July 2012 ~ MAD DREAM DESIGN

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If you are a Jane Austen fan...

I recently picked up a book called A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things that Really Matter by William Deresiewicz. It has gotten great reviews and so far I love it. It has been a great review of some of my favorite stories, a wonderful refresher on Jane Austen's personal history and a new perspective on what Austen was really trying to tell us with all the particulars.

It is very interesting to hear about Austen and her novels from a man's point of view, and how he fell in love with Austen and her writing. The lessons and morals she teaches in her novels are closely looked at and compared to the modern every day life of Deresiewicz. It also drives home the point that her novels are timeless, because Austen wrote about everyday people and occurrences, and they, along with their lessons, will always be applicable to our own every day lives.

So if you are a Jane Austen fan, like I am, I really recommend this book. It not only sheds a new light on her stories and characters, but it also sheds a new light on your own everyday life and what really matters.

#Floridainaday

This past weekend Jimi and I were off to Tampa, Florida for the quickest weekend trip ever! This was also my first time Florida, ever! SO I was pretty excited.

California Sunset (Photo Credit: Maddie Dierkes)

We caught the red eye out Friday night and arrived in Florida at around 10:30am on Saturday morning. By 1:30pm on Saturday we were down at the Tampa Cruis-A-Cade Boat Club for the family reunion.

The boat club is right on the Hillsborough River with a dock lined river view, nautical community center and plenty of boats. Jimi and I felt right at home there in a boat house on the water. Jimi has a huge extended family and there were about 40-50 people there. His roots are Italian and a lot of their family history is in Tampa so the reunion was full of loud conversation, great food, live music and lots of hugs. It could have been overwhelming, except they make you feel like family, so I found it not to be overwhelming and rather it all to be very endearing and fun!

Hillsborough River (Photo Credit: Maddie Dierkes)

After so much great Cuban, Italian and Spanish food (and homemade connolis!), we took a boat ride down the Hillsborough River out into Tampa Bay for the tour of Tampa from the water. I loved seeing the city from the water (this is one of my favorite things to do when in a new place, because you get such a different perspective then you do from a car). Gorgeous big trees, beautiful Spanish, Cuban and Southern homes, bright colors, and lots of boats. Tampa Bay is huge and wide open, it looked like it went on forever.

Hello Tampa Bay (Photo Credit: Maddie Dierkes)

We were able to get a full nights sleep that night and the next morning we were up for a good breakfast at Datz which has an enormous and creative menu with things like Red Velvet Pancakes (below) and Eggs Barbacoa. It has a cafe feel to it with lots of fun stuff to look at, plus it turns into a bar at night!

Red Velvet Pancakes (Photo Credit: Maddie Dierkes)

After breakfast we took a tour of Tampa from the car given by Jimi's dad, James. We went down Bay to Bay which runs all the way around Tampa Bay to Davis Island where James grew up as a kid. Then we went over to the Latin Quarter of Tampa, called Ybor City, where Jimi's grandparents lived. This part of Tampa has tons of culture and is home to the famous restaurant, The Columbia Restaurant, which takes up an entire block and is beautifully decorated head to toe with tiles.

Unfortunately, our flight out that afternoon was cancelled but thankfully, it happened before we left for the airport, so we were able to change our flight to that night and spend more time with his family for the afternoon. After all of this we ended up only being in Tampa for a matter of 32 hours, but I still felt like I got a good look and would love to go again.

SanO Sundays

Our favorite thing about paddling is riding waves. Hands down. One of the best places to ride waves in a canoe in Orange County, Ca is San Onofre State Beach. This kind of surfing is what you see everyone on those canoes in Waikiki doing, catching waves from way outside and being able to ride them all the way into shore. For me this is the best of both worlds...surfing and paddling, can't get any better than that, in my opinion.

Photo Credit: Kel Thompson

My love for the ocean started when I was really young. I wanted to be a lifeguard at the age of three, swim lessons were my favorite and I started swimming on my own just after I turned three. My sister and I were in the water 24/7 in the summer with Jr. Guards, swim team, the beach, and our neighborhood pool. I started surfing in Jr. high every summer and started paddling my sophomore year of high school, so now I was on the water almost every day of the week year round. My senior year of high school I started surfing 3 times a week and paddling 6 days a week and that lasted through the first couple of years of college. Once I started art school at CSULB surfing dropped off for me, but paddling and my love for the ocean still hold true.

Photo Credit: Molly Bishop

I have never understood the surfer attitude that is given off when you are not someone who is there everyday or is just there to have fun, like the idea that this is their beach and why are you here, even though I had been coming to the same exact spot to go to the beach every summer since before I can remember. We still get the same attitude now as paddlers, or stand up paddlers, from surfers, even though a lot of us surf and have the same love of the waves and ocean that surfers do.

Photo Credit: Molly Bishop

Paddling was an easy choice for me because of the community, the history, the culture and the boat. Believe it or not I feel so much more comfortable in a boat, then on a board! There is always someone to paddle with and there are always dozens of people who are willing to go surf SanO with you in a canoe. We were able to muster up three surf canoes, 3 standup boards, a surf ski and a dozen surf boards on a trailer made for fun. We had people from all different clubs down there taking rides together and sharing some of the most gorgeous day! SanO days maybe only happen 2 -3 times a year for us but they are always well worth the wait and no one can get us down on days like that.

Photo Credit: Molly Bishop

It is whoever is having the most fun right? Its all about the people you meet, the experiences you find and the days you will never forget...that is what paddling is all about. xo