Favorite Haunts + Little Women and Me/Crazy Beautiful Giveaway!

It's still summertime, time to be a little lazier - yea!

Here are some of my current favorite summertime haunts:

- The movie theatre. On hot days, I love going to matinees with my daughter. And my favorite thing to do there with her is take over six seats in the back row, three for each of us, and lie down on our sides head to head to watch. Since she's gotten a bit older and has always had more mature tastes, this has been the Summer of the Inappropriate Movie for us. Probably tied for first are "Friends with Benefits" and "Horrible Bosses".

- Shopping at J Crew. Everyone knows by now how short I am, but at J Crew there's always at least something that fits and the clothes last and last.

- My own dining room table. Every Friday night for over 10 years now, I've hosted a writing group in my home. It's something I always love but particularly in summer, when I can also have my (beleaguered) Mets on mute on the living room TV and when we take breaks outside the weather is conducive to sitting for a spell over a glass of good wine and good gab.

- The bench outside my front door. Over the course of the day, I take several 10-minute breaks outside to recharge. While I'm recharging, I'm also always reading. I read all year long but there's something special about summertime reading, that nostalgic feel of hot days with no responsibility but plenty of time to lie by the pool or under a shady tree and gorge on books. I'm like a tick when it comes to books. Did that image just gross you out?

- The couch in front of the TV. "General Hospital" in the afternoons, "Glee Project" on demand with my daughter, catching-up-on-movies Saturday nights with the lights out - I love it all.

So those are my summertime haunts. OK, maybe you'll think they're lame, with a serious homebody bent, but they're mine.

How about you: What are your favorite summertime haunts?

Oops, almost forgot! I'm offering a signed ARC of LITTLE WOMEN AND ME and a signed paperback copy of CRAZY BEAUTIFUL to one commenter below. Just leave a comment between now and midnight Friday and I'll randomly select the winner. Please do leave your email address if it doesn't automatically follow from your name link so I'll have a way to notify you. Thanks for playing!

Be well. Don't forget to write.

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Vacation/Travel...NOT

Before we get started here, I'd like to apologze to Alyson, Amanda, Jessica, Kay, Kelly, Linda, Liza, Melissa, Sara, Sara, Stephanie, Teri and Wendy. Have I got everyone covered? (Double-checking the TFC sidebar.) Yup, I do since I don't have to apologize to Lauren seeing as Lauren is me.

I'm apologizing for being remiss lately. I have absolutely read and been entertained by your blog posts here, cheered your successes here and elsewhere, but I've failed to take that extra step of vocally commenting or cheering, because I've been a little self-involved lately - even more so than usual - and that's because...CRAZY BEAUTIFUL came out on Monday!

Terrific, now that the mea cupla and the obligatory self-plug - darn, that sounds dirty - are out of the way, we've got another hurdle. You see, I've been assigned to write about Vacation/Travel this week, and the problem is...I didn't go anywhere this summer! And I refuse to use the word *staycation* - outside of having just used it but that was only so the rest of this sentence makes sense - because that word annoys me. In fact, it goes right in the bin with other odious verbal constructions like "teachable moment" - bleagh.

So what shall we talk about?

I know! We'll make this mercifully short. I'm going to name one city/state and country I traveled to in the past and loved and one state and country I've never been but would love to go to. And then you do the same. If you're really feeling creative about it, you can tell us why you're so passionate about those particular places, but don't feel you're required to strain yourself - clearly, I haven't been feeling that requirement lately!

OK, here is self-absorbed me going first:

(I can't believe Blogger doesn't have a way for me to underline things!)

OK, here is self-involved me really going first (having decided bolding things will work almost as well):

A favorite city/state I've been to: Seattle, Washington. Mountains, water, tearing a king crab apart like a crazy woman.

A favorite country I've been to: Iceland. Waterfall, geyser, volcano, falling off an Icelandic pony.

A state I am dying to go to: Well, I don't know about dying, but I would like to see South Dakota. Shouldn't someone really want to see South Dakota? And isn't that where the Badlands are? I think I belong in the Badlands. Yes, thank you, Wikipedia, they are in SD. And so's Mount Rushmore. I thought it was but didn't want to speculate before checking Wiki because then I might expose myself as being geographically stupid. Oops. I just did.

A country I am dying to go to: Greenland. I see no reason to explain myself further.

OK, your turn, if you'd care to share: WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN THAT YOU'VE LOVED AND WHERE ARE YOU DYING TO GO?

Be well. Don't forget to write.

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GNF: The Lauren Edition

I love that on Fridays we can post good news here and I love it even more when I actually remember to do so. On May 16 Compulsive Reader wrote a fabu review of Crazy Beautiful.
My favorite lines:

Crazy Beautiful is an unexpected love story that deals with far more than just those breathless moments of first love, but delves deeper into the finer aspects of choices and consequences, second chances, and forgiveness. The emotions that Baratz-Logsted evokes in Crazy Beautiful are painful and raw, but authentic and exhilarating as well. Crazy Beautiful is a concise, entrancing, and completely consuming read, punctuated by smart humor and wonderful characterizations that especially cause Aurora and Lucius stand out. In its own unique way, Crazy Beautiful is a compelling, bittersweet, and memorable read with a love story so persuasive that it will keep you coming back again and again.

The full review is here.

This excited me because 1) it's the first review I've seen; 2) I have nothing but the highest respect for Compulsive Reader (no surprise there!); and 3) it's nice to have this as a bulwark against the first bad review, because we all know no one gets out of this business without suffering the slings and arrows of the occasional bad review.

So how about you? Got any GNF to share???

Be well. Don't forget to write.

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