Device-Free Summer 2.0: Why We're Doing This Again (AKA How Kidlet Shocked Me)

June 9, 2018 Roni Loren

First, before we get to today's post, I wanted to let y'all know that THE ONE YOU CAN'T FORGET, book two in The Ones Who Got Away series, is now available! Thank you to all of you who have already bought it, grabbed it from your library, and/or reviewed it. I really appreciate it! And if you haven't gotten your copy yet, here's you're chance. :)

DEVICE-FREE SUMMER 2.0

Okay, on to the post. So if you've followed me for a while, you may remember that last year I embarked on an experiment with kidlet: a device-free summer. No iPad, no video games, no computers at all. The only screen allowed was TV watched as a family. Not gonna lie, I was pretty nervous going into last summer because kidlet was VERY attached to his iPad and Xbox, and I was used to having that to help occupy him. But I felt in my gut it was what was best for him.

Turns out, it was way easier than I had expected and was a resounding success. I think it was truly one of the best things we could've done for all of us. It really did make a lasting impact. Not just with his level of calmness and creativity but also in very specific ways. For one, because kidlet didn't have devices, he took to his brand new guitar/rock band lessons with gusto. It became his new go-to thing to spend his time, and a year later, he's wowing me with his musical skills and his deep interest and love of music. The other day he sent me this audio file. He decided to try to learn Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze" by ear. I know I'm his mom and am easily impressed by my kid, but he's 10 and doing this? That seems pretty darn cool to me.

And though we brought devices back during the school year, with limits (100 minutes a week), being on devices never took hold again. The iPad became dusty and mostly stayed in a drawer. He usually used his 100 minutes on the weekend to play NASCAR on Xbox or to watch YouTube videos about music. Devices became a small thing in his life. Honestly, this felt like a miracle compared to where we were. And the only negative side I observed was now he noticed how often most of the other kids are on devices or are overly focused on video games. It annoyed him and sometimes left him out of conversations about Pokemon, Minecraft, and the like. When I asked if it bothered him to not be able to follow those conversations, he just shrugged and said, I wish they could talk about other things, too. But it didn't bother him enough for him to use his device time minutes to delve into those games the kids were talking about. And he still has friends, so it wasn't a dealbreaker for friendships.

So this year, I really wasn't planning on a device-free summer because I felt like the device use was under control. But kidlet came to me mid-May and asked if we were doing device-free summer again. When I said that I wasn't sure, he said, "Can we?"

That shocked me. I asked him why he wanted to do it again. He told me that last summer was "fun" and he liked the activities we did. So he wanted the movie nights and board game playing and cooking with me and playing outside. There are so few parenting moments where you feel like you're getting something right, usually we're just hoping we're not totally screwing up, lol, but this was one of those mom pride moments that I'm going to hold onto. The whole experiment had worked. Devices had lost their hold on him, but more than that, he'd come to enjoy that old-fashioned family time. During the school year, things are so busy, that a lot of those activities fall off, and now summer feels like a special time to do those things with us.

Of course I couldn't say no to his request even though it hadn't been in my plan, so he's going device-free again. But he did have some caveats: he wants to be able to Facetime his grandparents and to use his Ipod to listen to music. Deal!

So that's where we are, we're doing it again. I've also decided to make an effort to slow down our summer some. We are typically overscheduled with camps and lessons and such. I'm feeling the stress of that and want to slow it down for all of us. But I'll need another post for that because this one is already long enough. ;) More to come!

In the meantime, if you missed last year's device-free summer posts, here are the details of what we did, how we did it, and how it all went.

What plans do you have for this summer?

THE ONE YOU CAN'T FORGET is here!

June 5, 2018 Roni Loren

It's time for Rebecca and Wes's story! I'm so excited to share this one with y'all.

About the book:

Most days Rebecca Lindt feels like an imposter...

The world admires her as a survivor. But that impression would crumble if people knew her secret. She didn't deserve to be the one who got away. But nothing can change the past, so she's thrown herself into her work. She can't dwell if she never slows down.

Wes Garrett is trying to get back on his feet after losing his dream restaurant, his money, and half his damn mind in a vicious divorce. But when he intervenes in a mugging and saves Rebecca—the attorney who helped his ex ruin him—his simple life gets complicated.

Their attraction is inconvenient and neither wants more than a fling. But when Rebecca's secret is put at risk, both discover they could lose everything, including what they never realized they needed: each other

She laughed and kissed him. This morning she'd melted down. But somehow this man had her laughing and turned on only a few hours later. Everything inside her felt buoyed.

She felt...light.

She'd forgotten what that felt like.

READ CHAPTER ONE HERE

One Week Countdown to The One You Can't Forget!

May 29, 2018 Roni Loren

It's almost here, y'all! THE ONE YOU CAN'T FORGET is out in one week!!! I'm so excited to share Rebecca and Wes's story with y'all.

But for now, here's a little sneak peek...

Excerpt:

Fifteen minutes. That was how long it took for Marco and Kincaid to abandon Rebecca and Wes in the kitchen under the auspices of Let me show you the view from Marco and Does this building have original details? from Kincaid.

