The Gaithersburg Book Festival is a celebration of the written word and its power to enrich the human experience. Our mission is to foster an interest in reading, writing and literary conversation.
Since its inception in 2010, the Festival has quickly become one of the nation’s top literary events, attracting hundreds of award-winning and best-selling authors, poets and songwriters from across the country to its quaint, park-like setting in the heart of Olde Towne Gaithersburg.
The Gaithersburg Book Festival is chock full of activities for everyone in your family. Happening this Saturday, May 18th from 10-6, this don’t miss activity features both highly structured activities like readings, workshops, and panel discussions, and more relaxed stroll-around opportunities like visiting the exhibitor booths. (Totally worth it, in my opinion- I got to meet some really interesting people there last year!)
My personal recommendation is to pack a cooler. Food was available on site last year, but the lines were long. Bringing your own provisions is the best way to make sure you don’t miss the start of something you really, really want to see!
Use their website to plan your visit.
If you happen to be blessedly unfamiliar with the 17 year cicadas, let me enlighten you. They are a species of cicada (yes, those big googly-eyed bugs that make that only exist in order to make that annoying sound so you know it’s hot all summer long) that has evolved to emerge from the ground in force on a 17 year cycle. Unfortunately for us, that doesn’t mean they only come once every 17 years. Each brood comes every seventeen years, but there are overlapping swarms of these things.
OR how to salvage your eMeals recipe after a well-known, popular grocery delivery service brings you such badly damaged zucchini that you can’t make grilled stuffed zucchini boats after all. (Yes, we have huge, giant, first world problems. It weighs heavily on us.)
I needed a quick, easy, and food coloring-free frosting recipe for a birthday playdate, and this one really came through! It works up fast in the microwave, and, as a bonus, you dirty exactly one bowl and a set of mixer beaters. (Which my guys wouldn’t lick. Because they are WEIRDOS.) To turn these into funny face cupcakes, I used store-bought candy eyes and a quick squiggle of white frosting for the mouth. (For my cupcake recipe please visit my 
Some dads I know have confided (not very confidentially) that they think the expectations for Mother’s Day are confusing, hard, and guaranteed to make sure they are always wrong. And a whole lot of moms of my acquaintance have confided (fairly confidentially, as the “insult to injury” part of the program is the need to pretend we are delighted with whatever happens) that their husbands DO get it wrong, year after year. Dudes, let me tell you where you are going wrong. You are listening to the advertising industry instead of to your wives. No foolies. There is the retailers’ idea of what constitutes an ideal Mothers’ Day (you- spending lots of money. her- mad, and spending revenge money next week) and then there is OUR idea of an ideal Mothers’ Day. (A nice day where we are free not to be mad at anyone at all, nobody cries, and we spend all of Monday overjoyed that our husband was so THOUGHTFUL AND SWEET this year.)
Here it comes- the stomach bug is making its way around your kid’s school, and the school nurse just called to ask you to pick your child up. There’s only one thing you can do. Well, two things. You can either keep your sense of humor, or go under for the third time.
Today I was on the mom side of the “your kid is sick” call from the school for the very first time. It made me remember how the time between when they called your mom and she came to get you was an eternity, no matter how long it actually took. We are fortunate enough to live very near the school, so I actually got to the clinic before his teacher came back with his bookbag so we could go. Naturally I hugged my sick baby while we waited, which prompted all the other sick kids at the clinic to come watch us with huge, sad eyes. I couldn’t gather them all up and mother them, but I hope their own mothers arrived quickly to love on them.
I love signing up for group giveaways so you guys will have the opportunity to enter to win great stuff! To help keep things organized, they are located on a sub-domain and you can always find the latest ones 
Jack and the Beanstalk simply couldn’t be a more perfect foil for hands on storytelling. First of all, Good Ol’ Jack doesn’t listen to his mother and mass chaos ensues. If you can’t make that work for you, then you just aren’t trying very hard.