Hello, friends! I hope you had a thoughtful Holy Week and very joyful Easter. We worshipped at our church’s 9:45 service, skipped over to the WRAL azalea gardens to enjoy the blooms, then came home for lunch and an egg hunt in our backyard. Shep was very into the family selfie :) June has been practicing collecting things in her basket for months, so I knew we couldn’t let the holiday pass without some sort of search. Since we missed our neighborhood’s hunt this year, we decided to stage our own! I filled the eggs with little stickers and bunny grahams, and both prizes were a hit. For dinner, we had ham, twice-baked potatoes, asparagus, sparkling cider, and a deep dish chocolate chip cookie – YUM! More about our Easter baskets Speaking of yummy meals, I’ve been wanting to report back on the neighborhood meal swap I mentioned awhile back. Inspired by Victoria, a dear friend and I decided to switch off making meals for both of our families every Tuesday. We kicked things off in the first week of the year, and it was an immediate success on both ends. We made and delivered a Greek feast (grilled chicken kebabs, cucumber feta salad, hummus, pita, grilled peppers); homemade spaghetti and meatballs; beef stew and cheddar biscuits; meatloaf, roasted potatoes, and broccoli; Italian orzo; and more. Don’t mind me, just going to keep rolling with the Easter photos while I have you :) What a treat to have a hot meal delivered by a friendly face right at dinner time with no work on our part every other week! On meal delivery day, there was no racing around trying to get dinner on the table, just an extra hour to play with my babies or take a walk as a

First, I just have to acknowledge the semi-ridiculousness of me writing this post. I am a well-known and thoroughly-documented introvert, it takes me forever to make friends, and up until last year, I could count the number of neighbors I knew well on zero fingers. But, I’m almost up to needing two hands for my hyper-local crew, so it seems I may have turned a corner! Let’s file this post under “if I can do it, anyone can do it” :) Here, my seven best tips for making friends in your neighborhood. Still my two best friends in my neighborhood :) 1. Make it matter to you. Like pretty much all goals, the only way something will be prioritized in your life is if it matters to you. Before June was born, it would have been nice to have friends close by, but I didn’t really NEED them. Since having her, neighborhood friends have become much more of a necessity. Emergencies are what pop to mind first, or a contact to give our babysitter, but there’s another reason that’s even more important to me. I NEED to know who these people are if I’m going to feel comfortable letting our kids play outside unsupervised as they get older (a huge priority for me). I need to know their names, what matters to them, what kind of people they are, what the insides of their homes look like… I need to be friends with them, and I need to trust them. A childhood with freedom to roam matters to me, and so that’s why I was finally able to push past my discomfort and take action on making friends. If it really matters to you, you will, too. 2. Wave. That first tip was more existential, but this one is very