Sarah, Rudi, and I spent the night at Nationals Park knitting away as part of Stitch and Pitch. Between sock knitting, extra innings, and a delay on the red line, there’s just no extra time in there for blogging.
Until tomorrow!
This has been a beautiful, lovely, amazing, fantastic week of superlative spring weather. It has been, people, the week we will look back on in mid-July when the temperatures are 90 hazy degrees with 90 percent humidity and our tempers are flaring because we are not so slowly becoming a human puddle and think, “I wish for that.” So I’ve spent time outside every day and walked or ridden my bike and sat at cafes and enjoyed outdoor markets and festivals and plan to continue to do so until the weather gods cut me off.
1. The first strawberries of the season dye my fingertips pink.
2. Bachelor buttons are 5/$1 at the local farmers’ market. I take a dollar’s worth back to the office for my desk — pink, purple, orchid, burgundy, and white with a deep violet center.
3. When we get in the car to drive up to the wool festival on Sunday, the radio is working. (Rudi informs me this is a somewhat rare occurrence these days.) And my iPod shuffle opts for “Last Train to Clarksville.” So I turned up the radio and rolled down the windows to share the joyful combination of fortune with the rest of Dupont Circle. (And, yes, my iPod says it knows that “Pleasant Valley Sunday” would have been more appropriate, but it didn’t want to send me over to rapturous.)
What’s been beautiful in your world this week?
(Oh, and before we go, happy early birthday to Jenn!)
What’s growing in this mid-Atlantic community garden plot in mid-May?
Our herbs are doing well. Rosemary and sage and lemon thyme survived the winter, to which this week we added regular thyme we picked up on our way out of the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. (more…)
Pardon my lack of words. My brain says I’ve had too much fun and sun at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival and that it’s time for bed.
I found this meme over at raidergirl3’s an adventure in reading; it originated with Stuck in a Book.
The Book I Am Currently Reading
I am stuck a third of the way into Jasper Fforde’s One of Our Thursdays Is Missing, just before Thursday gets thrust into a dangerous position. I seem unwilling to commit her to danger. And I just picked up Erin Bow’s Plain Katehalf an hour ago and read the first chapter.
The Book I Finished Last
Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear. That’s the last 2011 book review I owe before I’m caught up to date here on the blog.
The Next Book I Want to Read
Tea: A Global History by Helen Saberi, which Rudi gave to me for Christmas.
The Last Book I Bought
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, in part because I had kept the library copy out past its due date and still hadn’t started it. This paperback copy will fit nicely in my bag.
The Last Book I Was Given
Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer — a birthday gift from a coworker.
Today is sunny and mild and a perfect spring day — the perfect time to reflect on three beautiful things from the past week:
1. After a grey and dreary day, rain clouds pass through, leaving the sky washed clear with pink cotton candy clouds decorating the horizon.
2. One of my favorite tv series of the Aughts comes to Netflix streaming. Having missed the first season when it originally aired, I greedily watch the first five episodes of Charlie and Don trying to build a working relationship.
3. A card arrives in the mail with Easter wishes. The entire inside is filled with notes and colors, spilling over onto the back. Real mail makes my mailbox (and me) happy, but particularly when it’s so ebullient in its expression.
[Incidentally, we have just passed the six-year anniversary of publishing three beautiful things each Thursday. Thanks to Clare, who inspired such a lovely way to spend a part of each week.]
How about your week? What was beautiful in it?
Carole has, on occasion, written posts that are comprised of three lists of three related things. I’m stealing a post from her blog (it’s just not as seamless a phrase as the page-book metaphor) here:
Three things about my knitting:
1. I have three semi-active projects (meaning I’ve knit on each of them in the last three weeks) on my needles. All three were started at different times, but all three are green.
2. Sock Madness continues, but my portion of the insanity is done. I was knocked out of the competition Sunday night with only one+ of my socks done. I am still working on that sock. (Yes, it’s green.)
3. I have only bought two skeins of yarn so far this year. This streak may come to an end this weekend when Sarah and I head up to the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival on Sunday. Or, perhaps, I’ll decide that I have enough pretty yarns that are in my stash at home. It could happen.
Three things I’m unreasonably frustrated by:
1. My work schedule is such this year that I won’t be able to go out to Portland this summer for Sock Summit.
2. One of my galoshes has developed a gash on the side. Large slices in your boots tend to defeat the waterproof nature generally prized in such items.
3. I can’t find the bars of soap I bought in France when I was there three years ago. (Hey, it was a practical souvenir!) It would now be generous to describe the current bar in the bathroom as a shard, and I refuse to buy more when I know I have several tucked safely away somewhere.
Three things I’m looking forward to this weekend:
1. Morels at the farmers’ market.
2. Climbing up to the top of the tower at the National Cathedral.
3. EU Day. I’m thinking I might try Belgium and Finland this year.
Feel free to share your own three random things in the comments.