Have a Relaxing Weekend.

Love the link on kitchen tips! On #8 (how to boil a large egg), my father taught me the best trick: Pierce the egg with a thumbtack just before placing it in boiling water. It lets air in while cooking and the shell slides off during peeling. It’s like magic!

The stale bread technique absolutely works! My family spent last summer in the French country side with friends. Each morning we would trek to the local bakery to pack our arms full of baguettes that we would eat throughout the day. By evening, once the kids were asleep, we would “revive” any leftovers, in this exact manner, to pair with wine & cheese for a late-night snack. A beautifully glutinous habit that resulted in an extra 15lbs, but worth every bite!

My comment wouldn’t fit on Joanna’s Instagram post about Maine, so hoping it makes it to her here :) I’m a Southern CA native (from SD, now in LA for the past 8 years) and my husband and I visited Maine last summer with two other couples. I’ve loved many of your travel tips/recommendations over the years, hopefully these can be helpful to you! We went for a week and stayed in Portland and Bar Harbor. In Portland we stayed at an AWESOME Airbnb in a very central, walkable location (www.airbnb.com/rooms/14487758). Visit Cape Elizabeth and the Portland Head Light. We also liked renting bikes and doing the Back Cove Trail loop. Maine BayCycle was fun for a few hours out on the water. There is SO much good food and beer in Portland, but some of our favorites and MUST visits are Allagash Brewery (best lobster roll we had in Maine at the Bite Into Maine food truck there), Tandem Coffee, Holy Donut, Eventide, Urban Farm Fermentory and Blythe and Burrows. The Gus & Ruby store is very cute too. We also wanted to check out More & Co, which I saw on your Portland City Guide. You cannot go wrong with a few days in Portland. There is tons to do and eat and it is a great city! We loved Acadia National Park. It is STUNNING and worth visiting, but Bar Harbor is very touristy and there isn’t anything too interesting going on there. Think hard before going all the way up there because it is a long drive. If you do go, spend as much time as possible in the park and get there EARLY! The days we got to the park early it was really nice because there was no one around! It starts to get packed around 11am. Definitely worth it to wake up early to see the sunrise from Cadillac Mountain and we did an awesome afternoon sail with Sail Acadia out of Northeast Harbor. We also liked stopping at the LL Bean headquarters on the drive from Portland to Bar Harbor. At the end of our trip we said that for our next trip to Maine we’d want to fly in and out of Portland to spend some time there and then rent a house in Kennebunkport and relax and explore from there. Maine is awesome!

I loved your link to the “decisions my children required of me” post. Very funny and exhausting to read.

I read this article in The Guardian over the weekend about children being in control of the family rules. Fascinating!
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/mar/31/never-going-to-bed-children-rewrite-house-rules?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

I feel like The Great Sadness of Ben Affleck is mean spirited.

In reference to the Japanese women, there is a great cafe near my work in Philly that is dedicated to inter-generational community. It’s called Frieda and it is the best! I love that it combats loneliness and supports the idea that older adults have plenty to contribute to society. They hire elderly hosts alongside twenty-something servers, and provide living wages to all. There is no wi-fi but they have communal tables and offer classes and meet-ups seven days a week. So refreshing to seeing hipsters, parents with babies, and elderly folks all talking and hanging out together.