I awoke today finally feeling a bit better. Thanks, everyone, for your suggestions of how to feel better! Here are three beautiful things from the past week:

1. This week, recycling bins appeared downtown next to trash cans. When we moved down here five years ago, hardly anyone recycled. I’m absolutely delighted with the change of attitude over time.

2. As I walked back to the office with my sandwich, the skies grew menacing and the winds picked up. By the time I’d reached the roof deck, rain was starting to speckle down, forcing me inside. A chapter later in my book, and the spritzing was done. I moved back outside to discover the heat and humidity had broken. In the shade, I actually needed my cardigan.

3. On Sunday, the weather was so beautiful that I opted to go on a bike ride and then head to the pool to swim. On my way down to the river, I passed a heron. My bike decided to cooperate by letting me into my highest set of gears for the first time this season. The water was refreshing, but not cold, after my ride. And the sun shone down like it really believed that life was good.

Ahem, is this thing on?

I still haven’t unpacked from my vacation, so rest assured the blog isn’t the only neglected thing in my life this week. Rudi will be away this weekend riding up yet another mountain, so I will have plenty of time then to tell you about the adventures of the last week. But there is time now to share some of the little details of the past seven days. Three beautiful things:

1. A man wearing a baggy t-shirt and exercise pants walks past me walking the tiniest terrier I’ve ever seen. It was maybe the size of my hand, and a D.C. rat would have required three or four of it to make a satisfying lunch.

2. I returned home to find a small package waiting for me. My dentist had sent me a compilation cd to thank me for referring Rudi to him. I’ve had doctors thank me for referrals before, but never actually had them offer a gift. It was a classy touch.

3. Irisa, Shelley and Mike’s seven-year-old daughter, is growing up. The night they arrived, she explained to Rudi how she’s been practicing rolling her eyes. My mother will assure you that I am the queen of this skill, so I was sure to offer my expert advice over the weekend. Shelley was delighted, I’m sure, but this is the role of aunties everywhere — to help with valuable life skills that parents would prefer you not acquire.

I’m away, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get reading material. Here are three beautiful things from the past week:

1. I walk into the bathroom after Rudi leaves for work. I’m greeted by the smell of coconut lemongrass soap, which Rudi picked up because he knows how much I love coconut. It always reminds me of the beach and makes me so happy.

2. My festival-bought sundress has yards and yards of fabric and the skirt billows around me in what seems like a romantic way as I trot down the Metro escalator.

3. A sparrow bathes in some loose dirt, wallowing in the dust.

Three beautiful things from the past week:

1. Sarah and I went to see the Indigo Girls perform at Wolf Trap tonight. We’ve been talking about doing this for something on the order of three years, so it was great that the stars finally aligned tonight. In addition to it being a girls’ night out, listening to the Indigo Girls always reminds me of our college sing-alongs and of Kim and Rebecca in particular. I was thinking of you tonight as I lay under the stars.

2. Okay, so the end result was not what National League fans were hoping for, but I don’t think anyone who stayed up for the entirety of the fifteen-inning All-Star Game couldn’t have asked for for a more exciting game. Whether it was the AL comeback in the 8th or the NL saving the game again and again in extra innings, it was definitely one for the history books — and for the memory bank.

3. Over the couple weeks I’ve acquired several new fibery skills in order to continue work on the Summer of Socks. Two weeks ago, the new skill was short-row heels (for the non-knitterly amongst my readers, that means heels that have a diagonal line running along the side of the heel like most store-bought socks have). Last week it was starting a sock from the toe and working up toward the cuff. Last night it was working a crocheted-trim edge along socks I began optimistically for St. Patrick’s Day back in March. It’s all very exciting to have these weapons in my sock-making arsenal.

Three beautiful things from the past week:

1. Our family has birthdays in spurts. July has already held my dad’s sister’s and father’s birthdays; his middle brother’s birthday is toward the end of the month. Because my grandfather and my Aunt Carrie are no longer with us, my dad sends out memories to the rest of the family via email. These missives always set me off a little bit, but generally the tears are good ones for memories of big family gatherings when I was a kid. My Aunt Dort just sent an email sharing some of her memories of Grampa, too, which is particularly nice because I didn’t know him as well as I’d have liked.

2. Dad’s email last weekend about my Aunt Carrie made me think back to some of my memories of her. The year I got out of college I wanted to make cookies for my dad, but my grandmother had died too early for her to teach me how to make Gramma Cookies, so Aunt Carrie provided me with the secret recipe. Aunt Carrie is also the one who could always be counted on to send me a Valentine’s Day birthday card, even well into my college years, sometimes with a little extra something tucked in to help me celebrate. And the last few years, when she was sick, she was always excited to talk with me about yoga. She particularly liked the tree pose, saying she could just feel roots growing from her foot into the earth when she did it. She was like that with the family — offering us great stability and serving as a grounding force over the years.

3. My dad and Dort both wrote about my grandfather’s love of television and maybe that’s one of the most consistent memories I have of him. We’d go over to visit once a week and while Mum and Dad and Gramma sat in the kitchen and talked, Josh and I would go into the living room and watch tv with Grampa, who let us watch all sorts of things on cable that probably no one else would have let us watch back in the day. We saw some baseball, but we loved music videos and Grampa would let us put on VH1 and just let the music play. We also watched tv shows that would have been off-limits at home, like Hawaii Five-Oh or movies. I particularly remember watching the entirety of Starman in their Ansonia living room.

It’s the Thursday before a long weekend here in the U.S., so shortly things will be even more beautiful than normal with three whole days stretching luxuriously before me. Before we can look forward to that, however, I need to share three beautiful things from the past week:

1. Now that we have a date for the fall wedding we’ll be attending (thanks for sharing it so quickly, Karen!), we’re narrowing in on dates for a vacation. It looks like we’ll be heading to France between Election Day and Thanksgiving (probably Nov. 5-15). I love research, so this part of vacation planning is almost as fun as the vacation itself for me. Anyone have any suggestions of things to do/places to go while in France?

2. The reassuring feeling of wet sand between my toes at the seaside.

3. I’m loving the sock I’m working on right now. The yarn is self-striping, which is always interesting, and the pattern consists of only two rows, one of which is all-knit. It’s very meditative to knit and quite addictive because I get to the end of a round and want to knit just one more round before I stop. I think I’ll be done with the toe tonight.