Yes, you read that right.  We’re turning it *all* off.

No phones, no internet, no email, no Facebook, no Twitter, no Pinterest.  (I will miss Pinterest most of all. =(  )  This will be an adjustment for all of us, but one that I think will be beneficial.  Three of the four cell phones in our house are iPhones and they’ve made my kids’ laptops and netbooks obsolete.  My four-year-old niece takes her mother’s iPhone to the bathroom with her because, AT FOUR, she needs to be entertained while taking care of necessary business.  Whatever happened to the good old-fashioned magazine, lol?

Anyway, my College Boy is home for the summer, my daughter will be out of school in another week and, with hubby home on Monday’s, it’s an excellent opportunity to focus, without distraction, on each other.  Will keep you all posted on how well it works.

What about you?  Have you ever thought about turning it all off?  Could you make it a full day without looking something up online or on your phone?  (And for the record, I didn’t make it the full day.  I caved at 11:30 and looked at email and Pinterest.  That site is SO addictive… )

He is a track runner (sprinter, 400 and 200 meters) and tomorrow is a big conference meet. The kind where mom sits in the stand for 4 hours and watches him run for a total of one minute and fifteen seconds. Whee. Before a meet, he load up on carbs. He’s my vegetarian, so I had to go meatless. I stumbled over a great recipe that fit the bill on epicurious.com (of course). Even better, it’s incredibly easy and the kind of recipe that makes a great template for all sorts of variations, depending on what you have in the refrigerator.

Goat Cheese Bread Pudding

One caveat: I found the rosemary overpowering. I’d suggest using only a scant tablespoon or teaspoon dried and crumbled. Try other herbs too, fresh or dried, and other cheeses, though the goat was fantastic. Not so great for those avoiding carbs and/or gluten, but for the rest of us who can’t live without our bread/pasta/rice/potatoes, etc. this is a great weeknight meal with a veggie-laden salad. We had peach smoothies for dessert since I got overly optimistic and bought peaches way too early in the season. Good flavor, but they never really ripened. The blender makes quick work of them, though!

Happy reading and eating!

Isabel
www.IsabelSharpe.com

Whether you’re celebrating with your mom, or with your kids, or with a fabulously hot Blaze book, we wish you a wonderful Mother’s Day

Having moved often, however, I’ve sometimes landed in areas
where I didn’t have a built in social network. I’ve moved often during my marriage and this is a common enough occurrence. We go somewhere for my husband’s job and he’s got a professional community awaiting him. I’ve got… a house to unpack.

If I waited for potential pals to find me, I might never have made some wonderful friendships over the years. I’ve found that I need to troll for friends as eagerly as new moms seek out play dates for their toddlers. I’ll start climbing the walls if I don’t find some girlfriends to laugh with, lunch with and share girl time. Living in a house with four males makes me feel like I’m on a different planet sometimes. My girlfriends remind me that they are on my side. They murmur sympathetically over the mountains of
laundry I face. They agree with me that staying up until two a.m. to watch the end of an extra innings game on the west coast is not the best use of time. They understand the importance of finding the right new perfume or having toenails painted before a big occasion. Simply put, we speak the same language.

Sometimes, I’ve probably appeared a little desperate in my quest for grown-up play dates. When I moved to Utah, I found it particularly tough to make new friends, mostly because I was a very new mom with a rambunctious toddler who didn’t play on the swings long enough for me to strike up conversation with anyone at the playground. He was too busy sprinting around the corner to set a new land speed record. So when a census worker came to the house and mentioned that a new family was moving into a nearby house and they had a son the same age as mine, I couldn’t push the census worker out the door
fast enough. I was already packing up my speedy offspring to sprint toward the house in question to assert my need for a friend.

Luckily, the family next door didn’t care that they hadn’t even unpacked their boxes yet. I’m sure they’ve never had such a warm welcome as my rattling, eager narrative when I showed up on their doorstep. I made a friend for life that day. My delivery isn’t always smoothed, but that experience taught me to put myself out there to find friendships. Sometimes I have had a girl crush on people who don’t respond with quite the same enthusiasm, and that’s okay. But more often than not, my outstretched hand is met with equal optimism. If you don’t display your willingness to meet new people and make new friendships, how will people know how much you need them?

***Have any fun “how we met” stories about your girlfriends? Are you best friends with a cousin or the girl you sat next to in Kindergarten? Share with me on the boards today and I’ll send one random poster a copy of my May Blaze, HER MAN ADVANTAGE.

Even though I have some crazy deadlines, I’ve been on a reading binge the last few weeks. I ready all of the 50 books and I don’t understand the hate. I enjoyed them for what they are, fun, sexy reads. If I’m not writing, I’m reading lately.

My list constantly changes, but here are few of the sexy books I want to read this summer:

1. Enslave: The Taming of the Beast (Cathy Yardley)

2. Simply Carnal (Kate Pearce)

3. Summer Blazes (Though, the last two I read have kept me up all night )

4. Tempting the Best Man (J. Lynn)

5. Bare Naked Lola (Melissa Bourbon Ramirez)

Since you guys are often the best source for new reads, I thought I’d ask for your favorite reads or books you want to read this summer.

