Today is the last day before I head to San Antonio for a conference. Here are three beautiful things from the last week:

1. Our friend Brian sent us a Christmas card this week. I had lamented to Rudi that a number of our college-era friends seemed to have fallen off the communication wagon this year — and then his card arrived to let us know that he was alive and well (and reading our blogs).

2. We went out Monday night to a popular local coffee house and found it packed — so we moved on to another, newer spot. The restaurant itself was merely okay (although it holds a lot of potential), but along the way we passed a tree whose buds had popped out because of the warm January weather we’ve had recently. The branches offered a beautifully lacy silhouette against the night sky.

3. I’m hard at work on my sock and am pleased with my progress, despite the mistakes I’ve made. Several other women in my knitting group are working on socks as well and they’re all impressed with the yarn I’m using because it stripes up in a lovely way. Some yarns that purport to be self-striping tend to make the colors pool (bunch up in odd ways) once you start knitting with it, but this yarn gives me a variety of blue stripes up and down my sock.