Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Anna very sweetly asked me to join her virtual bookclub last month. This week, I survived both reading the first book and the first meeting with Anna, her sister, and half a dozen strangers.
2. Our landlord stopped by with more quarters for the washer and dryer, not having heard that the app interface had been fixed. When we let him know it’s working, he handed the rolls to us. (Rudi provided social media assistance in getting the machine leasing company to come out to service them.)
3. The weather has been cool enough to wear leggings this week. That’s one of the really nice parts of seasonal changes — getting reacquainted with your wardrobe.

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

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday from That Artsy Reader Girl invites us to share the Secondary/Minor Characters Who Deserve Their Own Book:

1. 1. Gigi, Eve, Dani, and Chloe’s grandmother, from the Brown Sisters’ trilogy by Talia Hibbert
   2. Cal, the carpenter, from Travis Baldree’s Legends and Lattes
   3. Ginger, who lives in a lighthouse, from Linda Holmes’ Flying Solo
   4. Gwyn the cousin from The Ex Hex by Erin Sterling (This is cheating, because she absolutely has her own book, but I haven’t read it yet.)
   5. Ainsley, the new friend, in Sonya Lalli’s Serena Singh Flips the Script
   6. Dex, the BFF, from Kate Racculia’s Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts
   7. Georgie and Clem from The Greenglass House series by Kate Milford
   8. Sofia, the daughter, in Amor Towles’ The Gentleman from Moscow
   9. Berta, the housekeeper and crime-investigating partner, in Maia Chance’s The Discreet Retrieval Agency series
   10. Palamedes, the knight, from Michael Scott’s The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series (again, cheating, because I know Scott wrote short stories to fill in the back stories, but my list my rules)

This was way harder than I expected it to be after the first character.

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. My Saturday volleyball team, which had already won back-to-back league championships before I joined them, won its third.

2. I picked up some peaches and nectarines (likely some of the last of the season) at the farmers market today. (The Mid-Atlantic was the luckiest place on the Eastern Seaboard to live if you like stone fruit this year with late frosts harming those south and north of us.)

3. Anna and I had brunch on Sunday, which was a delightful, if early for us both, thing for her to propose. I splurged and got both French toast and a side of cheesy grits.

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

::Sigh:: I believe this is the first time I’ll have failed to read a single book I put on a seasonal TBR list, assuming I can’t cross any off before Saturday.

However, this will not stop me from participating in this week’s Top Ten Tuesday from That Artsy Reader Girl and making a list for the fall. Here are ten books I’d love to read this autumn:

1. Cultish by Amanda Mantell (this is the September pick for my friend’s reading group)
2. Woman Without Shame by Sandra Cisneros
3. Travis Baldree’s Bookshops & Bonedust
4. A Power Unbound by Freya Marske
5. Bill Watterson’s The Mysteries (Yes, of Calvin & Hobbes fame)
6. The Lost Library by Rebecca Stead & Wendy Mass
7. Sleepless in Dubai by Sajni Patel
8. Cleat Cute by Meryl Wilsner (I mean, how can you not with that title?)
9. Island of Whispers by Frances Hardinge
10. Melinda Taub’s The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch (Doesn’t this sound utterly tantalizing?)

How about you? What are you hoping to read this coming season?

Sigh. At some point, I’m going to once again have a firm grasp of what day of the week we’re working on. Or I’ll just start posting on all of the days in order not to miss Thursdays.

Nonetheless, this week, we’re celebrating three beautiful things Friday:

1. Seven of us (five team members and two guests) got together for practice and drinks on a night when the team usually plays.

2. There is a Venezuelan baker who comes to a farmers market I sometimes frequent. Yesterday, it looked like he was selling cinnamon rolls, but it turns out they are golfeados, which are related, but whose filling also includes anise and cheese. (I did not save any to share with Rudi when he got home.)

3. I had a return to make, so Rudi and I took a trip to TJ Maxx, where I came away with new sneakers and a fancy dress.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Corey is SOOO happy to have me home.

2. The clouds at sunset when viewed from our pickup game at Alethia Tanner Park (and the subsequent bike ride home) are all glorious pinks and oranges.

3. The washing machine, which has been out of commission for the past week, is back up and running. (A related beautiful thing is that Rudi handwashes his bike stuff and he added my workout clothes to the mix so I had things to wear for volleyball this week.)

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