0:07
Summer camp is upon us
Ada’s off to her second sleep‑away camp, the kind of woods‑filled, arts‑and‑crafts getaway she’s dreamed about since she was five. I helped her pack, balancing her desire to be involved with the need to make sure nothing essential gets left behind.
She already knows the little must‑haves: a top bunk spot, a clip‑on battery fan for the cabin heat, a velcro pouch for books at the foot of the bed, a back‑scratcher for silent note‑passing, and extra snacks to share. She also packs a shower caddy that drains, pre‑addressed envelopes for pen‑pals, and more books than she’ll actually read.
When we arrived, after the mandatory lice check, the unpacking felt like an F1 pit stop—swim caps in one bin, towels in another, shoes on a shelf, laundry bags on hooks. Other families were doing the same, each trying to claim a comfortable spot for their kids before the bus left.
Ada’s final camp list reads like a teen‑approved wardrobe: butterfly shorts, soft racerback tops, a denim bucket hat, tall crew socks, wide‑leg sweatpants, a graphic tee, a pointelle cardigan with tank and socks, and denim cut‑offs for school. She also brings a fan, a velcro storage caddy, art supplies, a letter‑writing kit, a mystery YA series, and—if allowed—a “husband pillow” for extra bunk comfort.
1:00
A Recipe You Don't Need to Turn on Your Oven For
Hey, I just tried this no‑cook “spring roll in a bowl” salad and thought you’d like the quick rundown. It’s basically a deconstructed rice‑paper roll: thin rice noodles soaked in hot water, then tossed with julienned cucumber, carrots, red pepper, purple cabbage, green onions, cilantro, peanuts, and sesame seeds. The whole thing gets a creamy peanut‑sesame dressing that ties everything together.
You can keep it entirely plant‑based or add a protein like grilled tofu or steamed edamame if you want a bit more heft. The recipe is all about fresh, crunchy veggies and that salty‑nutty sauce, so it stays light even on a hot day.
If you’re short on time, the noodles you buy that just need soaking are perfect—no stove needed. The full ingredient list and the sauce instructions are linked in the original post, but the basics are just the veggies, noodles, and dressing.
It’s a simple, cool‑room meal that’s easy to scale for a family or just for one. Grab the PDF calendar if you want more low‑heat dinner ideas, but this salad alone can be a fresh, satisfying lunch or dinner without heating up the house.
1:48
What Last Week's Supreme Court Ruling Means for Every Parent Raising Daughters
The Court voted 6‑3 to confirm that states can limit school sports to athletes who are biologically female, essentially keeping the existing “girls‑only” rules in place. That decision rests on a straightforward interpretation of existing state laws rather than a new legal theory, so it’s a solid, if narrowly focused, ruling.
What that means for us as parents is that the playing field for our daughters—whether they’re chasing a scholarship, a love of volleyball, or an Olympic dream—remains protected by law. The judgment leans on the long‑standing Title IX framework that has opened doors for millions of female athletes, reinforcing the idea that fairness in competition is a legal right, not a political preference.
Beyond the courtroom, the ruling nudges schools and legislators to keep wrestling with how to balance gender identity discussions with biological realities. For families who want to model both compassion and truth at the dinner table, the decision is a reminder that we can hold those values together without compromising either.
If you’re looking for a place to share those conversations, there’s a private group called the Family Defense Network. For about $7 a month it offers a community of parents, practical resources, and live Q&A sessions aimed at helping us raise kids who are confident and biblically grounded in a confusing culture.
2:47
The Best Thing We Bought at the Vide Grenier
A vide grenier is like a town yard sale with a little dose of festival thrown in. I don’t know the phonetic alphabet, but here’s my best explanation of the pronunciation: Veed Gren-ee-yay. The direct translation is empty attic — as in emptying your attic and selling all the things you no longer need.
Each village and town in France typically hosts a vide grenier once each year, anytime from late spring to the end of summer. Anyone in town (or even visitors) can set up a table and sell whatever they’d like. Vide greniers are free to attend, but there’s usually there’s a small fee to participate as vendor, like 3 euros per meter, and you might want two meters for your table, so 6 euros total. Other times it’s free to set up a table.
3:20
Your Brain Evolved for Survival, Not Happiness
Your brain is wired to keep an eye on danger, not to chase happiness. For most of our evolution, noticing threats—like a rival or a loss of status—meant the difference between surviving or not, so the mind stays on high alert for anything that feels unsafe. When an adult child cuts off contact, that same alarm system lights up, turning a relational loss into a perceived survival threat. It starts asking, “What did I do wrong?” and “Do I matter anymore?”—questions that feel urgent, even though they’re just the brain’s default response.
