The Camping Trip (a.k.a. how to freeze your a$$ off in Florida)

Camping with my family was just another part of growing up in Florida. I knew how to relieve myself in bushes and bathe in alligator-infested rivers before I could to read. 

During my tween years, I was a member of a kick-ass Girl Scout troop. We camped across the country, crashed Boy Scout conventions, and beat them at their own competitions. (Yes, this girl whipped the boys canoeing, tent pitching, knot-tying, and lip-syncing to Madonna.)

I could gut a fish and even earned my hunter's education certification. (Not that I'd EVER willingly shoot an animal—come the apocalypse, this girl will live off wild berries and palm hearts or something. Plus I couldn't hit a target to save my life.)


But you get the point—I was outdoorsy.

WAS.

I hadn't spent a night in the wilderness (not counting the night I slept in my backyard hammock) for over twenty years.

And my husband had NEVER been camping—or the kiddo.

It was long past time to introduce my boys to the great outdoors.

So, when a Groupon popped up for a "campground resort" (a.k.a. KOA) practically around the block from kiddo's soccer fields, I snatched it up. Though on the river and a part of a huge protected wildlife area, it was twenty minuets from home, and ten minutes from a SuperWalmart. Seriously. How rough could it be?

Being the ex-Girl Scout that I am, I made lists. I shopped for lanterns after carefully reading reviews. I dug through Pinterest for campfire cooking recipes. I forced everyone to pitch my parent's old tent in the backyard so they had a clue what to do when I barked orders. I had this down.

The Morgan's First Camping Trip was scheduled during Spring Break. The weather in late-March is usually gorgeous here in the Sunshine State—not too hot yet, but perfect for pleasant days at the beach and springs.The mosquitoes usually aren't around yet to carry me away.

But this year, Spring Break was ridiculously COLD. Like we were running the heat at night. IN FLORIDA. Weather forecasters predicted a freeze night we were scheduled to arrive, so I pleaded with the campground's office to push our reservation back a day, and we crossed our fingers for a speedy warm-up.

Yes, this is the SAME tent as above. I won't mention how old it must be.

Upon arrival, the weather seemed glorious. The sun shined, the thermometer hovered in the 70s, and a dry breeze rustled the trees around the creek. We pitched the old tent without a hitch, unpacked, and explored. The campground centered around a huge old-fashioned Florida spring, and though the water remained at a chilly 72° year-round, kiddo was brave enough to play.  It was a good day.

Did I mention we have always used a gas grill at home? We brought along a cute little portable charcoal grill for cooking. We planned to toss firewood in later for our campfire and s'mores. Uhm—execpt we couldn't get the damn charcoal to stay lit. Even with the handy-dandy fire starters I'd crafted from cardboard egg cartons, dryer lint, and wax.

So, diner was a little late, and my boys were ready to go all wildman and eat the meat raw by the time I warmed our food. When we tried to arrange the wood to make a campfire, the logs were twice the size of the fire pit/grill. And we had no ax. Well, shoot. Have you ever tried breaking up wood with a utility hammer? Not how Honest Abe used to split logs.

Once the sun went down, the temperature dropped. Rapidly. And the winds picked up. By the time we decided to retire into our snug tent, we realized it was going to drop back into the 40s overnight.

Then I discovered I didn't pack our sleeping bag.

I swear, I packed half the house in the car. I remembered the air mattress, the air pump, the sheets. But no blanket or sleeping bag to keep us warm.

Did I mention IT WAS REALLY FREAKING COLD?

Hubby offered to drive out to Walmart and buy us a new sleeping bag. Stupid, stubborn me refused. We came with what we came with. If we were in the "real" wilderness, we would figure out how to survive.

Big mistake.

We layered every stitch of clothing I'd packed. Huddling under both sheets, the picnic blanket, the beach towels, and even the plastic table cloth, we tried to quiet our chattering teeth. Yes, I contemplated the whole bare-skin-to-skin method for warmth, but we were in public basically, with our snoring WARM kid not two feet away. I'd remembered HIS sleeping bag, complete with the zip-around-the-head warm hoodie.

We survived the freezing night, sleeping in freezing fits, as my frigid ass kept hitting the almost icy ground (turns out the air mattress had a slow leak, too.)

The next morning, we huddled outside, trying to light a fire for warmth in the wind.

We must have looked pitiful. So pitiful that our neighbors in their Mac-Daddy setup brought us some fresh wood to stoke the fire. (These pros pulled in with their fancy RVs and had canopies unfurled, fire pits roaring, steaks grilling, and booze flowing in less than ten minutes. I'm hooking up with them next time.)

