Three beautiful things from the last week:

1. My college roomie sent me a lovely package that arrived on Halloween. In it she sent me a soft blue shawl to wear on warmer autumn days and really cool earrings with purple beads made out of shellacked paper (reallly, they’re prettier than I make them sound). How did she know I needed to hear from a friend on NaNoWriMo Eve? Thanks, Eri!

2. We saw Flushed Away on Monday night at a sneak preview showing. Sitting behind us were some small children — probably in the 5-6 years of age range. They thought the movie was hilarious. They laughed! They screamed! They screeched! They repeated favorite lines aloud! They pointed out visual humor to each other! Their joy just made the movies that much better. I’m so glad we saw the movie with a crowd that included lots of kids.

3. Amanda commented last week that she liked to clean prior to writing when she was working on her dissertation. I went to reply to her that clearly that wouldn’t be a problem for me, but then I remembered that the only time I do clean (other than when guests are en route) is when I am on deadline for something. So Rudi and I decided to be proactive and get some cleaning out of the way pre-deadline. We spent all of Saturday working on it and disposed of several bags of recycling and several bags of trash. There’s more to be done, but our apartment is definitely quite a few pounds lighter than it was last week!