Things that have happened in the past week(s) that are significant… but I got too lazy for them to have their own blog posts:

I started a [smallish] kitchen fire. James [very overzealously] put it out with every ounce of that fire extinguisher, which resulted in an entire Friday evening of kitchen cleanup and a solid 10 minutes of me crying on the kitchen floor, followed by half an hour of discussing why I was actually crying. Real life people, it’s so glamorous.

We burned through a lot of sparklers on the 4th, and you did too, and we all shared relatively similar Instagram pics of our sparklage (which should be a word). America was celebrated and a good time was had by all. I watched this video at least three times and laughed myself silly every time because popsongs rewritten to be about history is exactly my jam.

I have been to Stomping Ground in Del Ray 4 times since returning from Europe. Even on the Whole30, when I just can’t even eat most of the food, I go and munch away on chia-seed-unsweetened-coconut-milk-yogurt topped with mango and vicariously eat other people’s biscuit sandwiches with my eyes. I’ve been going there with anyone that I can convince to meet me for lunch, or by myself, for long days of dissertation research and biscuit lust.

I spent last weekend in Cincinnati, partying it up for the wedding of these pretty people. You better believe that I will drag you through all those wedding photos real soon, but for now, I will just give you the ones above, captured in the post-afternoon wedding I spent in downtown Cincinnati with my nephew and his parents, as well as one wedding teaser featuring Hannah, Jenny, and Hannah’s hair. I also altered my plans a little to slip down to Kentucky pre-wedding for some time with my grandparents, both of whom have been having some rough health problems lately. That means that I got nothing “done” over the past 5 days (hello dissertation procrastination!), but I did get lots of chubby nephew squeezes, laughter with college friends, and some pool and puzzle time in with my granny.

Now then. On to greener pastures around the Internet, mostly pastures tilled and sowed by some people that I love out there in cyberspace (and real life).

Whole30 round 2 is totally killing me. I’ve already failed at least a million times, but I have been loving a variation on this salad . Just ditch the cheese and it is compliant, tasty, and involves almost no kitchen time.

Loving these great pieces that Philip wrote recently about why millennials don’t get summer jobs anymore and why they need motorcycles.

“We were the ones getting Chunky Monkey and Rocky Road to the chubby kids on the other side of the mountain. Like drug cartel distributors, but for delicious dairy deserts, we enabled the childhood obesity of entire school districts daily. And it wasn’t easy.”

My friend Erin shares what they don’t tell you when you buy a house.

My friend Amanda posted a PERFECT blog about racist Atticus, and how to still love To Kill a Mockingbird in the negative light of Go Set a Watchman.

“If you’ve read the book and your soul isn’t cold and dead, I’ll wager that you love Atticus. And I tell you now: You can, and should, continue to love him.”

As many of my regular Bachelorette recaps have dwindled (what could you all possibly be doing with your time!) I have been running to The Right Reasons recap podcasts. Not exactly kosher for all audiences… but their analyses of the franchise is spot on. Plus, on the May 18th episode, you get an amazing interview with Kaitlyn AND Britt. Please don’t judge me for my excitement.

My friend Fran shares a rocking playlist for summer.

That’s all for now folks – happy Monday.