Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. I keep forgetting them come Thursday nights, but the fireflies are back in D.C. We started seeing them two weeks ago, and I encountered at least three between the park and home this evening.

2. I got to pick up a book — A.S. King’s Dig — and two dvds — season six of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Emilio Estevez’s The Public — at the library this evening.

3. Our team organizes our work projects by due date, and the oldest project on our list was one I was project managing. Its completion had been pushed off for two months because of a repeated series of slapstick situations that is both good for our audience and painful for those of us working on the project. (We literally had to ask the printer to stop the presses TWICE. It is not as cool as one is led to believe in movies.) But today all hindrances were pushed past, the print order has been given, and this project — overdue by more than a year and a half — was checked off.

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. An email from the four-year-old daughter of our friends.

2. Spending time in the park.

3. Meeting up with Sarah at the protest last Saturday.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Loyalty Bookstores, one of D.C.’s indie bookstores owned by a Black woman, posted they’d received hundreds of orders this week requesting anti-racist books. Another local Black-owned bookstore, Mahogany Books, was featured in Time. D.C.’s other POC-owned indies — Sankofa, Solid State Books, and Duende District — also report people have placed a flurry of orders this week with a strong focus on getting more woke.

2. Super dramatic thunderstorms rolled through the area tonight (just after we watered the garden, of course).

3. José Andés’ local philanthropic endeavor, World Central Kitchen, reports they’ve made more than half a million meals since the pandemic began. Many of those meals have been cooked in the empty concession kitchens at Nationals Park.

How about you? What’s beautiful things have been getting you through this week?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. The honeysuckle was on point last weekend. I don’t know if, like birdsong, it’s just normal and we’re better able to perceive it because of less pollution or if it is, in fact, a great year for it. Either way, though, and the scent just filled the air.

2. Rudi picked up an avocado at the store while out this afternoon, so we got to have guacamole for a post-work treat.

3. My new tshirt arrived at the of the week. It was a fundraiser for World Central Kitchen, José Andrés’ charity that feeds people in disaster-stricken areas, and features a heart wearing a face mask.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. The first strawberry and peas from my garden (as well as more greens).

2. Rudi is friends with his fifth-grade teacher on Facebook. (If you know Rudi IRL this will surprise you not a bit.) Anyway, she paints and she was giving away some of her prints, and she sent this one to Rudi, which arrived on his birthday eve:

3. I had spent my last cash on quarters more than a week ago, which meant while we had clean underwear, we haven’t been able to buy bagels. I stopped by the atm yesterday and Rudi ran out first thing this morning to the bagel shop to buy two bags of day-olds and two fresh-from-the-oven everything bagels that I got to wake up to the aroma of.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. The drug store had name-brand Easter candy for 90% when we stopped in last week, which meant big bags of candy were 45¢. Rudi carried the heavy bag home.

2. One of the farms that specializes in tomatoes was selling flats of seconds at the farmers market. I came home with more than a dozen huge greenhouse tomatoes that looked just perfect to me.

3. Rudi procured both dish soap and quarters for the washing machine this week. (Who would have guessed $30 wouldn’t have been enough to get us through this?) I don’t love chores, but I definitely prefer to be able to do them when they need doing.

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