Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. In the last week, our local park and the fancy steps near it have been home to two proposals and one tiny wedding reception picnic. I don’t know how yesterday’s proposal went; we came from the same direction the beloved was expected from, so we didn’t have any clue until we got to the top of the steps, where there were signs saying “Proposal in progress. Please wait two minutes” on the ground and on the young man’s back.

2. I started a new book this week and it’s told from the first-person plural point of view. As an English major, I find this a fascinating choice for narration and less than a chapter in, I’m already invested in finding out what else the author has in store for me.

3. We had another mishap making ice cream this evening, where I decided to trust the one recipe I saw online that told me what I wanted to hear about timelines, rather than every other recipe that would have made us wait. I’ve learned from past mishaps, though, and just ladled some non-frozen ice cream into glasses and topped them with whipped cream and chocolate sauce and called them milkshakes instead. Tomorrow we’ll have ice cream.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Just a few buildings up from ours, we pass a foraging albino squirrel.

2. Local green grapes are now in season!

3. The weather has been cooler this week (high temperatures in the 80s, lows below 70, and sometimes even reasonable levels of humidity). It has made such a difference in my mood.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. A friend calls to catch up.

2. Rudi and I don’t feel comfortable eating out at restaurants yet, but when we pick up pizza at our favorite restaurant, we eat our first slice or two in the car so we still get to enjoy that fresh out of the oven experience that’s so crucial to perfect pizza.

3. The annual summer sidewalk sale that usually takes place in the next neighborhood over went online and citywide this year, which meant that both our local fish & chip shop and the high-end grocery in our neighborhood were taking part. The former had a discount on gift cards, and the latter had a deal that if you bought a gift card, they threw in their weekly food bag for free. The “provisions” bag contained enough food for at least four meals of salads and the instructions on how to put them together in creative ways.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. We had our monthly video chat with friends. Everyone had relatively upbeat updates to share, from remote preschool to exercise habits to interviews.

2. Isiais did not bring the fury here that he did in some other places. Indeed, in his wake, cooler temperatures have stuck around, which have been welcome after the 28 days of 90+-degree days in July.

3. The midweek farmers market included a man who heads back to his father’s village in Greece each February to harvest olives and bottle micro-batches of olive oil. It was a pricey splurge, but I’m looking forward to sampling it on Sunday’s capreses.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. I told you back in the spring about a project that Rudi and a friend of his started where they match bikes that people weren’t using anymore with essential workers who needed them. This week they were honored with a microgrant from The Awesome Foundation.

2. Several abstracts my department submitted to an upcoming conference were accepted, so my younger colleagues and I will all be giving short, pre-recorded talks this fall. (The fact that they will be pre-recorded, rather than live and in person, is what makes this beautiful, rather than nauseating.

3. A friend’s birthday was today. Usually we sing to his voicemail, but tonight he picked up the line, so we got to catch up.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. When I went down to the garden Sunday evening, the field was full of dragonflies glittering and glinting in the late day sun.

2. We have had several spectacular thunderstorms in the region this week. Some have been far enough away that we were simply able to keep an eye on the light show from afar, while others flashed and boomed and poured rain down on our neighborhood.

3. We took our lawn chairs, store-brand Cracker Jack, and shelled peanuts up to the park to listen to as much of the game as the Nationals and Yankees were able to cram in before the rain on Opening Day. I forget in the off-season how much knitting one can get done while listening to games on the radio! (I have mixed feelings about the decision to hold professional sport events, but apparently not enough to boycott them, at least at this stage.)

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