Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Earlier tonight, Hillary Clinton became the first woman to accept the nomination to president of a major party saying it was a victory both for women and for men because “when any barrier falls in America for anyone, it clears the way for everyone. When there are no ceilings, the sky’s the limit.” Whether Hillary is the candidate for you or not, it’s an amazing piece of history to witness.

2. I had to go to the grocery store, and lemonade was on sale during the hottest week thus far of the summer.

3. My favorite coworker (and not just because of this) likes to bake and sometimes she brings her leftovers into the office to share with a couple of us. This week, it was a slice of blackberry almond cake.

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

This weekend was a quiet, pictureless weekend filled with heat, heat, and more heat.

We watched the end of the Tour de France. It was an enjoyable bike race, and I’m now looking forward to the Olympics in a couple weeks’ time.

I went to the pool and enjoyed playing in the water. That’s where we were on Saturday evening, when a rainbow appeared in the sky.

We did some laundry. (We did not fold it and keep moving the lump of clean towels and blankets from the bed to the sofa. I assume we’ll deal with it properly tomorrow.)

I went to the farmers market and to the grocery store and to the library.

I picked our first larger-sized tomato from the garden. (We also grow currant tomatoes, which are roughly the same size as a pea.) It’s not fully ripe, but I lost two earlier in the week to either a squirrel or a hornworm, so wasn’t going to take any chances.

I read some (I’m two-thirds done with Modern Lovers, which is overdue.) and knit some (the shawl did not get finished by the time the Tour riders reached Paris, but I am in the stripes), but did neither enough.

We fixed the blender and had our first daiquiris in a couple years. We’re either out of grenadine or it’s hiding well in the back recesses of the fridge, and I forgot to buy whipped cream, but otherwise it was very good, and I had two glasses over the course of the weekend.

I did dishes and slept, and I’m now going to do them both again.

Three beautiful things from this past week:

1. The almond & coconut Kind bars are really delicious, kind of like a naked Almond Joy.

2. We had the last volleyball slot of the day, which put me on the bike path along the Potomac just after nine. The sun had recently set, but the vistas toward Georgetown were still dusky purples and roses and oranges.

3. John and Nicole invited us to join them for supper, so Rudi finally got to meet their daughter Juliet.

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

I know this looks a lot like the photo I posted two weeks ago, and you’d be right. I’ve made slow progress in Modern Lovers, in part because the border of the shawl required too much attention to work from a print book as I went, so I’ve been listening to audiobooks instead. I finished Louise Penny’s Still Life, which I enjoyed well enough, and have moved on to The Heist, a romantic caper by Stephanie Evanovich and Lee Goldberg. Modern Lovers is about a third done and nearly a week overdue, so hopefully I’ll get it finished up this weekend in time for a trip to the library.

The expanded border is completely done, as is the first ball of yarn, nearly. The stripy section begins next, as do mindless knitting, the final two balls of yarn, and regular decreases. I’m looking forward to all of it (although carrying three balls worth of yarn in my courier bag is definitely going to be a little more tricky than just toting around the one. The Tour de France ends on Sunday, and while it’s possible that I might finish in time, it’s not looking overly optimistic unless I find the stripes far faster than I expect to. That said, I’d guess that it’ll be done before the end of the month, which will let me get back to my purse-friendly Hitchhiker as I figure out my knitting project for the Ravellenic Games to be knit during the Olympics. Will it be the traditional August finishing of the socks? Or will finishing new projects be so addictive I need to start something else? Things to consider…

Yarning along with Ginny at Small Things.

Three beautiful things from my past week (each of which, I now realize, contains mention of eating):

1. I attend free outdoor concerts on back-to-back evenings. The first is an alt-country band and features ice cream cones, snow cones, and cookies to decorate in a Georgetown park. The second is a trio of punk bands as part of a decades-old festival at the remains of a Civil War-era fort and features cake and a lemonade stand. All are excellent.

2. Rudi and I take an afternoon and go down to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the Mall. This year’s celebrated cultures include the Basque country, the music of California, and migrant communities. We listen to and watch performances, admire crafts (we often play the find-the-woolworker game at Folklife), and sample the local cuisine.

3. Everyone else has other plans on Friday evening, so Rudi and I are on our own for our traditional concert and picnic. The local cover band is one of our favorites, so we sing along with many of their songs, and we eat pretty much everything we brought.

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

Three beautiful things from the first week of July:

1. Taking a half day at work lets me sneak out to late afternoon ballgame. There was no line at Shake Shack, where they serve fancy versions of Blizzards. Going by myself means I can listen to the game on the radio under my headphones. Despite giving up a worrying number of runs, the Nationals win the game.

2. Corey finds an air pillow from some package has drifted to the floor. He can now often be found using it as a back or head support.

3. There have been some pretty phenomenal clouds in the past week:

(The last shot also shows a decent example, if I say so myself, of crepuscular rays, a rather ugly word for a delightful trick of light.)

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