Within hours, we shed our gloves and doubled-up socks and donned our swimsuits. We enjoyed a peaceful canoe trip along the gorgeous Wekiva River.  Later, we waded through a clear stream to the springs, where kiddo constructed cities in the sand and the hubby and I relaxed with books and beer.

We survived. My boys say they even had fun. We'll try again soon. I've already bought a new tent.

Now I just need to remember the damn sleeping bags.

*****

Hooking up with Mama Kat again. Come join the fun.

Are you a camper or is a Holiday Inn your idea of roughing it?

Best Summer Reads (part 1)

Summertime . . . and the readin's easy. . .

I wish I could read a book a day. There must be a dozen books waiting on my Kindle "To Read" queue. I just sent three books I'm dying to read back to the library. (Gasp! But they were two-weekers, and the was no way I'd get through them without racking up some major late fees.) SO many of my favorite authors shower the bookshelves with new summer releases. I just can't keep up. And by trying to read so many book in so little time, I certainly have no to write the reviews they deserve. I'm sorry! 

I thought I'd round up some of my recommended summer reads. Some are fresh releases, some I finally got my hands on, and all are fabulous.

Read on, my friends. . .

Looking For Me by Beth Hoffman

Teddi Overman found her life’s passion for furniture in a broken-down chair left on the side of the road in rural Kentucky. She learns to turn other people’s castoffs into beautifully restored antiques, and eventually finds a way to open her own shop in Charleston. There, Teddi builds a life for herself as unexpected and quirky as the customers who visit her shop. Though Teddi is surrounded by remarkable friends and finds love in the most surprising way, nothing can alleviate the haunting uncertainty she’s felt in the years since her brother Josh’s mysterious disappearance. When signs emerge that Josh might still be alive, Teddi is drawn home to Kentucky. It’s a journey that could help her come to terms with her shattered family—and to find herself at last. But first she must decide what to let go of and what to keep.

I absolutely adored this book. But as a women's fiction lover, that's not too surprising. Instead of me raving, I'll let one of my fellow Bookshelf Bombshells, a book lover who does not usually appreciate the WF genre, explain what makes this book stand out. {read full review here}




Ladies Night by Mary Kay Andrews

Grace Stanton’s life as a rising media star and beloved lifestyle blogger takes a surprising turn when she catches her husband cheating and torpedoes his pricey sports car straight into the family swimming pool. Grace suddenly finds herself locked out of her palatial home, checking account, and even the blog she has worked so hard to develop in her signature style. 

Moving in with her widowed mother, who owns and lives above a rundown beach bar called The Sandbox, is less than ideal. So is attending court-mandated weekly "divorce recovery" therapy sessions with three other women and one man for whom betrayal seems to be the only commonality. When their “divorce coach” starts to act suspiciously, they decide to start having their own Wednesday "Ladies' Night" sessions at The Sandbox, and the unanticipated bonds that develop lead the members of the group to try and find closure in ways they never imagined. Can Grace figure out a new way home and discover how strong she needs to be to get there? 

Heartache, humor, and a little bit of mystery come together in a story about life’s unpredictable twists and turns. Mary Kay Andrews' Ladies' Night will have you raising a glass and cheering these characters on.

I'm an unabashed MKA fan. Her books mix laughter with real life, often with a touch of mystery thrown in for fun. This book captures her wit and spunky style better than any of the last few she's released ( I liked those too, this one's just even better). And it takes place in my Sunshine State. Pack this one in your beach bag.



Maya's Notebook by Isabel Allende

This contemporary coming-of-age story centers upon Maya Vidal, a remarkable teenager abandoned by her parents. Maya grew up in a rambling old house in Berkeley with her grandmother Nini, whose formidable strength helped her build a new life after emigrating from Chile in 1973 with a young son, and her grandfather Popo, a gentle African-American astronomer.

When Popo dies, Maya goes off the rails. Along with a circle of girlfriends known as "the vampires," she turns to drugs, alcohol, and petty crime--a downward spiral that eventually leads to Las Vegas and a dangerous underworld, with Maya caught between warring forces: a gang of assassins, the police, the FBI, and Interpol.

Her one chance for survival is Nini, who helps her escape to a remote island off the coast of Chile. In the care of her grandmother’s old friend, Manuel Arias, and surrounded by strange new acquaintances, Maya begins to record her story in her notebook, as she tries to make sense of her past and unravel the mysteries of her family and her own life.

If I could write like anyone in the world, I'd write like Isabel Allende. A writer can dream. This story differs from most of Allende's works, as it's a modern tale dealing with modern problems—loss, addictions, crime, and atonement. Yet every sentence still reads like music, luring readers into her lyrical world through her words.





Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

The story begins in 1962. On a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline, a young innkeeper, chest-deep in daydreams, looks on over the incandescent waters of the Ligurian Sea and spies an apparition: a tall, thin woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an actress, he soon learns, an American starlet, and she is dying.

And the story begins again today, half a world away, when an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio's back lot-searching for the mysterious woman he last saw at his hotel decades earlier.

What unfolds is a dazzling, yet deeply human, roller coaster of a novel, spanning fifty years and nearly as many lives. From the lavish set of Cleopatra to the shabby revelry of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Walter introduces us to the tangled lives of a dozen unforgettable characters: the starstruck Italian innkeeper and his long-lost love; the heroically preserved producer who once brought them together and his idealistic young assistant; the army veteran turned fledgling novelist and the rakish Richard Burton himself, whose appetites set the whole story in motion-along with the husbands and wives, lovers and dreamers, superstars and losers, who populate their world in the decades that follow.

Gloriously inventive, constantly surprising, Beautiful Ruins is a story of flawed yet fascinating people, navigating the rocky shores of their lives while clinging to their improbable dreams


I'm late lauding this one. Drunken 50s movie stars, decrepit Italian villages, and cannibals. What else do you need? Seriously, a marvelous tale you won't want to put down.

***************

More of my favorite books of this summer comming soon.

What books have you fallen in love with this summer?

currently

Reading
The Kennedy Chronicles. If you were a teen in the 80s/90s, you remember when MTV actually played MUSIC videos and VJs were iconic. Kennedy first appeared on the airwaves in 1992, my senior year of high school, back when we scheduled nightly activities around catching the MTV Top Ten Countdown and Alternative Nation, when the reluctant grunge Gods from Seattle ruled, and when music made a difference. I needed something light and funny that would send me on a toboggan run through memory lane. {I'll probably review this for Bookshelf Bombshells. Keep your eyes peeled.}

I'm also scanning through Noah Lukman's  How to Land (and Keep) a Literary Agent. Self-explanatory.

Next up: a dramatic shift to Meg Waite Clayton's The Wednesday Daughters.

Listening to
Tons and tons of Dave Matthews Band. Wednesday night the hubby and I make our annual summer pilgrimage to the DMB concert. I think this will be my 16th show? But this year is different: we're taking the kiddo. His first (and only other) concert experience was at the ripe old age of five, when we introduced him to Sir Paul McCartney. He fell asleep halfway through the amazing show, but we woke him up just in time for him to sing along to his favorite Beatles song, Hey Jude. Now, at nearly ten, I think he'll be able to handle the late night and dancing debauchery much better. And maybe even remember some of it.

Thinking about
Finishing edits on my manuscript. All 90k+ words must be submitted for the final round of judging of the Novel Rocket Launch Pad contest by the end of the month, along with a book proposal. (Remember, I WON the general fiction category in June. Whoo-hoo!)  I'm sending chapters to my critique partner as fast as she can read them, and the feedback has been pretty positive. Thinking about where I should put my query letter up for critique.

Watching
Not much. Gator Boys reruns and  Of the Hook. If anyone ever told me I'd giggle watching a wild, bearded, sometimes Speedo-wearing wrestler filming his extreme fishing quests, I'd assume someone had whacked them upside the head with a spear gun. Somehow, the whole family enjoys this irreverent show. Maybe it's the combo of animals, humor, and a tiny bit of learning? I cannot explain it.

Bummed out on
The Zimmerman trial debacle. Once again, an over-publicized trial hits too close to home. First Casey Anthony (and I can't even go there), now this. Any of those jurors could literally be my neighbors ( I have noticed a few friends have dropped off the face of the earth these last few weeks). I didn't watch any of the media frenzy or trial. Saturday night, while driving home from an impromptu day of fun, we passed by one of the local news stations as its news chopper took off. The hubby and I exchanged an "uh-oh" look. Sure enough, the verdict was in. I hate the polarization the media has fueled. I don't think this trial could have had a satisfactory conclusion. Both parties made poor decisions. Unfortunately, one paid with his life. I don't know what happened that night—none of us do—though most of people in this country see themselves as jurors. We're not. Let it go. Rioting will not bring the boy back or change the verdict. If you want to vent your outrage, try changing Florida's idiotic gun laws. Then move on.

As Forrest Gump said, "And that's all I have to say about that."

Loving
Spending time with my mom on her birthday. It's been years since we actually enjoyed each other's company on one of our special days. I spend so much time fulfilling obligations, it's a joy to simply relax with a loved one, maybe savor a yummy Panera lunch, and share some stories. Love ya, Mom.



