Happy Halloween! I hope you had a nice holiday. We did, spending the evening out with friends along U and 14th streets, which are among the hotbeds of adult costume sightings in D.C., and their side streets, where children roamed and decorations galore reigned.

Here are three beautiful things from my past week:

1. I made a mistake by wearing my cute, but painful-after-several-hours 3″-high Mary Janes to work. Switching into my heavy-duty sneakers for volleyball has never felt so good.

2. The food-packing coordinator at Food & Friends, a local charity that feeds people suffering from AIDS, cancer, and other life-challenging illnesses where some colleagues and I volunteered one morning this week, was a steady, upbeat (but not peppy) fellow, bellowing out instructions and making our efforts feel like a grade-school game. We got a lot accomplished as three hours sped past, allowing everyone to feel the day had been a success.

3. I was frustrated last night by my there-to-fore inability to come up with a good, not-yet-worn Halloween costumes and that feeling carried over through holiday Oreos, a World Series victory, jack o’lantern carving, and sleep. While I was getting ready for my shower this morning, I had just resigned myself to a repeat costume when an idea hit me:

Can you guess what I am?

If you need a hint, the umbrella is tucked into my bag in that shot.

(Many thanks to Amanda and Kindred Magazine, whose mailer provided me the raw materials, for allowing my rack to serve as the costume’s pièce de résistance.)

How about you? What was beautiful in your world this week?