Winter on the Chesapeake (& Giveaway)

The Long Way Home by Mariah Stewart
There's just something comforting about about reading a romance novels. Until a few years ago, I never gave them a chance, but now the more I read them the more I enjoy them. Yes, there are cliches and you know what the ends is going to be, but even so, they are such a fun escape.

The love interest in this, Cameron, is a handyman. Yes, a cliche, but the reason it's a cliche is because it works! Ellie our female lead is escaping to her family's beach house after her father's Enron-type scandal has rocked the country. Not nearly as big of a cliche as handyman, but big city girl escaping to a small town is up there.

But even with the predictably, there was a twist near the end I never could have guessed. And to be honest, that small and unexpected plot-twist is what made the book for me.

One item I've learned to love about romance series, is that the characters from the previous books all make appearance. Even though I haven't read the other books in The Chesapeake Diaries series, you could tell which character had their stories told in the previous books. And I was lucky enough to receive the earlier books in this series from the publisher as well, so I'm especially looking forward to reading those stories (Especially the ones on the cupcake baker and movie star which I'm sure must exist!).

This book was a fun escape for me, that even brought managed to bring me back to Maryland, the state in which I went to college. I think if you've never read a romance book before, you should give them a chance, and I think this one would be a great one to start with!

4.5/5

If you ready to take that chance now, or if you're already a fan of romance books, you're in luck, because I have one copy of this book I'm giving away to one lucky reader! Please use the rafflecopter form below to enter.

a Rafflecopter giveaway
Disclosure: I was provided this book through TLC Book Tours. All opinions expressed are my own.

Sunday Social (9)

I've been in California the past few days celebrating Thanksgiving with my family. But last night we got back into Louisiana, and so far we've been enjoying a relaxing day around the house. I've been writing about the trip eventually, but for now I'm linking up with A Complete Waste of Makeup's Sunday Social.
1. Name 4 jobs you’ve had in your life:

1. Summer Camp Counselor
2. Lacrosse Team Manager
3. Head of College Math Lab
4. Underwriter at an Insurance Company (Probably the most I've ever said about my current job on the blog.)

2. Name 4 movies you would watch over and over:

1. Love Actually
2. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
3. The Little Princess
4. The Notebook

3. Name 4 places you have lived:

1. Long Beach, California

2. Towson, Maryland

3. Avignon, France (Assuming 3 weeks on a study abroad trip counts.)

4. Baton Rouge, Louisiana

4. Name 4 of your favorite foods:

1. Lasagna
2. Feta Cheese
3. Foie Gras
4. Creme Brulee

5. Name 4 things you always carry with you

1. Cell Phone
2. Book I'm currently reading
3. Wallet
4. Camera (At least I try to make this happen.)

6. Name 4 places you have been on vacation:

1. Paris

2. Florida Keys

3. Japan

4. Israel

If you haven't linked up with Sunday Social, let me know some of your answers in the comments. And if you have, please say hi so I can stop by your post!

Got Crabs

Welcome to another edition of Classy in Philadelphia's Where in the World Wednesday. The way to play is to share a picture of yourself somewhere in the world. This week we're heading to...
Baltimore, Maryland
I spent four years at college in Maryland. Where there I learned how to eat and enjoy crabs (along with the actually school learning). I'm pretty good at getting all the meat out, but I probably won't be winning any contest with my speed. One of my favorite ways to enjoy the crab meat is dipping it vinegar. This photo of me and my parents was taken June 2005, the summer after my Junior year of college.

Be sure to head over to Classy in Philadelphia if you're looking for more Where in the World Wednesday posts. Or if you'd prefer, you can see Where in the world I've been here.

~Shoshaanh

Flashback Friday - Senoir Year

Check out my freshmen year of college.
Check out my sophomore year of college.
Check out my junior year of college.

