I’ve been exhausted all week and have taken to going to bed as soon as I get home, getting up for supper, and returning to bed. I think it’s allergies, as I’ve also been sneezing a lot when the Claritin wears off. I know it will pass and I will spend a portion of the weekend in bed snoozing while Rudi parties with his mom at her med school reunion in Florida.

In the meantime, I offer you three beautiful things from this week. I admit it was hard to choose, because it’s really a lovely time of year.

1. I dressed up for work yesterday and enjoyed the odd glances I got on the Metro. But when I got off at my stop, there was a gaggle of preschoolers waiting to get through the stiles. They were all knee-high and bedecked as ballerinas and pirates and superheroes, but they audibly gasped to see a full-grown witch pass them by.

2. Rudi and I bought new hoodie sweatshirts at the last Threadless sale and I’ve been living in mine because of that incomparable softness of the inside of a new sweatshirt. I don’t ever want to wash it!

3. Rudi and I baked cookies Friday evening to take to Sweetpea‘s party. Usually, Rudi does the cooking and I handle the baking, but Rudi had pointed me to this recipe and was much more skilled at the shaping of these than I. We had great fun and I packaged them up in a bowl with a cloth napkin, popped them into my Red Riding Hood basket, and thought nothing more of them. I handed them to the hostess when we arrived and she delighted me by being grossed out. And she wasn’t alone. What merited such a seasonal reaction? These.