Well hello there, happy Saturday!

And happy Mother’s Day weekend as well! I have all of my kids home for the weekend, we have an “ice cream + stroll by the river” outing planned for later today, and I already have my beloved and required cake ~ perfection.

Want to read novels about motherhood?

Here is the list I shared last year!

What I Made

In crafty news, this week I finally finished sewing the birthday presents for a friend / colleague that I had been planning for an entire year ~ just in time for her birthday yesterday. Next year I swear I’ll do better starting earlier! I made her three produce bags and a quilted tote bag* (super simple!) using fabric from my favorite local quilt shop. I now need to make myself more produce bags, since I tend to use them for tons of other stuff as well!

* if you try this bag, I highly recommend cutting up a reusable shopping tote and using strips of that material inside the straps of this bag to ensure they don’t stretch when it’s packed full. And reinforce where the straps attach triple time. I learned this the hard way with the last two I made!

And remember how I was baking up a storm last fall with time-intensive NYT Cooking recipes? Well, this is my “don’t want to be in the kitchen” season of super fast and easy Kodiak Cakes muffin mixes, which are GOOD! I’m loving the Double Dark Chocolate and Blueberry. I used to make the muffin recipes on the back of the pancake mix box, but these are even easier. I vastly prefer them warm - 10-15 seconds in the microwave is perfect.

Oh, and the 8th grader and I have also made puppy chow multiple times in the past month - YUM.

What I Watched

Last Saturday night, the youngest and I were home alone and we watched the first episode of Emily in Paris, which I was enchanted by, but she wasn’t super into. Maybe I can catch her when she’s bored and she’ll watch more with me?

We THEN watched People We Meet on Vacation and you guys? We LOVED it. I knew I had read the book, but even after watching the movie I had zero recollection of the reading experience. When I read my Goodreads review, I realized 1) I did love the book but 2) it was in March of 2021 which was an overall hellacious time of teaching during COVID and freaking the hell out about trying to get vaccines. Books I read during that time period have seemingly been erased from my memory!

We adored the movie (our favorite trip was CANADA - ha!) and we loved Poppy, but guess what our very favorite part of the whole thing was?

POPPY’S HAIR. It actually acted like REAL HAIR and changed with the humidity! Seriously, we couldn’t stop talking about what a difference this tiny thing made in making Poppy seem like a relatable, real life human. As someone who has had TOO MANY stylists recommend a freaking keratin treatment, I can’t get enough of a girl with temperamental hair.

All In On a Super Sweet Series

I mentioned briefly on Tuesday that I have been loving a sweet series from Kindle Unlimited, and I’m here to report that I finished it. All 7 (fairly short) books of The Seven Sisters series by Hope Holloway in the past week, constantly switching between ebook and audio.

This kind of reading experience is so special and so rare, and I just adore when it happens. Finding something that I ALWAYS want to be reading or listening to, with an expansive cast of characters that cause me zero anxiety, and in such a delightful island setting is honestly the best thing that could happen at this time of year when I’m highly distractible, always on the go, and excited about summer.

And although all of the audiobooks are also on Hoopla, I made the financially questionable choice to still buy the audiobooks for $5.05 each to have along with the Kindle Unlimited ebooks since the seamless transition from ebook to audio is SO dreamy. The first audio is free with Kindle Unlimited, so I guess the $31 I spent on all of these audiobooks is still about the cost of ONE hardcover ~ not terrible!

Do I recommend these books? I mean, maybe? They’re sugar sweet, they’re happy, they’re marshmallow fluff for my brain. If that sounds good to you, then sure! But I tend to get a bit guarded and defensive about these types of reads because if you read one and are like “gah, that was trash” … well, I still love them for what they are?

I’m also currently reading a very research-heavy book about wealth disparity in Teton County, Wyoming, and the Seven Sisters series is definitely what I kept picking up when the thought of chasing footnotes was too daunting right before bed or in stolen moments!

I hope you all have a delightful weekend and are able to be celebrated as moms and / or get to celebrate other mothers in your life! I’m hoping to squeeze in a hike or actually get the paddleboards out tomorrow, along with a call to my own mom. Take care!