The past few weeks I've been flashing back over my years at college. As you can tell from the links above, we're officially at my senior year. I had my digital camera this year so there's no shortage of photos to choose from.
I turned 21 my senior year, which meant most weekends were spent out at the bar. I never had a fake ID, so this was really the first time I was hitting up the bar scenes. Some of our favorite were on Thursday nights when ladies night was at one bar and dollar bottles was across the street.
Again I played on the soccer team for what as probably last season of my life.
This was taken on our Senior day. You can tell by the "We Love our Seniors" poster in the background. And the following picture was the team at our spring athletic banquet.
This year I went on my first ever (and last ever) spring break trip to the Florida Keys.
And as you've heard about in my previous flashbacks there were the college traditions such as Gala...
and GIG. This year in honor of the fact that we were all graduating we had our so-called future profession printed on the back. There was a bit of a fail taking this picture so you could actually read the back. But I'm the mathemagician on the left.
And as you'd expect with senior year there was graduation. (I'm in 0 in the '06.)
Looking through these old pictures has been a lot of fun for me, and I'm hoping fun for you as well. It's hard to believe this May it will have been 4 years since graduation, which means I've officially been out of college for just as long as I was in college. It's a little crazy considering it just feels like yesterday. Anyone else feel like life just flies by after graduation?

~Shoshanah

Flashback Friday: Junior Year

Check out my freshmen year of college.
Check out my sophomore year of college.

In case you missed it, the last few weeks, after being inspired by Amber, I've been flashing back over my years at college. You can catch on on the first two years with the links above. Which brings us to Junior Year!
This year I started hanging out with a big group of girlfriends. I had known them all since I started college, and had hung it with some throughout, but this is the first year we started all hanging out together. This is a bunch of us at one of the first parties of the year.

My favorite part of Junior year was easily our off-campus housing. We were technically in campus housing, just across the street from school. It was a bit of a pain not having a car, but because so many students lived in these off campus they set up shuttle service to campus that I used quite a bit.
This was taken in our apartment's kitchen Halloween. And the following picture was taken in one of the bedroom's following an indoor water fight. (We had two bedrooms in our apartment, this one was shared by me and one roommate. The second was a single room for our third roommate. And while there's 3 people in this picture, only one of them was actually my roommate.)
But my favorite part of the apartment was the living room. One of my roommates' parents sent us a living room set. These were pretty much the most comfortable couches ever, and I still miss them. But unfortunately I don't seem to have any good pictures of the couches or the living room to share with you all.

Each year I've shared a picture from Gig, and this year is no exception.
We all went out and bought matching sweatshirts and ironed on our superheros on the back. It's kind of hard to read, but I'm Elastagirl on the far right.

Junior year I also finally got to participate in another of our college's big traditions.
Without any Sorority's or Fraternities at our college, their weren't a lot of random formals. But the school did sponsor the prom-like Gala. It wasn't just for upperclassmen. However tickets were first sold to Seniors, then Jrs, and so on. So unless an upperclassmen bought tickets for you, most years it was hard to go if you were a sophomore or a freshmen.

I was still playing soccer for the school.
I realize this is a slightly dark photo, but I wanted to share since you can almost see our locker room here. Here's a slightly better picture of the team taken at our end of the year athletic banquet.
Notice anything about that last picture? It's digital! A big milestone of my Junior year was that I got my digital camera. A camera that made random photo shoots a Coldstone's possible.
And overall seemed to change my picture taking habits.

I hope you've been enjoying these flashback Friday posts. If I'm being honest, I'm going to be a little sad to see them end with my senior year post next week. But till then, what was your Junior year of college like? And when did you get your first digital camera?

~Shoshanah

Flashback Friday: Sophomore Year

Check out my freshmen year of college.

I'm back with another Flashback Friday, this time bringing it back to my sophomore year of college! A big memory of this year was our success on the soccer team. My freshmen year our record was horrendous where we didn't win a single game. But this year we wound up finishing over .500. We actually had the biggest turn-around in the NCAA that year.
Here's a bunch of the soccer girls watching the men's team playing.

While our conference was one where everyone made it to the end of the season tournament, this year we actually felt like we had a chance of winning. Our coach arranged for us to go away for the weekend, which made the the game even more exciting. The plans we to leave for the game on November 1st. We had actually missed Halloween the night before due to a game, so instead the entire team showed up to the dinning hall for our last meal before leaving in costume, on the day after Halloween. (I'll be really impressed if anyone can actually find me in this picture!)
Yes, we wound up winning this game. Although we lost the following game in the conference semis. But it was the furthest the team went all four years I was playing.
Here's one more picture of the team at our end of the year sports banquet.