So how about you?  Love ebooks?  Insist on paper?  Mother’s Day is coming up—is anyone thinking about giving (my mom already has a Kindle) or hoping to get an eReader?  If so, which one do you like? 

We start off this soon-to-be-summer month with Kate Hoffmann’s NOT JUST FRIENDS.  This Wrong Bed story is the perfect summer read…because it’s set at camp!  The super shy girl and the ultra hot guy come back to the scene of their adolescent fantasies to help rebuild their childhood camp.  But will their very adult chemistry last when the summer’s over?

Next up is Karen Foley’s Uniformly Hot! book, COMING UP FOR AIR.  The sky’s the limit (at least as far as sexual satisfaction goes) for helicopter pilots Chance and Jenna.   This is the first of two linked Uniformly Hot! books by Karen Foley, both set in Afghanistan.  Watch for NO GOING BACK in July, which features Chance’s equally irresistible twin brother, Chase.

And we go from the deserts of the Middle East to the wilds of Alaska.  Jennifer LaBrecque is back in the lineup with the latest of her Alaskan Heat tales, NORTHERN FIRES.   Sven Sorenson is ready to settle down.  All he needs to do is find the right woman.  Unfortunately, he can’t seem to keep his hands off the wrong one…

Joanne Rock is up next with the second of her Double Overtime books, HER MAN ADVANTAGE.  This hockey hero is not only hot on the ice, he’s sizzling on the silver screen.  At least that’s what filmmaker Jennifer Hunter thinks.  But will Axel Rankin ramp up the PG rating of her documentary to an X before it’s all over?

And we have a brand new miniseries this month – Flirting with Justice by Wendy Etherington.  Now, we all know that doing the right thing makes us feel good.  But these three heroines haven’t a clue just how ‘good’ things are going to get when they take the law—and a hot hero–into their own hands.  Look for SIZZLE IN THE CITY this month, BREATHLESS AT THE BEACH in July and UNDONE BY MOONLIGHT in September.

Last, but not least, Karen Kendall finishes up her All the Groom’s Men miniseries this month with BRINGING HOME A BACHELOR.  Melinda’s brother’s wedding might be over…but the honeymoon-like antics between her and sexy groomsman, Pete, are just getting started.

And there, in a nutshell, are this month’s offering.  Hot enough for you?

One of the things I love most about this time of year (besides kayaking, vacation, kayaking, reading, kayaking, hiking J) is coming up with a summer project.  And I’m really excited about this year’s goal—I’m going to learn to play the guitar.  Now, I’m not exactly a newbie when it comes to music.  I’ve played the organ since I was 9, so I know a bit about the basics (like which notes belong in which chords).  But still, I’ve always wanted to learn.  I just never made the time.  But that’s about to change.  Last week, I found a gorgeous acoustic guitar for sale, and I bought it on the spot.   So now I’m committed (or ready to be committed J).  Wish me luck.

For a chance to win one of three sets of the May Blaze books, tell us know what you’ve got planned for this summer.  And if those plans include reading every Blaze book Harlequin puts out this summer, I’ll enter you twice. J

Best of luck,

Brenda Chin
Senior Editor
Harlequin Blaze

The Desert Dreams conference is in Arizona, and it’s one I’ve attended before.  Actually, I consider it my ‘lucky conference’ because it’s where I got my first hug from Vicki Lewis Thompson, went to dinner with my editor for the first time (before she was my editor) and it’s that tipping point event that came just before I sold my first book.  And, well, its really warm and comfy in Arizona *g*  So I’m doubly excited to go again this year.

Since I’m pre-writing this blog post, I’m going to figure that by Saturday when it goes live, I’ll have given the first of 3 workshops I’m doing.  Friday is The Care and Nurturing of the Critique Partner Relationship with my awesome CP, the amazingly talented Beth Andrews.  Saturday I’m doing a workshop with our very own Editor Extraordinaire, Brenda Chin titled All I Needed to Know About Writing I Learned in Category, as well as one on my own called Courting the Muse.  So I’m expecting busy times.  Which seriously inhibits my usual conference habit of ducking out of all workshops, hanging out in the bar or hotel lobby chatting and visiting.  i”m a  horrible workshop slacker, truth be told. But once I’m home, without all the distractions, I listen to the workshop recordings and lap up the information!  Someone once asked me why I even go, then, if I do all of my ‘learning’ afterward.  Because I get energized.  I’m inspired by the people, the stories, the fun.  The energy is incredible, and I get to spend time with wonderful friends that I see maybe once a year.

So how about you?  Do you ever attend functions – be they conferences or scrapbook crops or work events–and skip out on the main focus of the function?  Do you consider it slacking, or simply how you do things?  Whats the one thing you miss most about being away at an event like this (I miss my pillow)?  And whats the one thing you look forward to the most (Me?  The hugs.) 

But I digress…this blog is going to be really simple. Tell me what you do to recover from exhaustion. What’s your recovery tool of choice? Mine is reading. So I’m off to read some Blaze books! Oh, and the winner will get a copy of Night After Night… by Kathy Lyons