Sorry for the blog silence. I’m up in Connecticut for a few days and was up late trying to finish things Thursday night before departing early yesterday. As I was heading to bed for an hour, I remembered the blog but wisely decided you’d all prefer me to get those 60 minutes of sleep rather than coming back out to the computer.

Even if it’s not true, I’m glad I made that decision.

So, here are three beautiful things from last week:

1. Rudi was away for part of the week, so it was nice to be able to come home and pull something out of the fridge that didn’t require prep or thinking. I mean, sure, risotto and guacamole is probably an unusual dinner combination, but it worked.

2. I like this season’s volleyball team. We’re wildly inconsistent, either winning or losing all our games in any given night, but the group of people is nice and when we gel properly, it feels like we could take anyone on (and when we don’t, it still feels like we’re just that one right thing away from doing so).

3. Rudi’s friend Geoff is British, but he spent a few years in the U.S. and one of the things he liked was the brilliance/ridiculousness of our Super Bowl commercials. He’s returned to England, where they do show the game but with their own normal British commercials. Thanks to computers and stateside friends, though, he and his sweetie, Vicki, are able to call via Skype and share some of our pop culture. Rudi pulls the laptop over to the tv and they chat during the game and then watch the main event together during time outs and between quarters.

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

Three beautiful things from the past week:

1. I barely have time to take my shoes off and pull up a piece of floor before 2-year-old Caroline has grabbed a book off the table and plopped herself in my lap.

2. Our friend Shawn introduces us to his boyfriend over dinner at a fancy restaurant.

3. One of the great things about being a pedestrian in a city is how close to people’s lives you are (without, you know, being part of their lives). Last Sunday, I spied this sign on a Georgetown front door:

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

Three beautiful things from the past week:

1. I promise sorbet for a work-related potluck and find in-season blood oranges at Trader Joe’s. It turns out surprisingly sweet (like orange candy), but brilliantly hued.

2. As I’m walking home from an afternoon out and passing the local elementary school playground, I think, “That kid sort of looks like Holden.” It is, and I spend a pleasant quarter hour catching up with Susan and her family.

3. I love the library’s website, because it lets me put things on hold and then they’ll just reserve them for me when they’re next available. This week, two titles I’m really excited about have come in: Neil Patrick Harris’ autobiography, styled after a choose-your-own-adventure book from the ’80s (which I cracked open on the train home), and the first volume of Ms. Marvel, a superhero graphic novel (which I’ll pick up at the local branch over the weekend).

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Climbing the pathway up Book Hill toward the library in Georgetown, I notice that it’s lined with the green shoots of spring bulbs pushing their way skyward.

2. Realizing the public library is just on the next block when you really need a bathroom.

3. The sun is setting after 5 again, making late afternoons seem not quite as forsaken as they did a month ago.

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

Three beautiful things from the first week of 2015:

1. This time of the year, Girl Scouts abound, so when unpleasantness arises, it’s okay to break into the last unopened box of Samoas in the pantry.

2. It created havoc for a great number of people in the area, but I enjoyed the first snow accumulation of the year. Rudi has made a full recovery, so I didn’t have to get up early and shovel, and it blanketed everything prettily with four inches of white for a bit.

3. Because the Nationals imploded early on in the post-season, after we anted up for tickets that would’ve covered through the World Series, what we owe for our share of this year’s season tickets is comfortably minimal.

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

Three beautiful things from the past week:

1. Rudi took the first leg of driving home from Connecticut so I could watch for Christmas light displays along the Garden State Parkway.

2. Last weekend was filled with visits with Karen and BW.

3. As we were driving home, I said to Rudi (who had to coach the next morning), “Tomorrow, I’m not getting up until I get up.” And I didn’t. I woke up enough to walk Rudi to the door and I woke up again a couple hours later when Jer nudged me to tell me that my weekday alarm hadn’t gone off and couldn’t I please get up because there was a hole in the food in his dish and therefore it was empty and he and the others were obviously starving, but I laid firm and returned to bed and didn’t get up for real until 11:30 when I was awake enough to play Words with Friends and read Twitter for 15 minutes without dozing off again.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this week with the end of last year and the beginning of the new?