I posted a little about GIG last week, our big school wide field day. Its the type of day where students actually start drinking in their morning classes, and all the professors know exactly what's happening. So with all this craziness going on, there's bound to be pictures.
This is a relatively tame shot, compared to all the debauchery that can go on, on such a day.

This is me in my dorm room on my 19th birthday.
I'm posing with flowers my best friend sent my while she was studying abroad in London.

Speaking of which, I was actually able to go to London over Thanksgiving break to spend some time with her.
Here we are on my first night there, in some English pub.

Last week I wrote about how close my roommate and I become freshmen year. While we didn't live together sophomore years, we were next door neighbors, and stayed close throughout all the ups and downs of the year.
This was actually taken the very last night of freshmen year on the roof of our dorm!

I hope you're all enjoying the trip down my memory lane, but I'd love to hear some of your memories as well. What do you remember most from your sophomore year of college?

~Shoshanah

Flashback Friday: Freshmen Year

The past few weeks Amber has been reliving her 4 years of college in honor of her college graduation in a few months. While its been a few years since I graduated college, I can't help start reliving my college years while I read her posts. So I figured my own Friday Flashback of college was in order.

I was paired up pretty randomly with my college roommate. But like all those cliched stories, we really hit it off and stayed friends throughout college. I'd even say I consider her to be one of my closest even know.
As you can tell in this picture I went off to college trying to look as California as possible. I was in going to school in Maryland and wanted to be sure everyone knew I was from California. So there I was with blond hair, trying to be as tanned as possible.

I don't have a lot of pictures from my freshmen year, mainly because that was back in the pre-digital area. But I do have a few to memories to share. First there was the Nick Carter concert that we went to.

Freshmen year also recorded one of the biggest snowfalls Baltimore had seen.
At least it was one of the biggest snowfalls until this past winter.

One big event through my all four of my college years was GIG. It;s pretty much like a college field day. Classes are canceled around 12, and the rest of the day is one big party.
This is me very unsuccessfully riding a mechanical bull at GIG freshmen year.

The other huge part of my college life was being a member of the soccer team.
While we might not have had the most successful year, we still had a lot of fun.
This is me and some of my teammates dressed up for blind date ball. This was another fun school tradition, where you could sign up for a blind date to go to as your date. Being that the school only went co-ed in the 1980s, there's still a relatively high female population. So every year they try to bus in guys from the Naval Academy to use as dates. Although we had a game that morning, so we weren't sure whether we would be going to the dance that night. Which meant none of us actually signed up for a blind date.
And one last picutre of some of the girls on the soccer team.

Because I'm sure you're curious, and I had almost forgotten what it looked like, I'm glad I do have a picture to share of my dorm room.
We actually lucked out and had one of the biggest doubles on campus. But only because originally we were put into a single, and one of the smaller singles. Our original room barely had enough room for two desks, two dressers, and a bunk bed. But luckily a few days into freshmen year they were able to move us into an actual double to share.

I do have one final picture taken of my roommate and I on our very last day of freshmen year.
I'm no longer blond here, and you could barely say I'm tan.

It's actually been a lot of fun going through pictures for this, and I'm just as excited to share my sophomore year of college. But first what was your freshmen year like? I'd love to see your pictures and here your stories!

~Shoshanah

From Maryland to Louisiana

Last week I wrote about how after growing up in California, I decided to head to the east coast for college. Today, I will tell you Part 2, or how after going to college in Maryland, I decided to go to grad school in Louisiana.

I had originally gone to college thinking I would be a history major, but wound up double majoring in Math & Chemistry. Yes, I am a bit indecisive, basically I thought I would be avoiding writing papers. No one tells you freshmen year you will have to write Math papers. But entering senior year, again I had no idea what I wanted to do. I didn't know what kind of job I wanted to have. I didn't know if I wanted to move back to California or try living in Maryland for a few more years.

Most of my friends in my major knew exactly what they were doing, but only because they were going to grad school. I knew people going to med school, to pharmacy school, to law school, to get a math PhD, and to get a chemistry PhD school. So I figured I might as well go to grad school too! I had spent the previous summer working in a chemistry lab. And while parts of it were fun, I really didn't want o spend a lot of time in a lab. Which left math. Guess I was going to grad school in math!

