Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. We spent last weekend in Connecticut with my parents. We did a lot of work around the yard, with a huge assist from Hod and Joanne, family friends who are like an aunt and uncle to my brother and me. We also got to celebrate my dad’s birthday and eat apple crisp and lots of pizza.

2. Rudi’s friend Rachel needed a vet and remembered that I’d said we liked ours. She was much happier with how they treated her and her cats, so I’m glad we were able to connect them.

3. Rudi and I listened to the second game of the NLCS on our drive home Monday. The Mets had a grand slam and scored seven runs, and they still managed to keep us on the edge of our seats before winning the game mere blocks before we arrived home. Good for staying alert as the drive wore on, but so stressful. (The Mets are in a must-win situation now against a very strong Dodger team. May our pitching arms and our bats warm up as we need them.)

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. The Mets advance to the NLCS on a Francisco Lindor grand slam at Citi Field in the fourth game of the playoff against Philly.

2. After 12 straight days of rain, this week was beautiful. I spent time in the garden and knitting at a cafe and eating on a rooftop.

3. The folks who were going to do the District Hunt with me this year all ended up having to cancel. Instead of sulking, I did part Saturday morning and then went and played volleyball (because it was inconveniencing no one) and resumed it on Sunday afternoon. Did I run out of time to finish it? Yes. Did I let doing it alone stop me? No, I did not. And folks have already expressed interest in doing it together next year.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. I did a deep clean of kitchen surfaces. I left the spiders, although I forced them to rebuild their webs. (They help with our fruit fly problem.)

2. Sarah and I checked out a new-to-us orchard and cider doughnut bakery. The fog added an layer of autumnal mood.

3. I splurged on a skein of seasonally stripey yarn and now have two (!!) projects going.

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

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. It’s the last week of baseball’s regular season. In between rain storms, I got to catch two Nats games. They lost both to Kansas City, but it’s hard to argue with September baseball.

2. I bought some new plants to put in the garden for the fall season — greens and flowers and herbs and a couple things I’m going to try to overwinter for harvest next spring/summer. I didn’t do a good job getting to the garden as much as I should have this summer, but I have high hopes of reclaiming the end of the year.

3. I noticed toward mid-August that my knees and hips were starting to be a little achy, a sure sign, I’ve found, that my sneakers are no longer supportive enough to play volleyball in. (I have volleyball sneakers for indoors, but tend to play grass in trail running shoes.) After spending a few weeks trying on what was available (and grumbling about prices), I ended up out near National Harbor at the Asics outlet after dropping Rudi off at the airport on Friday. They were running a sale, which allowed me to pick up two pairs of sneakers that should keep me in good stead for the next couple years.

I just looked back at my summer tbr list and found I’ve finished none of the books I’d listed. Sigh.

Will that stop me from listing ten more books I hope to read this fall as part of That Artsy Reader Girl’s seasonal Top Ten Tuesday? No, no it will not:

1. Erin Sterling’s The Wedding Witch
2. A Fate Inked in Blood by Danielle Jensen
3. Holmes, Marple, and Poe by James Patterson and Brian Sitts
4. Richard Osman’s We Solve Murders
5. Best Hex Ever by Nadia El-Fassi
6. The Hedgewitch of Foxhall by Anna Bright
7. Hanif Abdurraqib’s There’s Always This Year
8. The Afterlife of Mal Caldera by Nadi Reed Perez
9. The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer
10. How to Be Eaten by Maria Adelmann

What’s on your TBR for this fall? Mysteries? Fantastical tales? Classic lit to be read as the evenings fall earlier?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. For Rudi’s birthday, I gave him concert tickets to see Ringo, who performed at a local theater this week. The woman behind us in line for drinks before the show exclaimed, “I am in the same room as a Beatle!” There were only about 3,000 of us there. So, honestly, how cool is that?

2. My favorite yuppie doughnut shop from Virginia has opened an outpost in D.C., and we stopped in for the first time. They weren’t crowded, so we decided to get supper there instead of pursuing our plan to eat elsewhere, and were pleasantly surprised. Both our entrees (my grilled cheese and Rudi’s mushroom grain bowl) were tasty and well-cooked, and our drinks (Rudi got an old-fashioned that they set on fire at the table to give it a smoky flavor, and I had an herbal homemade ginger ale) were outstanding. Plus, we got our first cider doughnuts of the season to eat while we walked over to the Wharf.

3. The team has moved indoors for the rest of the year. I’ll keep playing outside on the weekends, but my friend Sergio and I were talking about how consistent it felt to play a game inside after months of rain and wind and sun in your eyes and biting flies and 100 degree temperatures and humidity and odd tufts of grass to accommodate.

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