Remember that I’m doing the 30 Day Photo Challenge? I decided that today’s self-portrait will be a shared one and it will also be a up close and personal one. The other option was one with Maggie picking her nose, so I’m pleased with this one.

You know how I was so jazzed up yesterday about February coming and book group? Well, it was all for a good reason. Last night book group was a total and utter hit. We were missing a couple girls, of the ones that were there, we actually all read the book! We eventually talked about the book (Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken) but spent the first part of the evening sipping on wine, eating cheese and laughing about wildly inappropriate stories….well, our version of wildly inappropriate, which is extremely tame. It was a splendid time, of course I didn’t bring my camera.

Today I was still feeling like I was walking around with a bit of pep in my step and then we went to the grocery store and Maggie puked in the middle of everything. It was entirely my fault too because I had given her some food to snack on in the car while we drove, thinking that we’d moved past the No Food in the Car rule that was established after our drive to Carmel. Turns out the girl still gets sick facing forward. The No Food in the Car rule stands.

So there we were covered in puke at the grocery store. Luckily it was right next to customer service and they had somebody out helping us pronto….I plan to never return to that store again, unless I am wearing a mask and wig. Maggie is fine and we’d been planning on going to the park, but the puke smell that we were wearing wasn’t going to get us any friends at the park, so we headed home to at least change. While we were at home it started hailing….which we ran around in, but that stopped being fun after a few minutes.

Instead of piling back into the car, we started to make our pizza dough for dinner and get ready for Maggie’s nap. Barry called in the middle of pounding the dough out and now I’m wondering if my phone is buried in the middle of one of the dough balls. We’ll find out soon enough.  When I put Maggie down for her nap, I realized that she was covered in flour and crusty dough because she really got into it while I chatted on the phone with Barry.

I guess the whole point in all of this puking and pounding is this: I’m still jazzed up. The sun is out and I swear I can hear birds chirping in the trees in the mornings when I take the dogs for a walk. They’re announcing that it’s almost time to get TOTALLY jazzed up and think about packing away our sweaters. But then it hails and we (the birds and me) are reminded that just because Mr. Sun gave a quick shout-out, by no means does that mean winter is over.

You know what though? We’ll just have to wait and see what Punxsutawney Phil has to say about that….he is the final word, after all.

And that is the end of this deliriously boring post. Smell ya later.

While we were on our road trip to North Dakota this past summer we stopped in Livingston, Montana on our way out of town from soaking in hot wada at Chico. The small cowboy town was big enough for our traveling caravan to split up, but we all ended up in the same book store.  Go figure, we’re a family of readers so it makes total sense.

Sue bought Lois Lenski’s Cowboy Small for Maggie and when she handed it to her, Mags sat right down in the doorway of the bookstore and flipped through the nugget of a book. A girl after my own heart….reading a book about cowboys! The book has since become a favorite and we brought it with us on our road trip to Carmel along with some other favorites.

The thing about Cowboy Small is that Barry has a really awful voice that he reads in what he claims is “Cowboy Small’s narrator’s voice.” Forgive me for what I’m about to write but to me it sounds like Cowboy Small’s narrator needs to go poo-poo. Often when I’m writing or editing photos Maggie and Barry will come and read books on the couch while I finish up. The other night I couldn’t help myself and turned on the computer video camera to capture Barry reading Cowboy Small to Maggie.

Please note my arm and the desk jiggle because I start laughing…..and now I present to you Cowboy Small read by Barry.

My heart has been swelling with pride as Maggie has started to spend more and more time ‘reading’  her books. Her attention span for her books shocks me and more than once I’ve thought that she must be eating something she isn’t supposed to or doing something dangerous, only to find out that she’s flipping through yet another book.

I don’t know how babies decided which books they like and which they could do without, but Maggie has some of her favorites by far. Barry’s parents got her a few Quack books for Christmas and she loves them. She has also fallen in love with a book of pictures that we’ve had since she was born. I swear last night she was pointing to our family picture saying “mama” and “papa.” I’m just ecstatic that she seems to love books!

On rainy days, we look like a three ring circus getting ready for our walks and on the walk I’m sure that we look worse. Poor Syd, still hates the rain and poor Mags, she doesn’t like getting bundled up. If she had her option, and she doesn’t right now, she’d never cover her head or toes.

In other news, I have been really enjoying reading on a regular basis lately and it feels oh-so-good! There was a time there where I was worried that I’d never, ever read with any regularity again. I’m not suggesting that I am reading often, but at least I feel confident in sticking with the same book from front to back cover.

I think my book group will be thankful to have me back because I have continued to attend,  but have only been able to engage in the conversation half heartily. On the other hand, maybe they don’t really care if I’ve read the book or not….our conversations sometimes don’t always focus on the book anyhow.

3G sent us home with some stew tonight for dinner and we’ve got the tea kettle on…perhaps I’ll settle up with my book for a short bit tonight.

I had a quiet celebration a few weeks ago when I finally read a non-pregnancy/parenting book. I couldn’t remember the last book that I read that didn’t focus on one of those topics and getting into a book unrelated to either felt so dang good.

I found myself, with Maggie asleep in her Ergo, wandering around a bookstore today and my heart just about burst open from all the great books that I wanted to take home and read. Alas, I left the store empty handed and Barry and I took Maggie to the library this evening and I came home with a pile of books and my name on the holds list for some newbies that I can’t wait to read.

Maggie and I read her books together daily and I can tell that she loves listening to my voice and looking at the pictures and eventually she’ll get to pick out the ones that she loves the most. I can’t wait for that day.

But today, after going to the library and bookstore, I feel like something inside me that has been asleep for the past months has awoken and is ready to begin reading again! *

*Sydney just wanted me to put her picture in this post too. She also wants you to know that she prefers to chew on books, rather than read them like a proper dog.

The last few times I’ve gone to visit my parents they have graciously loaded me up with old keepsakes or asked me to go through some ‘stuff’ to decide if it is worth holding onto. This past weekend I plowed through some old boxes that didn’t get unpacked after a move home.

I discovered my own Book Review Book that I started writing back in 1997. I tried to keep track of books that I read, where I got them and what I thought of them. My reviews are really horrible and not too descriptive, but are also hilariously funny. I have such allegiance to the characters in some and others I tear apart without thought.

Turns out I really did hate Gone With the Wind, but loved I Know This Much is True. I felt it necessary to give a synopsis of each book, how it connected to my life at the time -this is the funny part – and if I’d recommend it to someone else. I also kept track of where I got the book or who suggested it.

While I worked as a nanny in Delaware and New Jersey I got to know where all the used bookstores were and the people that ran them. According to my Book Review Book, I read furiously during those summers and passed many books with the soccer moms I spent my days with and also frequently went to the used bookstores.

Interestingly, the last book review is from a book that Barry loaned me in 2002 while we were on a road trip  together. It was a book about a computer hacker and I think I was more shocked that I was reading a computer nerd book than anything else.

Now that I’ve rescued my Book Review Book from the darkness of my parent’s attic, I’m going to start writing in it again. This time I’m going to attempt to not be so dramatic.

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