*This post is prompted by Mama Kat and So Sweet. Thanks for the idea, ladies! 
**AND I'm sharing over with Shell at Things I can't Say--join the discussion.

The World at Your Fingertips — Top 10 Tips for Taking a MOOC

Thank you to StudentAdvisor.com for sponsoring this post.

The world at our fingertips...

Anyone who knows me or reads my blog knows I love to learn. If a day goes by without me soaking up some new bit of info, I feel brain cells wither. So when I read about the new MOOC trend sweeping the virtual world, I had explore my options.
 
What's a MOOC, you ask?

A MOOC is a massive open online course — a web-based, college-level class (taught by a real professor) with unrestricted enrollment. They can take a variety of formats, but the most popular are usually a combination of video, lecture notes, assignments and projects.

Think of them as TEDTalks with homework. They cover subjects from cutting edge technology to the obscure. And, did I mention, they are free?

Yes, you read that right — free Ivy League classes at your fingertips. Have you ever wanted to take Computer Science 101 at Stanford, learned about The Psychology, Biology, and Politics of Food at Yale, or brushed up on The Ancient Greek Hero at Harvard? It's all available to you with only an investment of time.

Most MOOCs are flexible; you can watch videos on demand and fit readings and assignments into your schedule after work, between traditional classes, or even while waiting in the carpool line.
 
Student Advisors just launched a new website MOOCAdvisor. My article, Top 10 Tips for Taking a MOOC at Student Advisor, is featured over at MOOCAdvisor.

Curious? Go take a look. There are new virtual worlds to explore.

Have you ever taken or considered taking a virtual class? 

*****

For more information about MOOCs, please visit StudentAdvisor.com. I was 
selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls 
Collective, and the content and opinions expressed here are 
all my own. 

photo credit: Éole via photopin cc 

Review: The Firebird by Susanna Kearsley

"He sent his mind in search of me that morning."

Nicola Marter was born with a gift so rare and dangerous she keeps it buried deep. When she encounters a desperate woman trying to sell a small wooden carving called "The Firebird," claiming it belonged to Russia's Empress Catherine, it's a problem. There is no proof.

But Nicola's held the object. She knows the woman is telling the truth.

With elements of mystery and magical realism, The Firebird intertwines contemporary romance with historical drama, sweeping readers from modern day Scottland to 18th century Russia. I hadn't read a historical fiction book in a while, so this was a refreshing change. I don't think I've picked up a historical with elements of the paranormal since Deborah Harkness's last release.

In present day London, Nicola works with fine Russian works of art. While she's a savvy and well educated woman who excels at her position, she also has a secret: she can see an object's past with just a touch. Nicola fears her power, for the most part ignoring it, until the day she sees—actually "sees"—the visitor's firebird in the presence her ancestor, Anna, and the  Empress Catherine. But without revealing her visionary powers, she has no proof. 

Knowing she cannot control her power enough to trace the origins of the firebird and prove its provenance, Nicola seeks out Rob, a man from her own past—a man gifted with the power to envision history from just being in proximity. A man she once may have loved.

Nicola easily enlists Rob to join her in her quest to prove the firebird's provenance. Rob, a kind-hearted policeman, is more interested in developing Nicola's talents and possibly rekindling their relationship. Together they travel from seaside Scottish ruins, to rainy streets where a Belgian covenant once stood, to the palaces of St. Petersburg.

Anna's story is more intriguing than Nicola's present day quest. A child born during the Jacobean Rebellion, she's been hidden away from her parents' powerful enemies. Allies faithful to her family's cause—a grandfatherly colonel and a mysterious soldier— whisk her away when danger nears. Clever Anna makes her way in her ever changing worlds, finding strength, family, and love in  times where no one is who they seem.

I found the tales of the Jacobites who fled to Russia to serve Their King James in the Russian courts of Peter the Great interesting, as that is a slice of history I don't recall studying thoroughly. And, as you may know from my previous reviews, I love learning something while engrossed in a work of fiction.

Kersley supposedly continues some story lines from her previous novel, The Winter Sea. (I've yet to read it, so I won't mention anything as it may be a spoiler.)

The Firebird will appeal to lovers of historical fiction. It's elements of paranormal and romance are far from overwhelming, and this would be a lovely read to pair with a cup of tea on a chilly day.


 The Firebird is the She Reads July book club selection.The wonderful women at She Reads are giving away FIVE copies of THE FIREBIRD. One reader will receive this book and four more of Susanna’s novels.(Again, thanks to the wonderful people at Sourcebooks).  Visit SheReads.com today for your chance to win, and throughout the month to discover more about the book, the author, and other fabulous summer reads!




The Firebird
by Susanna Kearsley
Sourchebooks
530 pages