Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Thanks to Rudi’s planning ahead, I had eclipse glasses enough not only for me, but also to share with my friend Chris. We watched the solar eclipse (87% covered here in D.C.) together at a nearby park along with his wife, Julie, and two of her friends — and a lot of workers sneaking out for a late lunch to stare up at the sky.

2. The dogwoods, wisteria, and viburnum are out, and walking around the neighborhood is a treat for eyes and nose alike.

3. Long ago, our community garden erected a wooden pen to put discarded plant matter into, and periodically, we would dig out the bottom and then someone would climb atop it to condense the rest down to allow for more detritus to fit. We’d sift the extracted dirt and parcel out fine compost for each gardener. Nowadays, we have a three-bin composting system that we mostly use instead, which means the pen was overflowing, having not been dealt with for years. (Periodically animals also move into the middle of the pen, which is really the main reason we’d left it untouched.) So last weekend, we attacked it from the top — hauling sticks and vines off to a dumpster — and the bottom, where I filled bucket after bucket of rich, unsifted dirt for my fellow gardeners to add to their plots. And, even better, there is space again at the top.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. I pass by two men my parents’ age standing next to a car in front of a nearby hotel. “Thank you,” one says. “This was my first meal with a friend in six months.” And then they hug.

2. Karen and her 13-year-old daughter, Livia, meet up with me for lunch. I haven’t seen either of Karen’s kids since before the pandemic, and Livia has grown from a kid into a young woman.

3. I’m peeling potatoes at the sink for Easter dinner when I look up and spy a turkey just at the edge of the plateau my parents live on. They used to get flocks stopping by multiple times a day, but the turkeys understandably started avoiding their house after they got a dog. We’re hopeful that lone bird will tell her friends to put their property back on the itinerary.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. My mother’s 3-month scans came back clear.

2. As I was driving north this evening, I saw a beam of light in the twilight. “Is that a … rainbow?” I asked Rudi incredulously, because we were right around sunset and the sky before us was very cloudy. It was and it was enormous, and there was a stunning sunset sort of off to the side that I peeked at when the horizon to that side cleared a bit.

3. Neal, Chris, Julie, and I had dinner and games and Chris’ alma mater’s Cinderella story basketball team on tv Saturday night. It was a lot of fun to hang out together.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Rudi and I walked around the Tidal Basin to check out the cherry blossoms. Because it was right around dusk and a bit chilly, the crowds were manageable.

2. Monday was my teammate Katie’s birthday and we went out to fête her after our victory.

3. I had a hankering for a Cowbelle smoothie bowl (and the homemade nut butter that tops them), and since they no longer come into the city for farmers markets, we trekked out to Leesburg for them. The afternoon was breezy, but sunny, so we sat on their patio to eat.

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

Somehow I lost a day this week… But still, three beautiful things from my past week:

1. My team is back together after nearly two months off the court, and getting folks back in the right spot brought me such a sense of peace. Plus, we won, which is always a cherry on the sundae.

2. Our baseball ticket draft was this week. I’m not sure I’ve seen Pat since last year when we drafted tickets, so it was good to see him and to hear how his two youngest are off to college in the fall (destination(s) TBD).

3. Sarah and I pushed our dinner off by a night to accommodate the draft, so we dined in her neighborhood instead of mine. The food was decent, the drinks frozen, and we got to sit at a table next to the fountain/firepit on the patio.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. My Saturday team wins our volleyball league championship.

2. My Wednesday team makes it into the playoffs and all the way to the semifinals. I have a couple of really good games, and my serving (often a weak spot) is off-putting enough to the other team that they call a time-out to try and throw me off.

3. Rudi and I listen to a bunch of the cds we bought in London. They range from collections from a decade ago to this year’s dance club hits.

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