Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. I follow up last week’s successful venture on my own to a bookish Tweetup by heading off to word game night with strangers at the local gaming establishment.

2. I invite folks to go swing dancing, and the response is enthusiastic. Apparently the whole city picks up on this vibe, because the free intro class has 62 people packed into it. Four among our group are considering the month-long Lindy Hop class that begins next week.

3. My coworker friend has received Brave from Netflix, and, knowing it’s the final movie Rudi and I need to see to complete the animated film category of the Oscars, offers us her copy instead of sending it right back. It saves us a trip to a Red Box. (Interestingly, the D.C. Public Library doesn’t seem to have any copies (I assume it was a catalog search error) and the Arlington copy had over 100 holds on it when I last looked.)

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

The final Thursday in January means one more chance to look back at three beautiful things from the last week of the month:

1. Tuesday’s weather was so warm and sunny that a coworker and I ate lunch outside sans jackets. And yesterday approached 70 (more than three times the temperature from the previous week), allowing for bare legs.

2. Pink cava cava navel oranges every afternoon.

3. We clear off the table, which left molehill status back in December. It’s refreshing to have it uncluttered — and the cats enjoy spreading out on it.

Bonus:

The paperwhites my uncle sent me for Christmas have bloomed and their heady scent saturates my office.

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

It’s a sunny Thursday afternoon here in D.C. Time for three beautiful things from my past week:

1. It snowed last night! Enough to stick and make everything look fresh and pretty this morning, but not so much that it was onerous to trek through. A good dumping snowstorm with enough snow to romp in would be great, but I’ll take this for now.

2. The last few days have been below freezing, and I’ve enjoyed that. It’s been nice to get to wear turtlenecks and woolly accessories and sweaters and to snuggle under warm blankets and to turn up the radiator. It’s been cold enough to make your eyes water if you’re out in it for any amount of time, but not so cold that your eyelashes freeze, which is this New England girl’s definition of uncomfortably chilly. I am mindful, living in a city as I do, that I am lucky to have a place to retreat to when the temperatures plummet, and I am grateful for that abundance.

3. Gramma is en route to a rehab facility in the town she and my folks live in. Since my mom, trooper that she is, has spent most of the past two weeks living in a Boston hotel, I’m delighted to hear she’ll be able to be home again. And a week or so in rehab will help Gramma gain the final strength necessary to come back home, which will make all of us happy.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Gramma comes through her heart surgeries okay.

2. We see The Rise of the Guardians, the story of how Jack Frost joins Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and the Sandman in protecting children from the Bogeyman, at the movie theater. It’s good enough that I could see owning it in the future.

3. Christmas trees (including ours) are along the street awaiting city pickup. The odor of pine wafts through the air.

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

If it’s Thursday, it’s time to look back at three beautiful things from the past week:

1. The UConn-Notre Dame women’s basketball game was on tv, which prompted Rudi to see when UConn would be in town to play Georgetown. Turns out it was Wednesday. It was great to see some of the Huskies’ newest talent, including spirited play from first-year student Moriah Jefferson. Georgetown’s Sugar Rodgers, who is being talked about for this year’s WNBA draft, was everywhere on the court, keeping the game far closer than I’d expected. (By that I mean UConn only won by 25 or so points.) If this is the last year the Huskies come to town (due to Georgetown’s imminent departure from the Big East), I’m over the moon that we got to see the game.

2. I hit both the Arlington and D.C. libraries to return (most of) the last of my Cybils books. And I took out books that I picked out and that I wanted to read. The first time since September!

3. Russian Christmas was Monday, which marked the end of the holiday gift-giving season between Rudi and me. To celebrate, he gave me Jasper Fforde’s The Last Dragonslayer, which I’d had to put off because of Cybils reading (and which I plan to devour this weekend), and my favorite tiny notebooks, purple and the perfect size for carrying in back pockets, purses, and knitting bags.

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

Happy 2013! As it’s Thursday, it’s time to look back at three beautiful things from the past week:

1. Rudi and I stop at Modern for pizza on our way back to D.C. Eating there would have required at least an hour’s wait out in the cold, so instead we called in a take-out order (and drove over to the New Haven Green to see the tree while we waited). We ate our fresh-out-of-the-oven, can’t-be-beaten pies in the car sitting outside the pizzeria.

2. I have knit much of a sock in the last week. The yarn is bright and self-striping in a colorway called Fruitcake, and the only constant through it all is the strand of sparkly red stellina that makes me feel so cheery when I look at it.

3. I have been sleep-deprived for months. The last week has been filled with sleeping late, going to bed at (by my standards) reasonable hours, and lots of naps on the sofa.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this week as the calendar changed months and years?