Florida Kosher Villas Blog

…and Rusty Nails Reused   By S.A. Rowner   It was made of memories and miracles. And it was ingeniously expandable to any size it needed to be.   A feat of engineering, you might think. But certainly not according to the laws of physics.   Using those principles, the structure probably shouldn’t have stood at all. After all, it had no walls. Not in any definition of walls we...

On 2020, hot tubs, quarantine, and witches in a blizzard, Part 2 By: S.A. Rowner (continued from part 1)   Uh-oh. Apparently, they sent him to a completely different house than what he’d booked, and it looked nothing even remotely like the pictures. Upon reaching out to the owner, she assured them not to worry, she had made a mistake and she owns multiple houses, so don’t worry if it’s...

On 2020, hot tubs, quarantine, and witches in a blizzard, Part 1 By: S.A. Rowner   And so, as it inevitably happened to so many others these past two years, a friend of mine’s child tested positive for Covid.   As we all learned back in March, 2020 – and some of us are still learning through it – being stuck at home with everyone in quarantine is certainly no...

Wintertime CAN be fun… or really not…   By: S.A. Rowner   The treadmill of a busy life just doesn’t stop.   And it gets tiring, makes one feel irritable, and sometimes just gets overwhelming. Never mind when enough life situations bombard you at the same time, making it feel like someone threw the speed switch up to the max.   And that’s what happened to a good friend of...

(Continued from Part 2)   By: SA Rowner   The jet ski pricing at JSK was reasonable, the machines in great condition, and most importantly, the people nice.   Our guide pointed out a massive manatee hanging out by the docks to us. He explained that being creatures that live primarily in salt and brackish water, they love the treat of freshwater from the hose when he rinses the jetskis....

(Continued from Part 1)   By SA Rowner The world of social media sharing makes so many jealous because people choose to share picture-perfect moments that make your life look like a fantasy on unending positive experiences.   You don’t find people sharing things that don’t go right. But face it, nothing in life is completely perfect.   It’s a good thing that you can’t smell pictures, because, well, while...

(Warning… not for the faint of heart!)   By S.A. Rowner   There are two kinds of vacations. At least in my opinion.   There’s the vacation that you take, to just kick up your feet and relax, with a drink at your side, and do nothing but breathe.   Maybe I’ll enjoy those someday, but for now, I can’t imagine doing that for more than 45 minutes without dying...

…so you don’t have to make them yourself. By S.A. Rowner   Sometimes you have to learn things the hard way.   Like the time I went skiing for the first time, when I was about nineteen or twenty years old and came down an entire frozen mountain, painfully on my posterior. Most of that pain was probably shame.   You see, I grew up in the era where roller...

For Heaven’s Sake!   By: S.A. Rowner   Why I did it is a whole other story, but I used to teach 90th 10th, and 11th-grade boys. In two Yeshiva High Schools.   Ok, teach might be a strong word. You might call torture, or probably more aptly, glorified babysitting where I entertain young adults while attempting to maintain order and convey some information that they’ll find useful enough to...