Psychologists Gordon Flett and Isaac Prilleltensky point out that what we really need isn’t constant happiness but a sense of mattering—knowing we’re valued and make a difference. Estrangement hits that need hard, because it can make you feel like you’ve lost your primary source of significance. The brain then amplifies that feeling, mistaking alarm signals for facts.
The good news is that those alarms are not truth. You still matter to other people—spouse, friends, colleagues, anyone you help or support. Shifting your attention toward those relationships and the roles you already fill can quiet the threat‑detecting loop.
Healing starts when you recognize the brain’s warnings as just signals, not verdicts, and let your values guide you back to the people and purposes that still need you.
4:17
My All-Time Favorite Size-Inclusive Swimsuits
I once read an interview with Jennifer Aniston, wherein she was asked — of all things — about why she’d been photographed wearing the same swimsuit year after year.… Read more
The post My All-Time Favorite Size-Inclusive Swimsuits appeared first on Cup of Jo.
4:31
We Need To Talk About The Friendships We're Letting Go
I recently let a longtime friendship sort of… fade away. We first met when we were 15 years old, two mismatched kids who lived mere minutes apart. That accidental geography somehow turned into nearly three decades of friendship, during which we’ve seen each other through marriage and divorce and babies and death. That’s not the kind of friendship you walk away from on a whim.
But I did walk away. And even though I know it was the best decision for me, I’ve also felt guilty (and been made to feel guilty) about it for months.
So, if you’re reading this and going through something similar, this one’s for you. Because what I’ve figured out since, and what I wish someone had said to me sooner, is that letting a friendship go is not the same as failing at friendship.
Since it’s hard to trust that’s true, though, I asked people who study relationships for a little insight.
How does the expression go? “To all things a season.” That’s not to say that some friendships don’t last your entire life, but it’s pretty common for social circles to narrow as you grow older.
“I don’t think it means people value friendship any less,” therapist Meredith Van Ness, LCSW, told me, "I think life simply asks more of us."
That obviously makes sense, and yet it’s one of those things you don’t really think about when you’re in the middle of a transitional stage with a friend. Van Ness reminds me that, as we get older, our values shift. Responsibilities pile up and, in turn, our actual capacity changes. "Between careers, kids, aging parents, marriages, health concerns, and everything else life throws at us, there simply isn't enough time to invest in every relationship the way we once did,” she explains.
Adding to the confusion of all of this is the fact that we’re in the middle of a loneliness epidemic. Connection is a basic human need, and one that so many of us yearn for more than we’re getting. It would be shameful to squander a friendship you already have… right?
Don’t think of it that way, says Van Ness: “That doesn’t mean every friendship is meant to last forever. Sometimes making room for healthy, reciprocal relationships also means letting go of the ones that no longer fit.”
When I think about who I was at 15 versus who I am now, of course I’m not the same person. My circumstances now are wildly different from those back then. And that’s a reframe I needed to really wrap my head around: Many friendships weren’t necessarily built to last, because they were situational.
“You make friends where it is convenient to meet people,” explained Dawn Friedman, a licensed professional clinical counselor. “So you make friends in college, then you leave college. You make friends at work, and then you change jobs. The moms you hang out with on maternity leave might not be the same moms you hang out with when your child is in elementary school.”
That lands for me. Sometimes, the perfect person to survive those newborn-fog years with just isn’t someone you call five years later when you have a rare kid-free day. “A great playdate hangout,” Friedman says, isn’t always the same thing as a person you connect with on a deeper level, who you’d choose to spend your limited free time with.
And nope, that still doesn’t make you a bad friend.
If you’re a data person, Friedman points to the “convoy model” of social relationships. The idea? That we all move through life inside a shifting network of ties, the whole formation rearranging as we go. Research suggests that as we age, with women in particular, our friendships tend to get fewer but closer. It becomes less about circumstance and more about choice. “It’s not a failure,” Friedman said. “It’s expected and typical for most women.”
For me, the person I’ve become in parenthood made it much clearer that I no longer fit with my old friend. From a purely logistical standpoint, I need to be selective about who I spend my extremely limited time with. “When you have children, your free time shrinks dramatically,” Van Ness says. “Many friendships become more about logistics than intention.”
But there are also your standards.
How I view the world is different in motherhood. I want to surround myself — and my kids — with people who believe in things I think are good and important, things that matter to me. When your time is finite, you get choosier about where it goes.
“For many of my clients, as they work on themselves and develop stronger boundaries, have higher standards for compatibility, or just allow themselves to explore new interests, they change and sometimes friendships won't change with them. This is OK,” Friedman shares.
Van Ness agrees that you figuring out what works for you in terms of the people you surround yourself with is actually healthy. “You're more likely to invest in friendships that feel supportive, easy, and mutual," she says. "You simply have less room for relationships that consistently leave you feeling drained."
This is the question that I’ve struggled with the most.
