Hello everyone! I hope that you are all doing well! I feel like I have so much to share with you guys today that I don’t know where to start! Big things? Little things? Let’s start with the big things we have done, our days out. Let’s save the little things for a cozy post tomorrow instead.

Last weekend we celebrated Independent Bookstore Day. We are such book people over here (as I know most of you all who read here as well!) and I want to impart to Wyatt the importance of supporting small and local. We have been buying books more than usual lately, or at least the last two weeks, which is different for us since we are huge library users, but this was an important day.

We started at Brooks Books. For their celebration, the also invited lots of other vendors to the shindig, and involved their neighboring businesses which was really cool in my opinion. That is one of my favorite things about Brooks Books, is that she is always lifting up other local businesses and forming a community. In this case, there was a nail salon, a hardware, a few bakeries, a small plant seller, and a tattoo shop. In fact, the tattoo shop is one that is owned by an old friend of ours! She moved her business and is now next to the bookshop. Her name is Susannah and she actually has done a few of Billy and my tattoos. I think she is such an amazing artist and I love her work. It was so good to see her in person again, and her new shop is so warm and cozy, and smelled amazing. If you want to see it, check out her Facebook page at Three Fates Tattoo Gallery.

We started with Suzy because we got there early and the bookstore wasn’t ready yet, but after chatting and touring the shop with Suzy, the bookstore was ready for business!

I wasn’t planning to buy a book this time around, only Wyatt, but then I saw that local author Allison Derosia was there. I mentioned that I was interested in her book, and Billy surprised me by going right over and getting it for me. She has another book coming out at the end of May, so I am hoping to grab that one too! Allison autographed it to me as well, which was super nice!

Wyatt chose a book too, then we wandered around looking at the other items for sale. We picked up a loaf of sourdough and sourdough sugar cookies from Sugar Mama, a local bakery that makes everything from, you guessed it, sourdough! It is all soooo delicious!

Next we popped over to Another Look Books, a used bookstore. I love supporting them, they are one of the OG small bookstores here and they are so nice. They offer teacher discounts and extend them to homeschool moms which is so cool, so I get 75% off of books that I am planning to use with Wyatt for school. Everything else is 50% off the price they list on the back. They also give you a free book for your birthday, and you can turn books in for store credit. Which reminds me, I need to take a stack in this weekend! We are almost out of credits! I picked up a few books, as did Wyatt, and then I took a picture of an old Nancy Drew for Lisa to see if she wanted it. They were letting customers choose a free book from their ARC collection, so I chose Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, about which I have heard really good things.

Our modest haul. Two full price books, three books that were either credit or 50% off, and a free book. Not bad!

Afterwards we went to my mom’s for her birthday, then my two little nieces came over for a bit while Devin and Chrissy went out.

The next morning, we were out the door early again! This time for a trip to the farm with our Blackbirds troop. We had so much fun! There was an activity for them, but the kids were really just enjoying being outside in the sunshine and fresh air and exploring. So we did a little bit of structured activity but also a little bit of unstructured freedom.

And, if you remember, last time we went my friend Kelly realized her dream of holding a chicken. Well, this time she got to hold TWO baby chickens at one time. Her oldest daughter also held two. All the kids, minus Wyatt and one other little boy, held one. Wyatt noped out which is fine. I carried it instead. Lol. The older girl you see is Kelly’s oldest daughter who volunteered for some NHS hours. She is a good egg.

Wyatt slept so good that night! Also, take a look at the picture with Wyatt holding the magnifying glass. What happens with sun and magnifying glasses? Well, later that day Billy and I found a small burn hole in Wyatt’s seat cushion!! We could not figure out where it came from. It never occurred to us that it was the magnifying glass. I mentioned it to Kelly the next day and she instantly figured it out, like she is Sherlock Holmes or something. I guess we will know better next time! I am just glad it didn’t burn him!

I just want to add something here at the end about local authors. I am helping a local bookstore, a bijou one in Monroe, MI named The Wandering Librarian, promote her book fest, Wander and Tale. It is being held on May 16 from 11-4, and will be on Front St. in Monroe. If anyone lives nearby, it sounds like it will be a fun time! There will be I think 40 local authors, as well as other vendors including a houseplant vendor! My kind of festival!

And with that, I will leave you to your day. I hope that you all have a good one today, and that you do something that makes you smile, even if it just to take five minute to go outside, take a deep breath, and just be.