The number one thing on this week’s three beautiful things list nearly knocked everything else off. It’s worth three items, just in itself:

1. One of my best friends from college phoned last night to tell me that they’d finally received their adoption referral. A woman, just our age, dropped off her darling baby boy at an orphanage in Guatemala City last Friday, four days after he was born. Rebs and Rick are overjoyed, as are both families, for whom this will be the first grandson. I can’t imagine how hard that decision must have been for the woman, but I hope she will sleep well at night because Rebs is going to be an unbelievable mommy to this dearly desired child. She is kind and playful and disciplined — and filled beyond brimming with love. I’m over the moon with delight for them all and must now get busy knitting baby items.

2. I sat outside reading after work Tuesday afternoon in the 80+ degree weather. I shifted slightly in my seat and realized there was the most gorgeous sunset going on over my shoulder — blue intensifying to vibrant purple streaked with magenta and ending with brilliant oranges and pinks near where the sun danced with the horizon.

3. Well-written tv shows are hard to come by these days, and those that exist tend to focus on an ensemble cast. To have a show that focuses on a single character — and to pull it off — is nearly unheard of. But Raines, a new character drama featuring Jeff Goldblum, does just that. He plays Michael Raines, a California police detective whose overactive brain causes him to imagine his murder victims come to life. He’s brilliant and troubled and tetchy — but in a lovable way. I hope the show is picked up for a full season next year — and that the writing and acting remains so strong.

If it’s Thursday, it’s time for Three Beautiful Things. You know how we play…

1. Sunday night, I volunteered to cook dinner and baked a quiche. Because we lack counter space, things were piled dangerously on the stove and on the counter below our cupboards. I reached up to pull out a pie plate and accidentally knocked the huge sauce pot off its wall hanger by tapping it wrong with the cabinet door. The pot fell, pulling the light’s plug out of the wall, but not the light from its mooring. The stove was spared the pot, but was attacked from the cabinet above with falling bakeware. The pot bounced on the floor, scattering glass bottles waiting to be taken to the recycling bin like bowling pins. The clatter was overwhelming, easily using up one of Jeremiah’s lives (and possibly one of my own), but nothing — not a single thing — broke.

2. I ordered lunch, complete with chocolate cake, for a work event Monday afternoon. The caterer assured me that a cake was no problem, and my boss picked out chocolate when asked what she preferred. The delight we ended up with was a four-layer extravaganza interspersed with chocolate mousse and topped with ganache. It was simultaneously sinfully rich and deceptively light and may be the best chocolate cake I’ve ever had.

3. I enjoy listening to Craftlit, a podcast for literature and craft lovers. Heather, the podcaster and a former English teacher, spends the first half of each episode talking about crafts and her life and setting up the second half, which features public domain literature read aloud as part of the Librivox program. Today I was listening to a show she aired last month that included a Mark Twain short story “Taming the Bicycle,” read aloud by a Twain impersonator.

Here’s an excerpt:

Even when I could not hit a wagon I could hit a dog that came to see me practice. They all liked to see me practice, and they all came, for there was very little going on in our neighborhood to entertain a dog.

Hilarious. I laughed the whole two-plus miles home.

Three beautiful things from the last week:

1. It being nice enough out to walk both to and from work (particularly when there are delays on the metro). I particularly like passing the magnolia trees that are starting to bloom in front of the Phillips.

2. Getting tickets to two of the three Mets-Nationals series when parceling out the season package.

3. Rudi made sweet potato fries to go with our burgers last night, just when I was really craving salt.

Don’t forget to enter the drawing if you haven’t already.

Three beautiful things from the past week:

1) As I lay in bed yesterday morning watching the snow drift down, a flake gets caught in a spider web and glistens. Because it’s so cold, it lasts for quite a while.

2) While walking from the Metro to my office, I pass a woman and a child, whom I assume to be her grandchild. The girl, whom I guess to be around three, is bundled up in a tiny purple parka; the woman in a long dress coat. The woman sing-counts a marching beat for the child and laughs when I catch her eye and smile.

3) Last Friday was warm enough for me to sit outside at lunchtime to read my book and eat. I found a spot along a pedestrian pathway and was able to bask in 65 degree sun unaccosted for a whole hour.

It has been a rough week month year here in the Burrow, but even in the throes of depression, we can still find beautiful things to share. Here are three from the last week:

1. This morning, it occurred to me that, since moving to D.C., I have allowed my personality to become sublimated a bit. (Those of you who only know me from D.C. may find it shocking that this is a paler, quieter version of me. But it’s true…) So this morning, I pulled the price tags off some new shoes, broke open my purple mascara, and dug out the gold sparkly lotion. I’d stopped wearing it when a coworker told me that whenever I wore it I reminded him of the stripper from his bachelor party. But he doesn’t work here anymore and, even if he did, that would be his problem, not mine. Watch out, D.C.; my effervescence could be catching!

2. I haven’t talked to BW since before Christmas, but we finally managed to catch up with each other last night and spent a while chatting on the phone. It wasn’t as good as a cocoa break in person, but it was pretty close.

3. Missing tv episodes can be frustrating because you miss key storylines or character development. I caught up with two favorite shows this week — Ugly Betty in the old-fashioned way on the rebroadcast and Heroes in a more modern streaming fashion. How fantastic to have the choice between waiting for it to come around again or seeking it out online for an immediate fix!

It’s late, but I wanted to share three beautiful things with you from our drive home tonight from Connecticut:

1. Although predicted to be awful most of the way home, the driving conditions were only messy for a relatively short period of time in New Jersey. In fact, for the last half of the drive, the roads were merely wet.

2. It started snowing in D.C. this morning and there are several inches piled up around the city. It looks particularly lovely on the tree limbs — deliciously wintry.

3. Someone built a snowman in a park overlooking one of the main arteries into the city. The best part? The snowman is giving all the drivers a thumbs up sign.