Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Mondays, I coach in a kids’ afterschool volleyball program. Usually, I end up with the littlest kids, but this week, there were only two adults. The other woman doesn’t have much volleyball experience, so she asked if I’d take the preteens. I thought we ended up having a pretty good practice, and while I got a little attitude at the beginning, I thought I dissipated it pretty quickly.

2. I knit a bulky-weight hat this week, so I could wear it while playing tonight if it felt cold enough to need it. (It didn’t.) I didn’t check stitch gauge and it’s a little bigger than I’d like, so I’m going to reknit it on slightly smaller needles. But it felt so good to actually finish something enough that it could be worn.

3. I had a meeting this week with the president of the company that organized the scavenger hunt my friends and I did earlier this month. He was looking for feedback on how our experience with the game and I was happy to tell him how much we’d enjoyed it. But he also offered to make any connections he could with local nonprofits in his network as I’m continuing my job search, which was such a surprising kindness.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. My dad’s 80th birthday was Saturday, and our immediate family and his best friends went to Cape Cod to celebrate. My brother made all the arrangements and did a fantastic job with all of it.

2. My friend’s baby was clearly eager to help open his gifts from the volleyball team, because he arrived on Friday to much fanfare.

3. Two dear college friends texted to say they’re coming to visit next weekend.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week all involve my volleyball friends:

1. Sergio and his wife are having a baby this month, and a bunch of us went in on a group gift. We had agreed to a plan, which included my taking care of the ordering. I knew the money would follow, but yesterday and today it started to pour in and kept doing so. Today, I got to go and buy some extra books to zero us out. When we presented him with the gift and he read everyone’s messages, he nearly broke down and I got a touching email from him when he got home to open some of the gifts with his wife.

2. Chris proposed to his girlfriend last week and she said yes.

3. My friends Neal and Amy agreed to take part in a literary scavenger hunt with me last weekend. We solved riddles, clues, and puns and visited a number of literary-themed sites (including the main library, where I finally got to ride the slide!) It helps to be able to ignore the signs stating there’s an age limit when you have a tweet from the head librarian giving you the green light. It ended up being such a blast, and while Amy is moving away, I think Neal would do it again with me next year.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. House- and dog-sitting for a friend means I spend a lot of time curled up with a snuggly pup.

2. Tonight’s sunset was the kind where every moment you think it’s gotten as beautiful as it possibly can and then it amps it up again.

3. A couple strangers at pickup volleyball offered compliments on my play (one guy made particularly head-turning comparisons) and a friend whose own skills I respect echoed some of them.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. The sky reminds me of a poster Grey Kitten used to have on his wall growing up, all pinks and oranges.

2. Rudi comes home after ten days away.

3. We got gelato as a chaser to our second COVID boosters.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Playing good (not just winning) volleyball.

2. Sergio has been taking pictures of our volleyball team this summer. Today he shared dozens of photos with us.

3. Cereal for when I don’t feel like cooking and ingredients for when I do.

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