THURSDAY POTPOURRI: DISTRACTIONS, ETC.

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Thursday is often a day in which we look back on the week…and also look ahead.  I’m only on my second book of the week.  Very slow going, for some reason, and not the fault of the books.

Above, notice my little TBR Jar, sitting there, waiting for some of my older books to be picked.  But so far, I’m keeping busy with the newer books.  In the first photo, I’ve taken the “jar” down, so I can see what is available.  In the second photo, the receptacle is in its usual “waiting” spot on my desk.

 

Behind Her Eyes, by Sarah Pinborough, is definitely a good one…and I’ll be curled up with it again in a few moments.

 

 

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When I am in need of a distraction, I can be pulled away to do things on one or more of my blogs…like new headers, see below, with Serendipity’s new header.  And Rainy Days and Mondays has a new theme and a new header.

 

 

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The images I picked in the header above came from my own photos…and Pinterest.  The cottage in the middle was one where my son and DIL lived for a while in Berlin.  The garden was lovely, and the perfect place to enjoy reading…or a snack.

For Rainy Days and Mondays, I picked some images of reading on a rainy day…and the “blues” that are chased away by books.

 

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I am always on the lookout for new books, too.  Someone mentioned that Kristina Riggle, author of a book I plan to read next, has a newer one out.  So I went to Amazon, and found this one:

Vivian in Red, by Kristina Riggle, came out in September 2016.  How did I miss it?

 

 

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Famed Broadway producer Milo Short may be eighty-eight but that doesn’t stop him from going to the office every day. So when he steps out of his Upper West Side brownstone on one exceptionally hot morning, he’s not expecting to see the impossible: a woman from his life sixty years ago, cherry red lips, bright red hat, winking at him on a New York sidewalk, looking just as beautiful as she did back in 1934.

The sight causes him to suffer a stroke. And when he comes to, the renowned lyricist discovers he has lost the ability to communicate. Milo believes he must unravel his complicated history with Vivian Adair in order to win back his words. But he needs help—in the form of his granddaughter Eleanor—failed journalist and family misfit. Tapped to write her grandfather’s definitive biography, Eleanor must dig into Milo’s colorful past to discover the real story behind Milo’s greatest song Love Me, I Guess, and the mysterious woman who inspired an amazing life.

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Doesn’t this sound like an intriguing story?

What do you distract yourself with on a wintry day? 

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SUNDAY POTPOURRI: MY GREAT ESCAPE….

What do I tend to do when I’m troubled, sad, or just bored?

Change things up on a blog…or read a lot of books.  This week I did both, reading and reviewing FIVE books…and changing up the headers on this blog (see above), and Serendipity, where you can read my Weekly Updates, with details about my reading.

 

The baby in the header above is my great-niece, who reminds us that you don’t have to be a grown-up to love reading whatever you can get your hands on…lol.

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I also love going to one of the neighborhood restaurants and eating soup…with a martini or a margarita.

Yesterday, it was pea soup and a strawberry margarita.  The book I was reading on Pippa was Two If By Sea, by Jacquelyn Mitchard.  I’ve had the book since May.

 

 

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Here’s the dessert, which I really shouldn’t have had…but sometimes we just have to go with our weakest impulses…lol.  Key Lime pie, with coffee.

 

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Then I came home to resume reading Rosemary:  The Hidden Kennedy Daughter, by Kate Clifford Larson.

 

 

 

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Tonight I am looking forward to a line-up of shows that make Sunday a wonderful day in the week:  Madame Secretary; Secrets & Lies; and a couple of movies from the DVR.  Next Sunday, The Affair returns.  Yay!

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What does your Sunday look like?  What great escapes have you planned?

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WEEKEND POTPOURRI — THE VANISHING BLOGS — JUNE 24

TGIF!!

Good morning…and welcome to another edition of my obsessive blog changes.

If you have been following my journey for awhile, you know that I’ve had as many as twenty blogs.  Yes, I know it’s like a disease.  But the fun was in creating, maintaining, and changing them up.

But all fun has its limits, doesn’t it?  So I reduced the number to fourteen for awhile by merging a few of them.

The other day I was having coffee with a friend who listened while I moaned about the number of my blogs (this theme shows up in my newest WIP called Defining Moments!); and when I went on to lament that there were none that I could actually give up, especially the five sites dedicated to my published novels, she simply said:  “You could add pages for them to another blog.”

Yes!  I’d done that before, when merging a few of the sites.  Here’s the whole story of my mergers and acquisitions (LOL) at My Blogging Journey.

But to stay on track…this simple little decision was a lot more complicated than I had imagined it would be.  Yes, setting up the pages was relatively easy.

Then I had to move reviews to other sites—you may have seen a whole potpourri of reviews appearing on Facebook—and next I had to change all the links on my books read/purchased/challenges, etc.

As I thought about all the possible ways that links could end up being “dead” in various posts, you could hear me making the expletives shown above…and then I decided that I could only do so much.

But what is the lesson I learned here?  Oh, yeah…be careful what you begin, because you never know how winding the pathway may become….

I think I’m finished…for now.  But if you go to any of my older posts, with links to reviews, and the “this blog no longer exists” message appears…well, that’s why!