Woohoo!! It’s Friday!! I am so excited to finally be here! I am linking up with Erika, Narci, and Andrea to share some favorites from the past week.

Favorite 1: SUBMITTING MY PORTFOLIO!! I am a Nationally Board Certified Teacher.  My 10 year certification is up for renewal. The renewal involves about 23 pages answering specific prompts, a 10 minute video of me teaching, and numerous work samples.  It was due May 16 by midnight.  I procrastinated the daylights out of this project, but I finished it on Tuesday night, 5/15. I reread everything Wednesday morning and submitted it.  It felt so good to be done!  I was feeling a little down about my procrastination until I remembered that 10 years ago when I submitted my first portfolio, I was running to the UPS store to mail it off by 5 pm on the day it was due.  So I was a full 16.5 hours ahead of that this year. 😂

Favorite 2: MOTHER’S DAY TRADITIONS!! A few years ago we started one of my favorite holiday traditions: 🦀 CRABS 🦀 Marylanders love our steamed crabs. We decided to have crabs on the deck with a glass of wine for Mother’s Day because the moms don’t have to do anything for this tasty meal! We don’t have to cook or do dishes, making it practically perfect! We had some delicious corn on the cob and enjoyed our dinner!  The weather was a little cool and rainy so we ate in the garage. Jeff hooked the tv up out there so we could watch the end of The Players golf tournament, too.  It was a great Mother’s Day!

Favorite 3: THE MELTING POT!! Jeff and I used to go to The Melting Pot to celebrate our anniversary quite often. We hadn’t been in a while and decided to take the boys for a fun dinner.  Jeff’s mom joined us to celebrate Mother’s Day and we had a great time.  The boys thought it was the coolest idea to help cook the dinner.  They were laughing later this week that we made sure they saved room for dessert. It was a fun night!

Favorite 4: ORIOLES GAMES!! I managed to get to 2 Orioles games this week! On Sunday, Luke’s baseball team was a part of the Little League Parade where the kids walk around the warning track and get to high five some Orioles. It was a great game full of Orioles home runs! I went back on Wednesday to a day game with a friend. We had a great time, but the O’s didn’t fare so well that time.

Favorite 5: KINDLE PAPERWHITE!! I was a devoted nook girl for a long time.  Jeff gave me one for my first Mother’s Day 9 years ago.  Then, I met Debbie at A Likely Story, our local bookstore, and fell back in love with actual books. I love the feel, the smell, the covers.  Really, I love everything about books.  I had an opportunity to read an e-galley of a few books but they weren’t available on my archaic nook. So I took the plunge and got a Kindle Paperwhite. I really like it! It is so light and small and fits right in my purse so easily.  I will never give up on books and I will always buy the book when I meet the authors, but I am a fan of my new Kindle Paperwhite.

Favorite 6: HOFFMAN’S!! There is no ice cream like Hoffman’s ice cream.  Their mint chocolate chip is my absolute favorite! My mom brought some for Mother’s Day dessert and left the ice cream here.  It has been a delicious treat in the evenings, after the kids go to bed so I don’t have to share of course! 😉

Favorite 7: BOOKS!! My local bookstore, A Likely Story, does so many wonderful things for our community! One of my favorite events that they host is the quarterly Penguin Random House book chat.  I learn about so many great books! I love the three representatives that come to tell us about a wide variety of books. They are each so different and offer a wide variety of perspectives.  My To Read list grew by at least 5 books tonight!

Favorite 8: NAIL POLISH SWAP!! I participated in a nail polish swap with a some other bloggers. I got some great new colors and tools! I posted about it yesterday, check it out!

That is it for the week. Jeff and I are heading to Preakness on Saturday with his family. It is a fun, adults only tradition that we look forward to every year.

Jack and Luke should have baseball games, but with all of this rain we have gotten this week and are supposed to get through the weekend, I don’t think they’ll play.

I hope we all have a great weekend full of sunshine and books!

☀️ 📚 😎

Currently Reading:  The High Tide Club by Mary Kay Andrews (spoiler alert: I ❤️it!)