Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. My fall volleyball team finished up its season with a loss, a trip to the bar, and the promise of playing together again in January when the season starts back up at that location. We aren’t a great team, or even good, really, but we enjoy ourselves and each other, and are a supportive team. (I have a new team that I’ll play with for the next six weeks and an offer from our team captain to play pick-up volleyball at her school after work on Tuesdays.)

2. Working in stockinette in the round and re-reading a favorite book (Harry Potter and Chamber of Secrets, the illustrated edition) work well together. I don’t need to look at my work, and I know what happens in the story, so it is less urgent that I turn the page *right this minute*, rather than after I get to the end of the needle, but I make lots of progress because I don’t get bored.

3. Between a costume contest at my office and handing out candy on our stoop, I saw a number of great outfits this Halloween. My favorites were the gender bending Mary Poppins and chimney-sweep Bert (apparently the young woman ordered the Mary Poppins costume online only to find when it arrived that it was far too long for her petite frame and her male friend was game to switch things up); Sesame Street‘s The Count, who had spats, fancy glasses, and numbers on a string and who did the laugh on request (her officemates were Bert and Kermit); and a boy dressed as Edgar Allen Poe, complete with fake raven and quill pen.

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

Wishing you a Happy Halloween from the Burrow!

Today marks the 365th day in a row that I’ve posted here. It started out intentionally — the monthlong NaBloPoMo posting event that I’ve taken part in the past few years. And then it was followed by the Virtual Advent Tour — again something I’ve done before. But then, instead of taking time off to recuperate during Christmas break, I thought, well, let’s see how long we can keep this going…

And apparently that’s at least an additional 310 days.

There were two days where I slipped up, dozing off without publishing anything, but I rectified that as soon as I woke up, so I decided that it still counted for continuity.

In the previous year, I published only 168 posts, so that’s a solid 117% increase in output.

I’m not sure it’s an increase in quality in any way, but that’s something to work on in the year to come. Because while I won’t swear that I’m going to post every day from here on out, it’s mostly become habit, something I do before bed, just like washing the dishes and brushing my teeth.

Here’s to many more words together…

Today was another special day in our family. Happy birthday, Mum! I’m sorry I did not get to spend the day with you today, but am glad you and Dad got to get out for pizza together!

(This shot is from three weeks ago, when we were baking together. I have another action shot, but Mum wanted me to take this one so you all could see her hat, and since it’s her birthday, this is the one I shall share.)

And here’s one with the whole family from a couple summers ago, where you can actually see Mum’s face:

While my nails remain scantily clad in their chipped September polish, I still haven’t come up with a Halloween costume idea I like, and I bought gingerbread from a bake sale instead of doing my own baking, I got through quite a bit of my to-do list for the weekend.

Rudi had yesterday off, so after a relaxed start to the day, we did a little cleaning and a little laundry, and then rode across town on a 13-mile Coffeeneuring bike ride to the Lamond-Riggs neighborhood, where we got to check out a new-to-us library and coffee shop. (More on that to come in a future post…)

This morning, I hit the farmers market for apple cider and bought the first quince of the season. I moseyed up to the local park in the afternoon for their Halloween festival (and the aforementioned bake sale) and then rode down to the waterfront to check out the Crafty Bastards craft fair (where I failed to procure the tea I wanted or any Christmas presents, but where I did buy Christmas cards, so I should be set on that front). I treated myself to fried dough sticks from a food truck and the best chai I’ve had in D.C. from a coffeehouse/restaurant and walked most of the way back across town.

I did not finish any knitting projects, but I’m way closer with the Halloween socks, which I knit while watching World Series baseball (but not on Friday, because the Sox kept screwing up every time Rudi turned on the game) and reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (the illustrated version, which is heavy enough to stay open on its own if I prop it on the sofa bolster).

How was your weekend?