eve with beautiful things from this week.)

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Walking past the charity bookshop, I see they’ve announced a half-price sale on cds. Six new Christmas albums have been added to the collection for the whopping cost of three dollars and change.

2. Metro track maintenance work means if you’re traveling outside of rush hour that you may have to wait for quite a while between trains. I arrive trackside at my home stop to see the taillights of the train disappearing into the tunnel and a 20-minute wait-time for the next train (to reach a destination that is less than half an hour walk). My transit app tells me that a bus heading downtown will be at the far exit of the station in a minute (there’s a traffic circle involved, so I know I may have a little wiggle time), so I hustle my way out, only to watch the bus drive past as I’m approaching the stop. I nearly catch up at the next bus stop, when the light turns green. Resolving just to walk in the rain, I see that the driver has noticed me and stopped the bus so I can get on.

3. I’ve enjoyed watching the moon each evening, progressing through the week from a Cheshire Cat moon to a mandarin wedge. (It will be full on Christmas Day for the first time since 1977, in case you want to take a peek.)

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