Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. The kittens were so excited to have me return home after nearly a week away.

2. My folks and I make plenty of Christmas cookies, enough to keep them settled for a few weeks.

3. With Sarah unavailable this New Year’s Eve, Rudi and I wing our movie marathon. We expect to see both represented at the Oscars. Emilia Pérez is an oddball Spanish-language musical drama about a young Mexican lawyer who helps a drug baron transition to a woman and stars, among others, Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez. But even better was Flow, a wordless Latvian animated film about a cat who must work with other animals to escape a catastrophe. It’s about cooperation and found family and climate disaster — and if you can find it, you should definitely watch it.

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