Looking ahead, this week I need to get some solid cover letters written. I’d also like to swap out the summer and winter clothes (D.C. is probably done with 80s finally, which will make that possible.) and get the fairy lights up again now that the darkness is coming so much earlier.

I also have my usual coaching and volleyball schedules. (I believe this Saturday may be the final week for grass volleyball. Sand volleyball will continue for a few more weeks before we move indoors for the winter.)

I have lunch with a friend on Thursday. And Saturday night, friends are throwing a Halloween party, so costume planning will be part of the week’s off-hours.

I have a couple books out right now that won’t be able to be renewed, so I need to make some time to spend curled up with them.

And tomorrow, Rudi and I are going to drive out to the mountains of Virginia to see some fall color. I’ve heard it’s muted up and down the Eastern countryside, but some color is better than none.

I kicked off this weekend with an apple-picking and cider doughnut-acquiring trip with Sarah and Rudi. Rudi and I were going to quickly eat supper and then head back out to catch the first day of Art All Night, but I’d stayed up late getting some job applications ready to submit this morning, and between that and the day in the sun, I was done and utterly crashed on the sofa.

But the weekend stretches before us, and here’s what I’m hoping to fill it with:

• Baking with some of the apples we picked. There’s definitely a crisp in my future and maybe a quick bread or an apple cake.
• Playing volleyball. The last grass court volleyball season of the year kicks off tomorrow.
• Working in the garden. There should be more tomatoes to pick and I might try planting the potato that’s on the counter that started to sprout. It’s late in the season, but what do I have to lose?
• Picking up holds from the library.
• Taking advantage of the second day of Art All Night. I’ll be more awake, and at least some of the activities will be in our neighborhood, so even if I’m not…
• Going to my friend’s on Sunday.
• Shopping at the farmers market. We’ve got to be getting close to the end of peaches and corn.
• Getting the group baby shower gift for a friend sorted out.
• Knitting.
• Tidying up the kitchen. We found a small bag of potatoes had gone bad the other night, because it had gotten hidden behind some other things on a shelf. It’s time to get that space sorted out.
• Getting some sleep. And with that, I’m off!

It’s been a while since I’ve contemplated what I’m hoping to do with my week. But Rudi comes home and a new season begins, and it seems like an obvious time to consider what the next seven days might hold:

• Attending the seasonal volunteer training (my volunteer gig kicks back off next Monday)
• Playing volleyball
• Picking Rudi up at the airport first thing in the morning (and convincing him the next logical stop is the doughnut shop)
• Making a cherry tomato dish
• Knitting
• Cleaning
• Applying for a job
• Doing laundry
• Going apple picking with Sarah
• Planting some seedlings in and weeding the garden
• Catching some of Art All Night on Saturday
• Practicing getting up early a couple days so dogsitting doesn’t come as a horrible shock next week!

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. The volleyball team has worked on leveling up together, meaning nearly all of us are better than we were at the start of the season. We chased down balls we would have let drop, we blocked shots, and we made smart hits to beat a really solid team this week, moving us up into third in our league to end the regular season and making for a very merry gathering afterwards.

2. We arrived in Salt Lake this morning and while Rudi was getting his hair cut, I checked out a new-to-me tea house. The single-estate Assam tea from Kenya I tried was wonderful.

3. We saw A Strange Loop, a musical about a gay Black playwright struggling with his inner critics and his familial expectations, in New York City last weekend and found it deserving of every award it has won. The acting was outstanding, the lyrics moving and cheeky by turn, and the mostly minimal staging effective. I will need to read the libretto at some point, because there are seven people on stage nearly all the time and some of them singing over each other, which means I definitely didn’t catch everything that was going on.

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

Eighteen months ago, I started a list of 50 things I wanted to try or do by the time I turned 50, three years off at that time.

I haven’t looked at the list in more than a year, when I’d gotten it up to 30 items which ranged from the monumental — clear our Rudi’s mom’s house — to the more mundane — grow something new in the garden each year. So tonight I opened up the document, checked off the things I could say I’d done definitively, noted ones that were in progress, added another dozen items to the list, and identified 12 I’d work on in the next six months.

I won’t share all of them here, but here’s half the list:

• Have a job where I don’t hate Mondays
• Write two of my favorite teachers from growing up
• Hang our art
• Read a novel by a Russian
• Win a volleyball league championship
• Get caught up on or rip out all my partially started knitting projects

Do you make plans or resolutions for your birthdays, particularly round ones?

Rudi is away this week, but I still have a full list of things to do while he’s out west:

• Apply for a couple jobs I saved last week. (The three-month sabbatical I gave myself to lounge around is over, and now I need to start lining something up for the fall.)
• Clean the apartment. (Yes, technically this should be a two-person job, but I think we each find it easier to make progress if only one of us does the work at a time. Plus, I have a friend I’d like to have over for the first time, and I’d like not to have him back away slowly when I open the door. It was much easier when I lived in a dorm and my messy room was just open to the world all the time.)
• Acquire quarters, so I can make progress on Mount Laundry.
• Finish a couple books. (I have at least three that are overdue.)
• Keep plugging away on my shawl. (Honestly, the brioche is slower going than I expected it would be, but I like it so far.)
• Talk with some friends. (We’ve let it go too long.)
• Pick tomatoes in the garden. (I’ve already eaten the first cherry tomatoes of the season. Sweet!)
• Hang out with the volleyball team.
• Work on my Camp NaNoWriMo writing project. I made almost no progress last week, but am confident that I can get myself back on track.
• Bake.
• Finalize my #GiftmasinJuly package, so I can get it out the door by early next week.
• Swim.
• Spend time outside.

A baker’s dozen of chores, must-do’s, and fun things. What are you hoping to do this week?