The weekly challenge of remembering three of the beautiful things I say to myself about, “That will make a good one for Thursday.”

It remains to be seen if tomorrow morning I don’t wake up thinking, “Oh, that was what I meant to include.” It happens about a third of the time.

Three of the beautiful things from my week past:

1. Rudi wakes just enough in the wee hours of the morning to wrap an arm around me after I stumble into bed.

2. I decided the flowers from Nick and Larry’s wedding are too nice to enjoy only at home and pluck two roses out of the arrangement to take to the office. Realizing one is turning brown and the other is drooping, I carefully pluck the outer petals off both flowers and cut the stems before putting them in a fresh vase of water. Several hours later, both are looking much happier.

3. Biking over to Canal Park, I miss the crosswalk signal to get down the Mall. I turn to bike across it sideways and discover a gorgeous sunset behind me.

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

My energies have been devoted elsewhere recently, which ought to mean that I’ve been getting lots of writing done, but what that really means is that I’ve been watching a lot of tv with nothing in my hands. That’s not usually a good sign, although I’m willing to cut myself a little slack due to the combination of finishing two projects last week and allergies running unabated until today (when we switched allergy medications from what was effective during the spring to what we used last year, allowing us to breathe again without huge bouts of coughing, sneezing, and other cold-mimicking symptoms). Nonetheless, this weekend will see me finish off this sock I was supposed to work on in August:

I have 24 more rows of pattern (two repeats) and then an inch or so of ribbing before it’s time to bind off. While I am perfectly capable of knitting my socks up or down, I really prefer how speedy the post-heel knitting of top-down socks generally are with patterning on at most half the stitches and a decrease in overall quantity at the end. It just feels faster to get the leg out of the way first. This leg feels like it’s been in progress forever.

Once I’m done with this, it’s back to my shawl and my years-on-the-needles Hey Teach! sweater. I’m also going to cast on a new sock project or two. That will be exciting.

Reading has been a bit slow all summer long, much to my disappointment. But I’m meandering my way through Kathy Reichs’ Virals (the first in the series that focuses on the niece of forensic anthropologist Temperence Brennan) and I began the first Harry Potter again this week, with all the hoopla about the arrival of September 1, the day every year when the Hogwarts Express whisked young witches and wizards away for the beginning of term.

Waiting in the wings is Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior and A.S. King’s Ask the Passengers, which made its way off my to-read list and onto my request-from-the-library list when author Eliot Schrefer raved about it on Twitter.

(Yarning along with Ginny)

Call me a nearly 40-year-old rebel, but there’s something about the word “should” that makes my skin crawl.

There are lots of things I like doing and some that I even love doing. But add “should” or “ought to” in front of them and suddenly I feel hemmed in, restricted, disinterested. I should spend 15 minutes working on my blog. I ought to work on that sock I meant to finish last month. Nope. I have other things to do — like wash the kitchen floor — that are more pressing.

I don’t know why that is except that I struggle with authority, even when that authority is my own. Who are you, or I, to tell me what to do?

So instead I work to abolish the word “should” from my vocabulary when I talk to myself, much like one might when talking to a reactionary toddler or teenager. I want to be able to cross exercising off today’s to-do list. I’ll be glad to have written a blog post. Finishing these socks will free up some needles so I can cast on something new.

Many times (and more and more often, since I realized the problem) the rephrasing/re-envisioning works. But other times I dig in my heels and say, who’s gonna make me? (I can be a real spoiled brat sometimes.)

And while I should be firm with myself and ought to have consequences for not following through on desired actions, we all know how that’s going to turn out…

A three-day weekend ought to mean tons of accomplishments, be they fun or necessary, but I feel like mine fell short, but that may be because it did not include the 40 bazillion things I always want to fit into my weekends.

We started the weekend with a night at the ballpark and a Mets victory over the hometown Nationals. We biked home via Barracks Row, where we heard the final song, with cannon fire, from the Marines’ band concert, and the Capitol grounds.

On Saturday, we slept in and took a leisurely approach to the day, which is probably where I fell down the rabbit hole of time. We went to our first same-sex marriage ceremony, a couple of cycley friends of Rudi’s, where we had a nice time, where I got to meet someone I “know” via social media, and where I came away with a literal bucketful of purple and blue flowers. I also finished knitting a pair of socks.

On Sunday, I hit the farmers market, where the highlight was vanilla peach jam, swam, and harvested tomatoes and basil from our garden. Caprese sandwiches (featuring the aforementioned garden veg) and corn on the cob comprised our traditional Sunday dinner.

And today was more of the same: swimming (one last time before they closed the pool), gardening (we planted some arugula and chard where we yanked up kale yesterday), and hung out at the park with cold drinks as the sun sank into the distance.

I fell down on the writing program during the first week, when I was in Salt Lake and struggled to catch up while not getting further behind on week two, which essentially meant I sat, paralyzed, staying frantically at the assignments each day. Ultimately, I pulled myself together before week three started, finished up the missing week one work, and began anew with week two, seven days behind the rest of my cohort, but still working and writing, which is probably the key thing to keep in mind. (Incidentally, if you’d like some help establishing a writing practice or just want some help in being accountable to yourself for your writing practice, the next Write Now session begins Sept. 30 and I highly recommend it.)

Similarly, Laurie Halse Anderson, author of the award-winning Speak, has declared September to be a month for writing fifteen minutes a day (#wfmad on Twitter), and since that was my original goal with Amanda’s program, I shall make doubly sure I’m getting it done by committing to writing 15 minutes a day on the blog. (Admittedly, some posts may not require that much work, so I’ll add on to those days by working on some longer posts for publication on other days. (Remember when I did things here like review books?)

In addition to writing, the week ahead holds sauce making (and maybe pasta making if I can get my hands on some semolina flour), outdoor showings of The Avengers and Casablanca (on different nights; that would be a weird double feature!), and a picnic at the Yards. I’m also hoping to finish reading a book and resume knitting on either my shawl or a short-sleeved sweater. Oh! And sign up for fall volleyball. I’ve got to get that taken care of, too!

(Weekending, plus, with Amanda.)

to William Carlos Williams…

This Is Just To Say

I have wasted
the weekend
that marked
summer’s end

and which
I should have
filled
with barbecues

Forgive me
it was exhausting
so hot
and so long