twenty-twenty

Is the New Year, and what a great year we're hoping for.

New Year's Day we cooked and lots came to eat.  It was a nice day.  I took exactly three pictures, and here they are:

That's a kid who was so excited to wash dishes, she actually asked me if she could. I removed all the knives and ceramic and glass bowls. She was set up for success with a ton of plastic silverware and many random cups and unbreakable dishes galore.

She worked and worked.  One day long ago I even lured her home from the park with the promise that we could go home and wash dishes.

When I say kids are crazy, I'm not even making it up.

It was a fun day. Alicia's parents and brother with his family were there too. It was very easy going and nice.

 Here's a horde of kids heading downstairs to spread Barbies and Legos far and wide. That's why we have this room at all, and Julia picked it all up before a weekend sleepover and I vacuumed. Go nuts, you guys.

So here we are, six days into 2020.

The end of last year was heavily marked  by the untimely deaths of three people in the circle of those I love.

Each is painful and tragic, and I'm only a peripheral person to any of these losses.

But the unfairness hurts. It creeps up and has me wiping away tears at odd moments, makes me question things I thought I knew.

But I loved them all.

That I do know.

And I don't understand. I understand the specifics, but the big pictures story of it is incomprehensible in each one.

Onward, I guess.

Love always, Val