1	Things You Kiss Goodbye, The	Leslie Connor	Just when I thought I “got” the author.  While not as good as the other 3 books, I still had to finish this one.
2	Pachinko	Min Jin Lee	500 pages of good, yet not uplifting storytelling, of 5 generations of a Korean family, mostly in Japan.
3	Unexpected Peril (Veronica Speedwell, #6), An	Deanna Raybourn	Brilliant vocab;
4	Hench	Natalie Zina Walschots	Even Villians need secretaries, and an Excel spreadsheet and a brilliant hench may discover the gray area between heroes and villians.  Kyla and I each give it a thumb up.
5	In A Glass Grimmly	Adam Gidwitz	Funny and twisted, fitting sequel.
6	When Stars are Scattered	Victoria Jamieson & Omar Mohamed	Graphic Novel of a Kenyan Refuggee camp, orphaned Somalian children on own, true story
7	Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America	Ijeoma Oluo	Oh, oh, hard truths about being white.  It takes a brave white man to read this…but it takes a brave black woman to live this.
8	Just Us	Claudia Rankine	A perfect reading complement to Mediocre.  Ouch, I need to rethink why I dye my hair.  And more signficant topics, of course.
9	Invisible Life of Addie LeRue	Victoria Schwab	Even stones….  Wow, blown away by clever take “making a deal with the devil”.  Want to talk about the love “love” story…. A book I want everyone to experience. Kyla agrees.
10	The Uglies	Scott Westerfeld	Ended on a cliff hanger and no desire to read 2nd book.
11	Out of My Mind	Sharon Draper	A girls with cerebral palsey goes from inside her bright head to sharing herself more with a talking device–and the pain that can involve with her “normal” peers.  A “social justice” book for school–devastating consequences.
12	Joy at Work	Marie Kondo	Spark Joy at work?  Fine.  I do love a tidy place.

Papa has introduced Wes to Star Wars and finally Wes is hooked. So his latest blanket fort is really a TIE fighter, complete with Nerf machine gun and hidden weapons cache.

• 

• 

• 

• 

Then he takes a break and makes Kyla’s life harder. His work here is done.

Piper swiped Kyla’s umbrella again, but this time for a good cause.

Both Dwayne and I crushed on Ernie the Grumpy Gargoyle when we first laid eyes on him earlier this month. I brought him home yesterday to the newly completed pedestal.

Timmy Whitefoot is very suspicious of this new could-be-cat.

I think there’s a resemblance!

At one time, I must have dreamed parenthood was regularly like this and quickly learned I was an idiot. But today, my parents came over to bring Piper (and Timmy Whitefoot) the cat tree my dad made for the proud cat owner.

My parents walked into this scene. All the kids are happily working on brain-enhancing activities. Kyla was soldering the mechanism of her useless box, Wes was programming, and Piper was digging out gems from a kit she got for her birthday. I record this because this has never happened before and I’ve been a mom for 14.5 years. Not that this quiet, productive bliss lasted that long. By the time Dwayne and I returned from a long walk with my parents, they had all scattered to their usual corners and pursuits. But at least I had caught it on camera!

1	Truth as told by Mason Buttle, The	Leslie Connor	Even better the second time.  Now hunting down others by this author.
2	Luster: a novel	Raven Leilani	A disappointing best book from NPR.  Not a single character that I rooted for.  Good writing, unlikeable story that made me feel “icky”.
3	Baptism for the Dead	Libbie Hawker	A reread of a Mormon wife losing her faith, and the comfort of heaven.
4	My Antonia	Willa Cather	An early classic about the backbone of America– immigrants and farmers. Glad I read it.
5	How God Became King	N.T. Wright	“Born of the Virgin Mary, Suffered under Pontius Pilot”… Jesus’s life is more than a comma. Cross and Kingdom in the gospels.
6	Four Hundred Souls: A community history of African America, 1619-2019	Ibram X. Kendi (editor)	Listening to borrowed audio was probably the worst format.  Need to own hard copy and revisit.
7	The Bridgertons: Happily Ever After	Julia Quinn	The 2nd Epilogues of the infamous Bridgerton romances.
8	Captive Kingdom, The	Jennifer A. Nielsen	I’ve gotten tired of this character’s schtick on this 4th book but I’ll read the 5 anyway.
9	Dare to Disappoint: Growing Up in Turkey	Ozge Samanci	YA GN– a walk in Turkish shoes while coming to age as a “failure” and figuring it out.  Excellent 1.5 hr read.
10	All Rise for the Honorable Perry T. Cook	Leslie Connor	Oh, I am LOVING this author!  More, more, more please.
11	Home for Dogs and Goddesses, A	Leslie Connor	Rounding out themes of family by this author.
12	Finding Langston	Lesa Cline-Ransome	The Great Immigration, a newly motherless boy from the South in Chicago.
13	Midnight Library, The	Matt Haig	Tickled my literary bone and my thinking brain.

Our Sweetheart Baby is now a Fun Teen!

It’s the first weekend of mid-winter break, the second day of great snow, and Piper’s birthday: a trifecta that made it a wonderful day for all.

Piper made her own cake with and put to good use the cake decorating kit she got for Christmas. We may have been so busy playing in the snow that we never got around to writing the reasons we love Piper, but we all agree that she makes us laugh with her adorable faces and poses, and she takes really good care of us, fattening us up quite well!

Wes brilliantly got a gift for Timmy, which Piper adored enough to make up for Timmy’s disdain.

After dinner, Dwayne and Piper, instead of meeting us outside for dark o’clock sledding, were caught watching Harry Potter movies. Fine, it was her birthday, I suppose!

Happy Birthday, Piper! You are loved and adored beyond measure.

Long before our Sweetheart Baby was born, Dwayne and I have celebrated Valentine’s Day on the 13th. At first, it was because it was convenient when we lived an hour away from each other, then it was a pragmatic way of being romantic.

This year, the pandemic changed our plans more than the massive snowfall. We had already ordered a special dinner from a local “boutique” restaurant and Dwayne’s car braved the roads to pick it up. The kids and I set up our table and prepared dinner for them to eat downstairs with a movie, which is our favorite type of date night.

I enjoy life with this man so much!