Well hello there, happy Saturday!

Whew, I had a whirlwind of a week as we began the end-of-the-year madness at school ~ iPad collection, chasing library books, and the middle school ENERGY IS HIGH! We have four days next week and then I’m DONE until mid-August ~ WOOOOHOOOOOOOOOO! There’s truly not much better than a seasonal schedule and lifestyle shift ~ a big benefit of working in education that IMO makes all the hard stuff worth it.

I purposefully didn’t plan a lot this weekend given said whirlwind of a week, but I DO have plans to camp one night with the oldest near a state park between our house and her home in Madison. We’re hoping for hiking and paddleboarding and some tent reading ~ all my summer adventuring dreams come true.

Reading for the Season

Hitting the end of my school work year means that I kicked off the summery reading season on Tuesday with my annually-updated list of summery reads that you should be able to get from the library with minimal wait time. And remember, I’m also reading NEW summery reads too ~ in April, I shared four new releases that I read and loved on our spring break beach trip. Stay tuned as I read and share about a ton of seasonal titles in the coming weeks and months!

What Kind of Summer …

Speaking of summer, what kind of summer do YOU want to have? I loved a few pieces that hit my inbox this week, and thought you might too!

• want a SOBER summer? Suzanne has you covered! You know my summer will be alcohol-free, and if you’re even considering this shift, subscribe to Suzanne’s series! Yes, you CAN celebrate Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Labor Day without drinking! Concerts? Yup. Beach. Heck yes. ALL OF IT.

• want a nostalgic summer? Nina created a plan just for you! Embrace the feeling of long, languid days with fewer screens and more time to think.

• and of course, if you want a reading summer, Anne Bogel has set you up with her 2026 MMD Summer Reading Guide, as has Amy Allen Clark with her 2026 MomAdvice Summer Reading Guide and Michelle Martin with her delightful All Things Summer Reading Guide. All three of these curators floor me every year with the depth of their search for new books to share, as well as the amount of detail they go into with descriptions. I’ll be poring over all of these all summer long as I make my library holds lists!

What I Made Fixed

Well, I didn’t actually MAKE anything this week, other than another batch of puppy chow with the youngest, but I DID fix something.

Long story short, when I got to the lake to meet my friend Laura V. for our paddleboarding season opener last Saturday, I discovered a big hole in one of the boards ~ EEEEEEK. Luckily, LV lives close enough to run back home AND owns a kayak, so it ended up being a BYOB situation, but we still ended up with two hours on the lake together! WIN.

When I got home I was determined to FIX IT, so I scrambled around the house to find the repair kit that I always put somewhere ridiculous, and I endeavored to make the board last yet another season. They’ve held up amazingly well for how much use they’ve gotten, with sometimes NOT careful users (ahem, teenagers).

When I looked into getting another board just in case, it turns out the budget iRocker boards I bought in 2022 were discontinued (RIP Nautical), and the newer ones look AMAZING, but are much pricier than the ones I bought. I’m going to start setting money aside for a new one though, given how many patches this blue guy has! These are hands-down the most worth-it “just for fun” purchase I have ever made.

After my patching, clamping, and curing for 24 hours, the board held air for 6 hours in the living room before I called it good and packed it up … but I’m definitely going to let the oldest be the one to test it out on the lake this weekend!

Books Laura G Told Me to Read

This week’s books are two recent reads that were BOTH recommended by my dear long-distance fellow-middle-school-librarian friend Laura G.

Yes, as my youngest said years ago, everyone is named Laura. We also had daycare Laura, Aunt Laura, and more.

Anyway, if LG tells me I’ll love something, I LISTEN! And yet again, she was right ~ I adored both of these very different-from-eachother books.

Like, Follow, Subscribe: Influencer Kids and the Cost of a Childhood Online by Fortesa Latifi is so very much in my wheelhouse. I have been thinking about kids online since social media was INVENTED, and I made the decision to never show my kids publicly online back in … maybe 2018? Earlier? I no longer post them even on private social media either, since I’m not using anything these days, but I’m sure you’ve noticed that they don’t appear here! No names, no photos.

What I love about this book is that it’s not a research study, it’s not an indictment, it’s just a deeply-interviewed report of what it’s like to live in one of the mega-influencer families, the economics behind them, and why it’s so freaking HARD for women to stop sharing their kids online. I also love how personal Latisi makes the story, as she begins raising her very own child during the course of the reporting on and writing of this book.

NOTE: If you aren’t able to get your hands on the book, make sure to read the interview with Latifi over on Culture Study!

And on a very different note, Enormous Wings by Laurie Frankel is compulsively readable fiction and is absolutely PERFECT on audio ~ if you listen to books, definitely choose that format. I believe this may end up being one of my most-recommended titles of 2026 ~ I’ve already gushed about it to my mom and multiple reader friends, and it’s an excellent choice for book clubs because DAMN is it discussion-worthy! The premise sounded iffy to me (a woman in her 70s is PREGNANT??), but I assure you that it all makes perfect, realistic sense when you read it, and is such a wild, thought-provoking ride.

The entire book is about bodily autonomy and reproductive rights, so take care if fertility is tough for you to read about.

Take care, my friends ~ I hope you all have a restful weekend and find something to read, make, or fix! Here’s hoping the paddleboard holds my daughter, but if not, MEMORIES will be made (and there will be a life jacket, don’t worry)*!

*I will NEVER FORGET when my mom rotated the wheels on my rollerblades for me when I was in college and then A WHEEL FELL OFF when I was flying down a hill on a concrete sidewalk. MEMORIES are made in mishaps!