I bookended the week with baseball games on both Monday and Friday, which the Nationals were kind enough to win both of. In between, the Nationals clinched a wild card spot, and today they locked down home field advantage for that one-game playoff to see who’ll proceed to the NLDS.

This shot is from Monday’s game against the Phillies. You can tell both by the uniforms (we’re playing Cleveland this weekend) and by the sparse crowds. Friday night games are always better attended than those during the week, but last night’s crowd was particularly into the game, with most of the attendees remaining at the game until the end, which happens surprisingly infrequently when there’s not something after the game to keep them at the ballpark.

Tomorrow is the final game of the regular season. I will be sad to see baseball end for the year, so I’m glad the Nationals have given me another reason to remain interested during the playoffs.

It’s the first official weekend of fall. Here’s what I hope it includes:

• Spend time at the garden. (It’s one of the seasonal work days, plus I should plant some more seeds.)
• Catch a little more baseball. (We went to the game tonight, but I’d like to pull in a little of one of the Mets games before their season wraps up on Sunday.)
• Get crafty. (The year’s biggest craft sale in D.C. happens this weekend. I at least want to go look.)
• Bind off my shawl.
• Do some fall cleaning. (Some old friends will be in town in the next week and while our time together will likely not include a visit here (they have a little kid and it’s easier for us to go to them), I’d rather be prepared to be polite.)
• Paint my nails. (After the cleaning, obviously.)
• Refill the tea canisters.
• Do laundry.
• Finish The Library Book and get it back to the library.
• Get some sleep.

What do you hope to do this weekend?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. In a surprise to this Mets fan after such a rocky start to the season, my favorite baseball team wasn’t eliminated from playoff contention until the final Wednesday of the season. (And my second-favorite team, the Nationals, clinched a wild-card spot the night before.)

2. I got to try out my new volleyball sneakers on the court. They did not make me play like Kerri Walsh, but they did make my knees feel way better. (Oh, and my new indoor team seems nice. I joined them at the bar for a while after the game because Rudi was out for the evening.)

3. The heat hasn’t disappeared for good yet, but autumn has arrived. I’m looking forward to crisp weather and changing leaves and knitwear season (although not to earlier darkness).

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

No pictures of knitting or books today. I was going to spend the time after volleyball knitting on my shawl (which has remained two rows and the bind-off away from completion for weeks now!), but instead I napped. I did cast on for a new pair of socks with the Halloween yarn I bought this weekend. And I’m attending a local candidate’s forum tomorrow evening, so I’ll be knitting on something while I’m there.

The reading front has been similarly barren. I’ve got The Library Book going in the evenings, Murder in the Locked Library if I leave my desk for lunch, and I just resumed listening to The Bookshop on the Shore tonight.

Visit As Kat Knits to see what others are reading and crafting.

In honor of the first full day of autumn, please join me for a warm drink. This is a pumpkin spice chai latte, but you can have tea or cocoa or coffee or whatever.

Apparently we have to drink those hot beverages now, because there’s a possibility of another heat wave coming through next weekend into next week.

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl asks what we plan on reading for the autumnal season:

1. Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell and Faith Erin Hicks
2. Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell
3. Erin Morgenstern’s The Starless Sea
4. The Art of Theft by Sherry Thomas:
5. Sherry Thomas’ The Magnolia Sword: A Ballad of Mulan
6. Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
7. Dreyer’s English by Benjamin Dreyer
8. Bruja Born by Zoraida Córdova
9. Mary Robinette Kowal’s The Calculating Stars
10. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

How about you? What are you hoping to read now that it’s fall?