My Reptile Brain Ate My Homework

I meant to finish this blog entry yesterday but interruptions kept nipping at me. And I interrupted myself by checking and writing email, sending text messages, and making a to-do list unrelated to the two projects I was toggling between on my laptop.

Sound familiar?

Jump to this post by marketer and entrepreneur Jonathan Fields. Go on. I'll wait while you read it.

You're back? You didn't turn off your laptop, phone, or iPad?

I didn't either, but I recognized myself in Fields' essay and know I pay the "ramping cost" he refers to every time I switch tasks. Yesterday, I was busy, but I wasn't productive.

I'm ready to change that.

Lark named this blog Reading, Writing, and Rambling--three activities that nudge if not force us to make sense of what's happening, whether it's in the pages of a book, on the document screen in front of us, or on a local bus in a country where we don't speak the language. Those activities help us "process, synthesize, allow connections between seemingly disparate parts…." Of course, we have to resist the urge to Google every question that enters our heads while we're supposed to be reading, typing, or gazing out that bus window/taking stock of our fellow passengers.

Even though my index finger twitches every time I get a new email message, I'm going to let it twitch. Why? Because I don't want to miss what Fields calls "the in-between."

I don't want you to miss it, either. Have a productive week.

TOO DARN HOT!!!

What can I say? It's Houston. It's July. IT'S TOO DARN HOT!!!

REVIEW: WICKED IN YOUR ARMS by Sophie Jordan

I have a confession. Historical romances are my guilty pleasure. I love escaping into the past and meeting a man and a woman who have unsurmountable reasons they can't be together, and yet in the end live happily ever after. Not all historical romances are my cup of tea, but my good friend Sophie Jordan writes some of the best. Her newest release, WICKED IN YOUR ARMS, comes out tomorrow and I was lucky enough to get an ARC to review.  

Grier Hadley needs a husband. Her father, one of London's most unsavory characters, wants his illegitimate daughter to marry a title and is offering an enormous, ill-gotten dowry to whichever nobleman takes her to the altar. That’s why she’s hiding behind a potted plant at the ball.

Prince Sevastian Maksimi needs a wife—a well-bred young lady of impeccable reputation with a considerable fortune to her name. That’s why he tells his cousin to scratch the unacceptably common Miss Hadley from his list of prospective brides.

He doesn’t know she’s directly behind him.

She can’t help but dump her glass of lemon water over his head.

As first meetings go, theirs is definitely NOT love at first sight. But when they get thrown together at a house party in the country sparks fly and passion heats up. Marriage is out of the question, of course, but neither can bear the thought of being with anyone else.

Their story is told with humor, wit and skill that kept me up late into the night to finish.  This one’s a keeper. Actually, all of Sophie's books are keepers!