Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Kris Delmhorst played this week at Gypsy Sally’s, a local club in Georgetown. Her music makes me smile just as much today as it did the first time we saw her perform on my 25th birthday.

2. Karen and I both run IM on our work computers and, as the mood strikes us, we share how the day is going. We’re far apart, but as close as a window will allow. I think we’ve talked every day this week.

3. I didn’t realize until after everyone else had left the garden clean-up day that there was a person-sized hole in the fence next to my plot. I managed to cut and secure a new piece of fencing on my own to mend it.

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

Three beautiful things from our past week:

1. We eat four of the apples we brought back from Vermont tonight, and one of them, Hidden Rose, has pink flesh. The others are the small Lamb Abbey, the oddly shaped Calville Blanc d’Hiver, and the red Mollie(‘)s Delicious. My favorite is the Calville, which is sweetly tart and crisp.

2. We arrive at the ocean two days after the remnants of a tropical storm have passed through. Surfers are plentiful, but it’s with a start, after overhearing a comment, that I realize what I originally thought was a class of wetsuit-clad boarders is actually a pod of 50 or so seals body-surfing in the breakers.

3. A daddy long-legs has gotten wet and can’t escape the campground bathroom sink. I offer it a literal helping hand and it climbs out and up onto the tap, where it proceeds to shake its legs off and lick (or something that looks similar) them dry.

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

Three beautiful things from our past week:

1. Sam & Alexis’ son, Max, is merely three weeks old when we get the chance to visit. He is adorable and tiny and neither Rudi nor I break him while we hold him.

2. Last year, our fall road trip to New England came after the peak foliage season here had passed. This year, we’re in the midst of it and have seen some gorgeous color:

3. Just as I say, “Gosh, if it were six hours later, there would be a rainbow with this rain,” I spy a noon rainbow just over the horizon.

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

Three beautiful things from the past week (it’s late and I’m tired and hungry, so I will attempt to make only one of these items about food):

1. When I go to the farmers market during the week, I like to pick up something sweet for tea. Today’s treat was Kouign amann, a French cake from the Breton region. It was dense and flaky simultaneously, rich with butter, and topped with caramelized sugar.

2. Saturday was our annual trip to pick apples with Sarah, John, and Nicole. We each came away with a decent-sized bag of apples to keep us happy for a couple months, and the day was comfortable and dry, which the forecast had threatened might not be the case.

3. Sunday afternoon, well before I was expecting to hear from him, Rudi rang my cell. After this winter, you’ll be unsurprised that my heart sank into my shoes at seeing his name come across my screen. While I don’t wish anyone else an injury (and particularly not gentle Chris), I was really relieved when it turned out not to be Rudi who’d crashed and that he was calling to say he’d be late because he was picking up his wounded compatriot at the hospital.

and 4. (I lied. But you’ll understand why in a second.) Salad topped with french fries. You’re welcome, and I’m sorry (not sorry).

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

Sometimes (when I remember to take a photo), Wednesdays are for sharing books and knitting projects as I yarn along with Ginny.

This is a week for attempting to finish things previously begun. My reading is the verse memoir, Brown Girl Dreaming, by Jacqueline Woodson, who was one of the authors I listened to at the National Book Festival. I’m enjoying her poems about growing up African American in the late-1960s and 1970s. I’m hoping to finish by Friday, because the book has holds on it at the library and I need to return it before the weekend. On the audiobook front, I just tonight (since I wanted something for while I was dealing with peeling a pot of tomatoes) started listening to Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South, via the CraftLit podcast.

My current knitting is the next in my stripey stockinette socks in progress. These, knit in Beyond Basic Knit’s Vintage Holiday, I started last fall in hopes of wearing them during the Christmas 2013 season, but that didn’t happen. Sock #1 is done and #2 is well started, so hopefully these will be completed well before this year’s holidays. I already have a skein of new stripey yarn waiting to be wound into a ball, ready to commence working on next week, although I probably ought to consider some baby knitting for the latest additions to the greater friend pool.

How about you? What are you reading and/or knitting this week?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. A couple blocks away lives a painter who frequently works on his front patio. This week, I notice that the bush behind where his easel stands is flecked with sky blue and neon green speckles.

2. Just after passing a shop window filled with boring neutrals, I notice a woman crossing the street wearing a shimmering magenta headscarf.

3. Rudi and I headed to the DelMarVa peninsula for a weekend of camping, bike riding, and frolicking at the beach. We were also treated to three evenings of breathtaking sunsets, including this one, which shows the Assateague Light and a crescent moon, as seen from our campsite on Chincoteague (of the Misty books):

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