This week, That Artsy Reader Girl invites us to share a Halloween-themed Top Ten Tuesday topic. I don’t like scary reads, but periodically I do enjoy a book that includes a ghost or spirit as one of the characters. Here are ten of those:

1. Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
2. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
3. Under the Whispering Door by T.J. Klune
4. Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts by Kate Racculia
5. Carry On by Rainbow Rowell
6. The Greenglass House by Kate Milford
7. Me by Amber McBride
8. Sal and Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos Hernandez
9. Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan
10. The Ex Hex by Erin Sterling

How about you? Do you have any books that include ghosts or spirits you’d recommend?

Looking ahead, this week I need to get some solid cover letters written. I’d also like to swap out the summer and winter clothes (D.C. is probably done with 80s finally, which will make that possible.) and get the fairy lights up again now that the darkness is coming so much earlier.

I also have my usual coaching and volleyball schedules. (I believe this Saturday may be the final week for grass volleyball. Sand volleyball will continue for a few more weeks before we move indoors for the winter.)

I have lunch with a friend on Thursday. And Saturday night, friends are throwing a Halloween party, so costume planning will be part of the week’s off-hours.

I have a couple books out right now that won’t be able to be renewed, so I need to make some time to spend curled up with them.

And tomorrow, Rudi and I are going to drive out to the mountains of Virginia to see some fall color. I’ve heard it’s muted up and down the Eastern countryside, but some color is better than none.

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Mondays, I coach in a kids’ afterschool volleyball program. Usually, I end up with the littlest kids, but this week, there were only two adults. The other woman doesn’t have much volleyball experience, so she asked if I’d take the preteens. I thought we ended up having a pretty good practice, and while I got a little attitude at the beginning, I thought I dissipated it pretty quickly.

2. I knit a bulky-weight hat this week, so I could wear it while playing tonight if it felt cold enough to need it. (It didn’t.) I didn’t check stitch gauge and it’s a little bigger than I’d like, so I’m going to reknit it on slightly smaller needles. But it felt so good to actually finish something enough that it could be worn.

3. I had a meeting this week with the president of the company that organized the scavenger hunt my friends and I did earlier this month. He was looking for feedback on how our experience with the game and I was happy to tell him how much we’d enjoyed it. But he also offered to make any connections he could with local nonprofits in his network as I’m continuing my job search, which was such a surprising kindness.

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

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday from That Artsy Reader Girl invites us to share some of our favorite words.

I love wordy topics like this. One year, Karen gave me the protection of the word “woah” for Christmas, because I was adamant that it was different from “whoa” or “wow.”

Anyway, here are ten of my favorites at the moment:

1. zephyr
2. quixotic
3. hitherto
4. rickety
5. effervescent
6. aplomb
7. quirky
8. antepenultimate
9. dazzle
10. susurrous

What are some of your favorite words? Share them in the comments!

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. My dad’s 80th birthday was Saturday, and our immediate family and his best friends went to Cape Cod to celebrate. My brother made all the arrangements and did a fantastic job with all of it.

2. My friend’s baby was clearly eager to help open his gifts from the volleyball team, because he arrived on Friday to much fanfare.

3. Two dear college friends texted to say they’re coming to visit next weekend.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week all involve my volleyball friends:

1. Sergio and his wife are having a baby this month, and a bunch of us went in on a group gift. We had agreed to a plan, which included my taking care of the ordering. I knew the money would follow, but yesterday and today it started to pour in and kept doing so. Today, I got to go and buy some extra books to zero us out. When we presented him with the gift and he read everyone’s messages, he nearly broke down and I got a touching email from him when he got home to open some of the gifts with his wife.

2. Chris proposed to his girlfriend last week and she said yes.

3. My friends Neal and Amy agreed to take part in a literary scavenger hunt with me last weekend. We solved riddles, clues, and puns and visited a number of literary-themed sites (including the main library, where I finally got to ride the slide!) It helps to be able to ignore the signs stating there’s an age limit when you have a tweet from the head librarian giving you the green light. It ended up being such a blast, and while Amy is moving away, I think Neal would do it again with me next year.

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