Today has been an absolutely craptastic day. I briefly considered that nothing seemed beautiful, but I know that’s not true from the perspective of one less dented in spirit than I, so I capitulated to tradition, against my lesser angels.

Here are three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Our friend Heidi had not an inkling when she returned home from dinner with friends that her her house was crammed with guests who wanted to wish her a happy 50th birthday.

2. I surrender the joy of bashing graham crackers to smithereens to Rudi as we make chocolate-butterscotch bars for tea.

3. On New Year’s Eve, one of the films we watched was On the Basis of Sex, the biopic of Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s formative law school and early career years. I was so captured by it (and by its local subject) that I borrowed the documentary RBG from the library. I’m delighted to report that it is also delightful and you will find the justice to be even more captivating after watching it than you thought before. (And it’s nominated for an Oscar in the documentary category, in case you care about that sort of thing.)

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