Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Sarah turned 50 last week, and we opted to celebrate in person.

2. I got the first dose of a COVID vaccine, which means I will be able to start seeing more people in real life again soon. It was super easy, and except that virtual strangers now feel entitled to inquire about what brand of medicine I’m taking, I’m glad it’s done.

3. Tuesdays, I often get a longer break between meetings in the mid-afternoon, so Rudi and I scooted over to the bagel shop to grab lunch and eat outside in the sun.

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

New things are afoot on both the page and the needles. I have a new stripey sock started, and I’m sure you can see why I’m excited by it. I’ll give you details about the yarn next week; the tag is in one bag, but the yarn was in another, and I don’t feel like hunting right this moment.

I finished Veronica Speedwell and could move on to Charlotte Holmes. This is the most recent in Sherry Thomas’ excellent series, but there’ll be a new installment in the fall. It’s nice when favorite authors publish works in time for birthday and Christmas gifts.

I also wrapped up the audiobook I’d been listening tonight while I was knitting. Tomorrow I’ll be starting up The Bounty, the latest in the Fox and O’Hare heist series by Janet Evanovich and friends (this time Steve Hamilton). I haven’t liked the series as much since she stopped collaborating with Lee Goldberg, but Hamilton is pretty well-respected in his own right, so maybe this will be an improvement on the last book, which she wrote with her son.

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these posts, but here’s what’s going on around here right now:

Hearing: Cars driving by, including one playing goth music and another with its bass boosted way up. Birds, with their own unique nighttime music.

Seeing: A lot of mess that I need to invent time to deal with.

Feeling: The warmth of a cat curled up next to me asleep.

Tasting: The last mouthful of hot cocoa I recently finished.

Smelling: Not a whole lot because I should take an allergy pill to clear my head and go to sleep.

What’s it like where you are?

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl took me a little while. Our assignment: to share book titles that might make good crayon colors:

1. The Wonderful O (James Thurber): A bright orange, the color of the first citrus of the winter season
2. Sucking Eggs (Patricia Nicol): Venom green
3. Rancid Pansies (James Hamilton-Paterson): Greyish blue-purple
4. The Vinyl Princess (Yvonne Prinz): Sparkly black
5. Last Days of Summer (Steve Kluger): Cornflower blue
6. Dandelion Wine (Ray Bradbury): A pale, clear yellow
7. Canary (Rachele Alpine): Chartreuse
8. Vintage Attraction (Charles Blackstone): Dark plum
9. A Darker Shade of Magic (V.E. Schwab): Dark blood red
10. The Starless Sea (Erin Morgenstern): Dark midnight blue

How about you? Can you think of any book titles that should be a crayon name?

Volleyball is set to resume next week. Outside of seeing my parents and my friends, these games have been what I’ve missed most. I’ve played in various leagues and on various teams for nearly a decade down here, and going from what had been a twice-a-week schedule to not playing at all for over a year has been bad for me, both physically and mentally.

The group I’ll be playing with is most of the team that we played with last year. One teammate returned to Germany and another has (at least temporarily) relocated to Florida, but the rest of us are back. We play well together and I think we like each other, and our vibe is competitive but not at the expense of being supportive and having fun. I have played on and against teams that have lacked some or all of those values, and I’d rather give volleyball up than to play on them again. (I can stomach playing on non-competitive teams if the players support each other and enjoy playing, but it does get discouraging to keep losing. Those teams tend to shed players as the weeks go by, and then you end up losing because you can’t bring enough people to play in the final weeks.)

I’m putting a lot of pressure on volleyball to force me out of the apartment during daylight hours, to give me a reason to look forward to a day that isn’t Friday, and to get me out of my head so much. It’s possible it’s too much to ask of a rec league sport and eight teammates. But maybe it’s precisely the right ask. We won’t know until we meet at the net next week.

My invitation for a COVID shot just came through, so I’m booked for late Monday afternoon. I am very excited (and a little trepidatious, because I still hate doctors).

I don’t know that I can reward myself with another trip to the beach just yet, but I’m definitely going to get an ice cream cone (and maybe bring my own festive bandaid).