When I express surprise that Thursdays roll around with such speed it’s not because I have difficulty coming up with Three Beautiful Things. It’s just that this and the farmers’ market may be the only concrete reminder I have of what day of the week it is.

From this week:

1) On Saturday, I was in a store when I chanced to glance outside and see a pink tint to the sky. I hurried out to discover the most gorgeous sunset. It stretched from a dark blue in the east through the spectrum of purples, pinks, reds, and oranges to a pale sunny blue in the west. Layers of clouds created intricate designs. And one group of clouds had arranged itself in such a way as to look like a Greek god blowing the rest of the clouds across the sky. It was tremendous.

2) One of the houses near me pulled out all the stops for Halloween. They had purple sparkly streamers and giant spiders and pumpkins. It was very festive in a neighborhood that can be a little staid.

3) Rudi and I went up to Connecticut to get rid of some more of the stuff we had stored in my folks’ basement this past weekend. We are both packrats, so there’s a lot of stuff up there still and it can be traumatic to give it away. But this time it felt good. Three huge bags of clothes went to a thrift shop, two bags of papers and such went into the garbage pile, and five boxes of household goods are waiting to go to the thrift shop at Thanksgiving. It allowed us to find things that meant something to us (Rudi’s ski team photos and my letters from college) and to pass on things that have served us well but would better suit someone else now. We still have a number of boxes to go through, but it feels good to have made such a solid start.