Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I hope you had a lovely holiday, surrounded by those you love and who love you best. We spent the day with my family up in Connecticut, where we ate a delicious dinner.

I’m grateful for many things this year, among them this blog and my weekly opportunity to notice the things that make my life a little better. Here are three of those beautiful things from the past week:

1. Susan calls to see if we want to have dinner. We meet them at the playground and walk down to the Greek place from there. Holden decides he wants to hold Rudi’s hand, and baby Caroline curls up quietly in my arms. It’s nice to have friends who are willing to let us borrow their children for a little while.

2. We walk down to the garden to see what we can find. I pull up the tomatillo plant, while Rudi digs up the potato patch. (My second planting failed, but we found a few we’d missed from the first.) The excitement of the afternoon is reserved for the sweet potato patch where we dig up several small specimens. (We also find a few that we think are still growing, which we cover back up.) Digging up food from the earth is surprisingly satisfying.

3. I’m sitting in the Circle reading my book when a young man comes and sits down next to me. He explains he’s a poet and asks if he could recite for me. He does — three poems — and then asks for a donation to help him enter a local slam. I give him a dollar, knowing that even if I’ve been hustled, it was still worthwhile, because, honestly, when was the last time someone read poetry to you?

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