7:52
Best Rides At Epic Universe, Ranked By A Mom (Including The One I'd Skip)
Universal’s newest theme park, Epic Universe, is a trip through some of the biggest and best franchises in the company’s catalog. Each immersive area — Super Nintendo World, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Celestial Park, the Isle of Berk, and Dark Universe — feels like its own entity. And each and every attraction brings a part of those worlds to life, whether it’s flying your own dragon through some aerial acrobatic moves or fleeing from a rabid werewolf. As a thrill-seeking, nostalgic-for-Nintendo mom who just went, these are the best rides at Epic Universe (plus the one I’d skip).
This is no fault of the carousel’s, but in the scheme of rides, I can ride a carousel most anywhere while everything else at Epic Universe feels unique to this park. That said, if you’re looking for a shady ride to catch your breath on — because shade comes at a premium at Epic — you should check this attraction out.
I have a lot of sensory icks, and the heavy chlorine smell and wet clothes sensation I associate with water rides typically put me off of them. However, it can get seriously hot at Florida theme parks, and even the water ride haters can get drawn in. Fyre Drill feels like a really original attraction — you board a Viking ship and take up arms with your own personal water-blasting cannon.
(There’s a people dryer nearby for a $7 full-body blow dry, if that changes anything for you.)
This is the most family-friendly ride at Epic Universe — truly, any age of park-goer is welcome here. You walk onto your own Yoshi and cruise ever so slowly through a Nintendo landscape, looking for colorful Yoshi eggs among the scenery. It’s fun to take in all the adorable vignettes and animatronics, and a nice way to get a bird’s-eye view of Peach’s castle.
OK, it’s probably a very hot take putting this ride this low on the list. I just can only get enthused for so many simulation rides, and this one felt so similar to Escape from Gringotts back at Universal Studios. If you love one, you’ll love the other; this is just not the genre of ride that gets me going.
That said, the queues for the HP rides are always so immersive and impressive. You should definitely walk into the Ministry of Magic and take in the scale and detail of it, whether you want to hop on this ride or not.
It pains me to rank this ride this low; it’s the one I was most excited about at Epic, as I hold so much love and nostalgia for the Mario Kart games. The augmented reality aspect, which lets you fire shells at rival racers on Team Bowser, was just a little confusing and hard to master while also trying to take in the cool surroundings of the ride itself. I think this one would take a few rides to really enjoy, and unfortunately the line was too long to make that possible. That said, my family did love it and we’d happily ride it again!
Proof that a ride does not have to be fancy or full of effects to be fun: Dragon Racer’s Rally, which hoists you up many stories in the air in your very own practice dragon. You can control your training apparatus’ wings, with some riders even managing to pull off a barrel roll, or you can be more hands-off and just enjoy getting swung around and seeing the sights.
This smaller coaster is a world of fun — it goes forward and backward on the track and spins, so every ride is a little different, and the unpredictability makes it even more exciting. It gets up to 37 miles per hour, but there are no upside-down sections or crazy drops, so it’s more family-friendly than, say, Stardust Racers.
I’m not any more into the classic monsters than your average Joe, so I didn’t expect to like this ride as much as I did, but it’s honestly a delight. The waiting area with a demo of the ride is honestly hysterical. I have never ridden a ride like this — you’re on a four-seat wide bench on a swinging, rotating arm — and it was just so cool and impressive and fun. The jump scares were the perfect amount of scary to be fun (I’m a big chicken). This is the ride I tell everyone to check out simply because it’s freaking cool.
I was expecting the Mario Kart ride to make my heart swell with nostalgia, but actually, this is the ride that gave me that feeling. Drawing on the iconic runaway mine cart gameplay from the Donkey Kong games, this roller coaster makes it look and feel like you’re riding in your very own runaway mine cart, complete with “hopping” sections of broken track. I sat in the front left of the cart and couldn’t see the mechanics of the coaster helping us jump those areas, so the illusion was maintained for me, making the ride extra fun. My 5-year-old loved it too!
The ride so nice we rode it twice! This is a super fun family coaster that’s great for elementary-aged kids and up. It’s fun and fast without needing to flip you upside down or rattle you around, so even coaster-wary kids might end up loving it.
11:10
13 Budget-Friendly Outdoor Toys, Games, & Crafts To Banish Summer Boredom
I’ve pulled together a quick list of the simplest things that keep kids out of the screen and into the sunshine without breaking the bank. First up are reusable sponge water balloons – they’re cheap, easy to refill and you can turn a driveway into a point‑scoring game with chalk circles. A compact truck track works just as well indoors or on a lawn, and it’s quiet enough that it won’t drive you nuts.
If you prefer mess‑free art, twist‑up paint sticks on a roll of craft paper let kids create murals or road maps without the drips. A small pop‑up tent or fort kit gives them a portable hideaway for reading, movies, or beach‑side play.
