The final Thursday in January means one more chance to look back at three beautiful things from the last week of the month:

1. Tuesday’s weather was so warm and sunny that a coworker and I ate lunch outside sans jackets. And yesterday approached 70 (more than three times the temperature from the previous week), allowing for bare legs.

2. Pink cava cava navel oranges every afternoon.

3. We clear off the table, which left molehill status back in December. It’s refreshing to have it uncluttered — and the cats enjoy spreading out on it.

Bonus:

The paperwhites my uncle sent me for Christmas have bloomed and their heady scent saturates my office.

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

I thought I’d join Amanda in her weekly summary of where a weekend went:

• Snow in the late afternoon/early evening Friday meant fewer people out and about, allowing me a much coveted table at the local tea house. Chai and naan with my book, followed by tea and a cookie with Rudi.
• Finally reached Gramma by phone at the rehab facility.
• Dr. Who (we’re still several series behind the current one).
• Cuddly cats.
• Clean laundry.
• My cold, as I promised it would be, is on its way out.
• Lunch — a delicious salad with out-of-season blackberries and raspberries — at a new-to-me restaurant with Sarah.
• Followed by a remarkably tasty PB&J macaron.
• I stopped by the Library of Congress.
• And then headed over the river to the library of Arlington (to return materials before I accrued fines!).
• Rudi, en route home from skiing, gallantly picked me up, saving me from weekend metro waits.
• Starting new books and knitting projects.
• A quick trip to the farmers market, sun-warmed in the early afternoon.
• A teen mystery set in D.C. arrives from a publisher unrequested.
• Alone in the car means blasting one of my sing-out-loud playlists — and pressing repeat on “Accidentally in Love.”
• Joining Rudi out in Bowie for the delightful Wreck-It Ralph in our quest to see all of the nominees in the animated category of the Oscars. (Brave is the only film that remains and the Red Box in Columbia Heights has it.)
• A full moon.
• Home in time to talk to family.

How was your weekend?

It’s a sunny Thursday afternoon here in D.C. Time for three beautiful things from my past week:

1. It snowed last night! Enough to stick and make everything look fresh and pretty this morning, but not so much that it was onerous to trek through. A good dumping snowstorm with enough snow to romp in would be great, but I’ll take this for now.

2. The last few days have been below freezing, and I’ve enjoyed that. It’s been nice to get to wear turtlenecks and woolly accessories and sweaters and to snuggle under warm blankets and to turn up the radiator. It’s been cold enough to make your eyes water if you’re out in it for any amount of time, but not so cold that your eyelashes freeze, which is this New England girl’s definition of uncomfortably chilly. I am mindful, living in a city as I do, that I am lucky to have a place to retreat to when the temperatures plummet, and I am grateful for that abundance.

3. Gramma is en route to a rehab facility in the town she and my folks live in. Since my mom, trooper that she is, has spent most of the past two weeks living in a Boston hotel, I’m delighted to hear she’ll be able to be home again. And a week or so in rehab will help Gramma gain the final strength necessary to come back home, which will make all of us happy.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Gramma comes through her heart surgeries okay.

2. We see The Rise of the Guardians, the story of how Jack Frost joins Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and the Sandman in protecting children from the Bogeyman, at the movie theater. It’s good enough that I could see owning it in the future.

3. Christmas trees (including ours) are along the street awaiting city pickup. The odor of pine wafts through the air.

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

I’m appallingly bad at keeping annual resolutions, be they public or private, so instead this year I’m going to try something different: I’ve decided that I’m going to try to accomplish three things each month. If something is working but requires additional reinforcement, it can be carried over to another month, but if something isn’t working or has been accomplished, let’s cross it off the list and work on something else.

For January, my three goals are:

1. Do not buy hot drinks in disposable cups. I am guilty of running out to the local coffee shop for a cup of tea when I’m lacking teabags at work, and the waste that creates is not insignificant. I will take ingredients to make hot beverages into the office and will also bring in a travel mug, for those instances when I truly am out of luck in scrounging anything to flavor my hot water and need to seek outside assistance.
2. Attend a Tuesday night swing class/dance. We’ve talked about going dancing regularly for years, but rarely move anything but our lips. They hold weekly dances nearby, and I have eschewed volleyball for the next couple months in favor of a weekly date night with Rudi. Let’s start out right by getting to at least one this month.
3. Get my reader card for the Library of Congress. I was supposed to do this last year and got only as far as filling out the pre-registration form. I will get my butt over to the Hill and pick it up sometime this month.

How about you? Do you make resolutions or goals for yourself? Are you any good at keeping them?

If it’s Thursday, it’s time to look back at three beautiful things from the past week:

1. The UConn-Notre Dame women’s basketball game was on tv, which prompted Rudi to see when UConn would be in town to play Georgetown. Turns out it was Wednesday. It was great to see some of the Huskies’ newest talent, including spirited play from first-year student Moriah Jefferson. Georgetown’s Sugar Rodgers, who is being talked about for this year’s WNBA draft, was everywhere on the court, keeping the game far closer than I’d expected. (By that I mean UConn only won by 25 or so points.) If this is the last year the Huskies come to town (due to Georgetown’s imminent departure from the Big East), I’m over the moon that we got to see the game.

2. I hit both the Arlington and D.C. libraries to return (most of) the last of my Cybils books. And I took out books that I picked out and that I wanted to read. The first time since September!

3. Russian Christmas was Monday, which marked the end of the holiday gift-giving season between Rudi and me. To celebrate, he gave me Jasper Fforde’s The Last Dragonslayer, which I’d had to put off because of Cybils reading (and which I plan to devour this weekend), and my favorite tiny notebooks, purple and the perfect size for carrying in back pockets, purses, and knitting bags.

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