melted smoosh

(for posterity's sake, Cecilia is 4 years and 3 months old.) while walking out to the car: "Spiderwebs can't hurt you! They don't have any arms!" she grew tired of playing by the rules and decided to play school with the pawns instead after going through the McDonald's drive-thru: "Ahhh! The fresh chicken nugget air!" "Sometimes we cry when we're so happy that we can't even hold the happiness anymore." one of many treasured self-portraits i discover on my phone "Mommy! We have arms so we can move our hands! If we didn't have arms, we just couldn't move our hands!" very excited about the girls' new matching comforters from Nana! this last exchange tells you everything you need to know about her glass-half-full philosophy. while racing toy cars with me, she announced: "I win!" me: "I lose." Cece: "No, you just won second, Mommy!" (linking up with Rosie here !) 

 i crashed and burned a bit with my reading goal for 2020 - 62 books read out of 75. i read 85 books in 2019 so 75 seemed like a realistic goal, but i guess i didn't count on the realities of returning to work part time halfway through the year! so this year i'm setting my sights a little lower with 50 books pledged to read by the end of 2021. i'm also committing to reading a book in each of three categories every month (plus hopefully a few bonus books).  a book i own Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis ,  by J.D. Vance. i've been wanting to read this for years, and Nick thoughtfully gave it to me for Christmas! it's a quick but deep read, an honest reckoning of the economic forces and cultural precedents that have impoverished Appalachian America. i'm letting it settle in my brain and heart a little more before watching the Netflix version. 5/5.  Edge of Eternity (The Century Trilogy, #3) , by Ken Follett. this monstrous book actually