For quieter moments, grab a few Mad Libs paperbacks, an origami folding set, or a matching‑board game that nudges spatial thinking. Bead‑making kits, sticker‑making kits, and a mixed bag of craft supplies (glue sticks, googly eyes, feathers) let imagination run wild for hours.
Finally, a basic sprinkler or splash pad, a hose, or a durable RC car can turn any backyard into a mini‑adventure zone. All of these ideas are low‑cost, easy to store, and flexible enough to move from one family gathering to the next.
12:01
The Most Popular TV Sitcom in Israel Takes Place in a Grocery Store
This piece originally ran on Jewish TV Club.
Have you ever visited a grocery store in Israel? It’s an incredible multi-sensory experience. At the bakery section, there are trays laden with burekas and rugelach, sometimes stale, sometimes wafting the most delicious aroma. Moms and grandmothers line up to get a prime cut of meat or cold cuts at the butcher section, sometimes arguing about their place in line and making the person behind the counter assure them that what they are getting is indeed the best and freshest cut. In the dairy section, you can get nostalgic plastic bags of milk or chocolate milk. The walkways are often laden with boxes that need to be unpacked. And at the checkout, you will find people having soulful conversations with their cashiers about recent life events, calling them by their first names.
So it shouldn’t be surprising that the top Israeli sitcom takes place in a grocery store.
Since “The Office,” the TV workplace mockumentary has become a beloved and oft-used trope, and it is the chosen format of “Checkout,” whose fourth season is streaming with English subtitles on ChaiFlicks (the fifth season of the show already aired in Israel between November 2024 and March 2025).
In “Checkout,” a documentary crew follows the Yavne branch of the Shefa Isaschar grocery store staff and clients as they go through their day. Shop manager Shira Steinbuch (Israeli sensation Noa Koler of “Rehearsals,” “Fire Dance” and “The Wedding Plan”), a high-achieving goodie-two-shoes, gets on everyone’s nerves with her stickler ways and her loud off-key singing. The women at the register are in fact the ones with all the power, especially bleached-blonde Kochava, played by Israeli comedian Keren Mor, known for many movie and TV roles including in the biting ‘90s satire show “Hahamishia Hakamerit,” who uses her pulpit at the cash register to make personal calls, share her love for Ladino music and wage wars with Amnon Tittinski, a particularly frugal university professor played by the dryly funny Dov Navon. Everyone, aside from a model employee or two, is trying to get away with doing the least, and the customers are doing the most to be unbearable. Basically, your average Israeli grocery store dynamics, heightened for maximum comedic effects. It’s kind of “The Office” meets the kvetchiness and anti-hero qualities of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” a very fun combination of well-written and observed comedy about the minutiae of human interactions focused on something so haimish and familiar.
This isn’t a show where the characters reveal themselves as actually tender-hearted. Each character stays completely self-involved, in their own way, living in the separate lane of their own universe. But if you want to understand contemporary Israeli society, I would say that it’s a deeply illuminating show.
While the city of Yavne itself doesn’t boast a particularly diverse population, the inside of the supermarket (or “super” as Israelis call it) is a veritable microcosm of Israeli diversity. Ramzi Abed Ramzi (Amir Shurush) is a model senior employee whose Arab-Israeli parents both work in grocery stores. Nissim is one of the butchers in the shop, a ba’al teshuva, or secular-raised Jew who became more observant. His co-worker behind the butcher counter, Anatoly, or Sergein, is an oleh, a Jewish immigrant from Moldova with a heavy accent. Esty (Aviva Nagosa), a cashier, is an Ethiopian Jew, and Naomi (Mia Landsmann), a warehouse worker, is butch and queer.
While Israel is not known as a TV PC haven, at least not when it comes to comedy, the casting of this show is mostly what you would call authentic. Shurush, who plays Ramzi with a heavy Arab accent, grew up in a mixed home, with an Arab Christian father and a Jewish Yemenite mother. Daniel Styopin, who plays Anatoly, was born in Ukraine and only found out he was Jewish in first grade. Nagosa is the daughter of parents who came to Israel as part of Operation Brothers and even had a one-woman show called “Made in Israel” all about her identity as an Israeli-born Ethiopian Jew.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that “Checkout” has any incisive social commentary to impart. It’s humor shows a deep understanding of the dynamics of Israeli society: Many of its characters are quick to point out perceived and real discrimination against them, and the racist tensions that exist in Israeli societies make their ways into the show in the same way that they do into these types of spaces in real life. But it’s ultimately happy to remain on the surface, mostly a comfort show there to make us laugh, always pulling back when it’s too close to making an overly-inflammatory point about Israeli society.
That’s rarely more clear than it is in the third season episode “Ramzi Is Pure Forever.” A new employee joins the supermarket: Eliran, an ex-con and Beitar fan, the soccer team known for its racist chants against Arabs.
