Reading Envy Readers discussion

For those of you playing along in social media, please remember to add #readingenvyreadalong when you post, but you can always just respond to this post as well. I'm trying to let as many people interact with the readalong as would like to, and some are here and some are elsewhere.

This week's readalong challenge is to post about the coldest you have ever been. I'll leave it as open as you want it to be! You can do this in words, photo, maps, letters.... embody Ivey as little or as much as you want.

Discussion questions coming soon.

The coldest I've ever been in my life was at a convention center in Miami Beach in August. Who knew I'd need to pack a parka when night time temps were in the 90's?

Oh, this book!!! I just finished the scheduled reading for this week and the story just keeps getting better and better. I'm loving it.

The coldest I've ever been in my life? That's a lot of life to cover but to be honest, nothing is coming to mind. You know what that means...it was likely cold fingers while skiing or cold feet on the way to the hot tub. : )

Okay, reading Kim's and Jeff's responses has reminded of when I've been the coldest -- field camp in the Mojave Desert in mid-April. It was beautiful during the day (aside from the cholla incident) but "Boyo" boy it was COLD at night. Frost on our tents each morning. I've never shivered so hard as I did on those nights.

The novel is getting stranger and the tension has ramped up. I am worried about the expedition. I wonder about the old man. He must assume the shape of a raven at times as he somehow got ahead of the expedition and has been observed high in trees. Very strange, this book.

As far as being cold, last New Year’s Eve I went for stroll along the Mississippi River by my house when it was -18F with a -35F wind chill. I took a few pictures of the wintering trumpeter swans and of the foggy river before my phone froze and died. The walk home against the north wind was brutal.

The coldest for me was our first camping in the north Idaho. It was extremely cold and we weren’t fully prepared. In the middle of the night our air mattress deflated and we ended up sleeping on the cold hard ground. We were too stubborn to give up though.

This book makes me miss living where it’s cold and snowy.

Jeff wrote: "The novel is getting stranger and the tension has ramped up. I am worried about the expedition. I wonder about the old man. He must assume the shape of a raven at times as he somehow got ahead of t..."

Wow, those are COLD temps!

My second most cold:

We used to make it a habit to go fishing as deer season opened. We, three silent in a boat on the glassy pewter reservoir. They, cruising graveled US Forestry back roads in jacked-up four-wheel drives that bristled black barrels from the windows like angry alien porcupines eager for a coming convenient slaughter.

In the brittle mornings, we'd watch them over the rim of our steaming coffee mugs. Red hats with earflaps, flannel shirts and orange vests, mirrored sunglasses guaranteed to make them almost look like Navy Seals, boots still sporting the oily storeroom display sheen.

We, often mused whether these men ever speculated deer might have good hearing and eyesight. But we never wondered long. We drank our coffee, ate our bacon, licked our salty fingers to the knuckles before holding palms to the fire.

One night it dropped flat cold like an iron bar across the spine, down to maybe four or five. I was in an old green canvas triangular tent, on the ground, inside my sleeping bag, completely dressed with a wool watch cap, coveralls, and even my coat. I could hardly move for all the layers, and I still shivered through that long harsh darkness. And when my bladder began to ache like a snarl of barbed wire, I ignored it because I wasn't going outside. The thought of undoing the tent fly, let alone any other fly, and standing under the high cut-glass sky and all its jagged stars made me a coward to that arctic night, and so I simply began to count, and I wouldn't stop until dawn had a chance to at least give the pretense of licking warm the frozen earth. I won't reveal the precise number (over ten thousand) that I reached in my "one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi" methodical counting, but I will share that come the next morning I overheard across the campgrounds some of those weekenders complaining about how much propane they had to use for the furnace in their insulated fifth-wheels, and how they almost needed to crack a window for fresh air. I just sat at the rime-white picnic table and sipped my coffee and chewed my bacon while upon all the deer I worded protection from getting gut-shot out any window that cold, cold day by such undeserving and graceless creatures as They.

Well, I still stand by Miami in August, but I'm mumbling it in a tiny voice......

Nadine wrote: "Well, I still stand by Miami in August, but I'm mumbling it in a tiny voice......"

Don't mumble it! say it boldly :)

Casey wrote: "My second most cold:

We used to make it a habit to go fishing as deer season opened. We, three silent in a boat on the glassy pewter reservoir. They, cruising graveled US Forestry back roads in ja..."

This was great. I read it twice!

Casey wrote: "Nadine wrote: "Well, I still stand by Miami in August, but I'm mumbling it in a tiny voice......"

Don't mumble it! say it boldly :)"

OK! Way over-airconditioned rooms can be pretty rough terrain too!

Casey ~ I loved your story . I have heard many tell stories about shooting ducks during Duck season and how awful it is sitting in the wet cold Duck blinds waiting for those prized possessions too. Ain’t know way !

I lived in Minot , ND as a little girl and my eyelashes and nose hair in my wee nose would freeze inside a face mask . It was so cold that if one part of your skin was exposed when you walked to the bus, you would get frostbite!
Blizzards were blackouts of snows falling so fast and the wind blowing across the Northern plains where not one tree would grow. the snow was so dry that you would not sink down into the inches as you walked. it was some serious snow and ice ! I was little. I didn’t know any better. I thought all snow was the same ! LOL!

I do know that I got really tired of my brother picking on me!