Well hello there, happy Saturday!

It’s my last weekend home for several weeks, so I’m making the most of it! I’m heading north again (but staying in Wisconsin this time!) on Tuesday for almost a week for exploring and family time, and then I’ll be heading out west less than a week later ~ July is going to be a full traveling month with only ONE weekend at home all month!

Speaking of weekends, last Saturday I made the time to head to Perrot State Park for a 6 mile hike and explored so many trails I had never experienced before.

It was an absolutely perfect June day and I’m so happy I pushed myself to leave the house, especially because I was able to stop for an AMAZING almond croissant and iced latte at a little coffee shop on my way home!

Today I’m planning to hike on trails a bit closer to home, but equally full of bluffs to climb ~ I’m hoping for a baked treat on my way home again!

Some Random Tidbits

• I have been VERY into lemon water lately, and have found True Lemon the easiest way to get the flavor I want without all the mess of actual lemons. Now that I have discovered that there is also True Grapefruit, maybe I’m going to try that too??

• my favorite ice cream of the summer so far has been the made-in-store Blackberry Lemon Cheesecake ice cream at Two One Ate on our trip (in Beaver Bay, MN!), but my favorite at-home ice cream has to be the Tillamook Marionberry Pie pint I bought at a local grocery store. Our store doesn’t have all the flavors, but I definitely want to get my hands on the Oregon Cherry too!

• I watched all 16 episodes of Four Seasons on Netflix these past two weeks and loved everything about this show SO MUCH. I adore Tina Fey and Steve Carell and came to fall in love with the rest of the cast as well. Middle age relatability means so much these days! I may need to watch the 1981 movie now??

• A new activity naturally means new socks, and I adore these Bombas studio gripper socks for Pilates. The ballet detail on the top is so cute! I couldn’t help it ~ the reformer studio requires grippy socks!

• I sewed myself a 4th of July creation that is (purposely) gasp-inducing and thoroughly entertaining ~ can’t wait to show it to you on Tuesday!

• I technically finished my scrappy quilt top this week, but I’m tempted to add some embroidery on the seams, inspired by what I saw at the quilt exhibit we went to at UW last November … and I still need to figure out how I want to do the back. But there’s certainly no deadline for this creation, so we’ll see what I’m inspired to do!

Some Recent Reads

After going hard on my northern-themed reads, I really branched out and went eclectic! Here are four books that I really enjoyed recently, all for very different reasons:

London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe is riveting on audio and not at all what I expected it to be. True crime is something I typically avoid, but this doesn’t read as that genre; instead it is an impeccably-researched story of grieving parents trying to make sense of their teen son’s perplexing and highly unbelievable (but real) secret world full of oligarchs and organized crime in London.

Make Nice by Ryan Effgen is out on July 14 and I would like to label this the “summery vacation story for people who don’t usually like summery vacation stories.” I adored the Mackinac Island setting and know that many who typically avoid these novels will appreciate the biting tone and dysfunctional family dynamics. Oh, and the cocaine!?

Ms. Mebel Goes Back to the Chopping Block by Jesse Q. Sutanto proves that Sutanto knows NO boundaries with genre, and also that, turns out, I LOVE Jakarta trophy wives who decide to become French chefs in the English countryside? This was short and cozy and funny and I just adored it.

And finally, The Gay Best Friend by Nicolas Didomizio is hilarious and heartfelt and summery. The title does all the work here, and really sums up the dilemma of being the gay best friend of BOTH the bride and groom during the summer leading up to their wedding, through both bachelor and bachelorette parties at a coastal estate. Everything that can go wrong, does, but there is such an earnest undertone about coming out and yearning … and a REALLY HOT pro golfer.

That was a lot for today ~ whew! I hope you have a delightful last weekend of June and easy breezy week heading into the 4th!

On Tuesday I will be back in your inbox with some stellar reading recommendations for this 250th situation, but I’ll be off the rest of the week with family and lots of lake time (and preparing to debut my parade outfit) ~ no newsletter on Saturday, July 4.