Which meant I had to decide where I wanted to apply.I wound up with a list, about 5 or so schools long. With schools in North Carolina, in Georgia, in South Carolina, in Maryland, and in Massachusetts. Except for heading up to Boston, they were all somewhat coincidentally in the South. Was it a conscious decision, not necessarily. But I did like the idea of trying out a new part of the country.

Then the day I finished all of my applications I received an e-mail asking me to apply to LSU. I figured why not, it couldn't hurt, especially since there was no application fee.

Again, I got into most of the schools I applied to, and I had to make yet one more decision. I had actually been to Louisiana to visit a friend the previous summer. And while they would no longer be there when I started school, I liked to idea of going something that I had at least been before. Also I had applied to a slightly different field of math at LSU, and would be a little more familiar with my coursework. But I can't say there was an overwhelming right decision. I definitely worried that I was making the wrong choice. And now looking back, I can't even imagine where I would be if I hadn't made it. Its funny the way things work out.

Did you have a hard time deciding what you wanted to do when you finished college? Or if you're still in college, do you know what you want to do once you graduate? O, the possibilities.

~Shoshanah

Off to the East

You've probably noticed this, but the name of my blog is from L.A. to LA. But I've never actually talked about how I wound up moving from Los Angeles to Louisiana. So I figured I'd start that story, except I can't jump straight to Louisiana, because I didn't move strait from California to Louisiana.

I've already talked about going to high school in California. And I've said I went to college in Maryland. But never really explained why I took the first jump across country.

And honestly, for most of my life I expected to stay in California. Up through the start of my senior year of high school my number one choice for college was UC Santa Barbara. But by the time I actually started filling out applications I changed my mind, and decided I wanted to go to the East Coast. I'm not sure why I made the decision. I think part of me pictured the east coast as something similar to a movie college experience. I think the idea of being able to start over completely also intrigued me. There was also the fact that if I went to a huge Division I California state school I wouldn't be able to play soccer. And if I went to a small Division 3 school on the east coast I would be able to.

But since I had decided on the east coast so late in the game, I didn't do a lot of research. I only applied to two east coast schools. One that was kind of small, but a well known for its sciences. They other which was a tiny liberal arts school. Although thinking back, I might not have really decided for sure on the east coast until I had already applied. Its weird what you forget about 7 years. And crazy to think its been 7 years since I graduated high school.

But luckily for me, I got in to both of the east coast school I applied for. (I actually got into all of the California schools I applied to as well. Except for Berkeley, but I never really wanted to go there, so it wasn't a problem for me.) I'm not sure now I can pin point the exact reason why I choose the school I did out of those two. Part of it had to do with money as most college decisions do. Part of it had to do with the fact that I was assured a spot on the soccer team at one school. And the other part of it? I'm not quite sure what it was. But yes, I did pick the small liberal arts school, and I think it wound up being a better decision than I could have ever known at the time!

Next time I might have the next part of my journey. Or I might make you guys wait a little longer for it. We'll see... but while were on the topic, how did you pick where you went to college? Was it where you always expected or did you have a last minute change of heart?

~Shoshanah

Bank to Bank

The first bank account I ever had was a joint account at Wells Fargo. I was in high school in Southern California. I was excited to have an account there because, well haven't you seen The Music Man?

"Papa! Papa! The Wells Fargo Wagon is coming! The Wells Fargo is coming!"

Plus look at their logo. There's an actual wagon and horses on it. Like a stagecoach from the wild west. What's not to love?

I went off to college in Maryland. Where they have no Wells Fargos. I think I lasted a year before I started a student account with Bank of America. I figured, it's Bank of America, if I move somewhere else it will still be in America and I'll be fine. It is after all in both California and Maryland. My favorite part of BoA? Their Save the Change plan, which rounds up every purchase and puts the difference in your savings account. For example, if you spend $3.75 at the store, BoA will automatically transfer $0.25 into your savings account. It makes putting money into your savings account really easy.

Fast forward a few years, and I went to grad school in Louisiana. There are no Bank of Americas in Louisiana, at least none within 100 miles of Baton Rouge. After living here over two years I figured it was time to open an account here. Mainly so I would actually be able to deposit checks into my account. The goal would be to find a bank that is actually in both California and Louisiana. Turns out, there are none! Seriously. I decided to go with Chase, which is fairly big here. In hopes that if I ever move to a new state they will have either Bank of America or Chase there. We'll see...

~Shoshanah