Kincaid had motioned at Rebecca as she slipped out of the kitchen, some invented sign language that probably meant Talk it out with the hot chef but looked more like a drunken game of naughty charades.

Rebecca had promptly flipped her off.

But now here she was. Alone with Wes again.

Wes stood behind the large island, black bandanna keeping his hair back, gray T-shirt putting all that colorful arm ink on display, and forearms flexing as he sliced and diced an onion with practiced precision. If not for the simmering annoyance, it would’ve been a nice show to watch from her spot sitting on a stool on the other side of the counter. But he hadn’t said a word to her since they’d gotten into the condo. Just chop, chop, chop and irritated grunts.

“Do you need any help?” she asked for lack of anything else to say.

“Can you help me murder my brother?”

“I was thinking we could get rid of them both in one go. How far is the drop from the balcony?” Rebecca tapped her chin. “We could make it look like an accident. I know someone who could defend us.”

Wes smirked.

The little break in the wall helped her relax some. “Why’d you give in anyway? I was about to get us out of it. I had a whole argument prepared. There were bullet points. Closing statements. We could’ve saved ourselves this lovely moment.”

He frowned and dumped the onions into one of the prep bowls. “Yeah, but you didn’t see the look on my brother’s face.” He pushed a basket of strawberries and a paring knife toward her. “Can lawyers hull strawberries?”

“Sure.” She took the berries and stole one of his empty prep bowls. “So what kind of look was that?”

“The Don’t ruin this for me look. The Remember all the times I’ve helped you out look. That look.”

“That’s a lot for a look to say.”

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t hard to get the point. He’s always working and doesn’t get to go out and meet women. He likes your friend, and she seems to like him for whatever reason”—he shrugged and grabbed a bell pepper from the stack of vegetables—“so I’m hanging out with my ex-wife’s lawyer and taking one for the team.”

She wrinkled her nose.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing. I’m just having a high school flashback.” Thankfully not the kind she’d had Friday night, but one that was unpleasant enough in its own right.

“How’s that?”

She concentrated on cutting the stem off a strawberry. “I had a friend whose parents would only let her go on group dates. So I always got dragged out with her and had to be the date of her boyfriend’s best friend, who pretty much reminded me every ten minutes that he was there as a favor and was taking one for the team by hanging out with me. It was super awesome for my fifteen-year-old ego.”

“Ouch. What an idiot.”

“Yeah, I should’ve just told her to leave me out of it and sneak out like everyone else.”

“No, I meant him. What a douche.”

“Oh. Yeah. He was.” But even as she said it, she felt a pang of guilt in her gut. Craig hadn’t made it through prom night. So douche or not, she felt guilty talking bad about the dead. “We were just in a doomed-to-fail setup. Popular jock and high-strung goody-goody were not a wise combination. Two different planets and all that. He probably thought I was an insufferable Miss Priss.”

His lip curled. “Were you?”

She lifted her hand and held her index finger and thumb an inch apart. “Maybe a little. I wasn’t…not. When they brought weed to date night, I couldn’t just say no and let them do their thing. I gave everyone a lecture about how long it stays in your system and how having something on your record could ruin your college chances.”

He cringed. “Ahh, you were that girl. We had one of those at my school, too.”

“Yeah?”

He nodded. “Laney Becker. And she thought I was a douche.”

“Were you?”

He lifted his fingers, repeating her motion back to her but widening the gap further.

“Nice.”

“I probably would’ve done better if I’d been friends with someone like her. I could’ve used a girl telling me not to blow off class and get high. Or doing a lot of other things I shouldn’t have been doing back then.” He tossed more chopped veggies into a bowl. “And I’m sorry about the ‘taking one for the team’ comment. I didn’t mean it that way. This is just…a screwed-up situation. I’m willing to call a temporary let’s-forget-we-have-history truce for today.”

“I’m on board with that.”

“Good.” He frowned down at her chopped berries. “Hold up. That’s not how to hull.”

She looked down at the berry in her hand. She’d cut off the top. The stem was gone. She didn’t see any problem. “What’s wrong?”

He set down his knife and stepped around the island. “You’re wasting a big part of the berry that way. Here.” He held out his hand for the paring knife, and she handed it over. He shifted until he was right next to her and held the fruit in front of her. “The woody part is just under the leaves. That’s what you’re after.”

He poked the tip of the knife right beneath the leaves and then made a circle around the stem. He popped out the stem and only a little piece of the berry, leaving much more of the fruit intact.

“See.” He held the strawberry in his palm, the sweet scent of the ripe fruit wafting up to her. “Lots more berry, and you also don’t lose the shape of the fruit that way.”

“Oh.” She tried to focus on what he was showing her and not on the fact that he was so close and she could feel his body heat against her arm. Her hormones apparently had no qualms about this man. They remembered what his lips tasted like and were ready to ignore everything she knew about him. Stupid, misguided hormones.

Want to read more? Check out all of chapter one.

Roni Recommends: Two Intense But Spectacular Reads

May 22, 2018 Roni Loren

Hey, y'all! I know I've been quiet over here because I've been buried in edits for book 3, but that doesn't mean I haven't been reading in the evening. And today I have two reads, one fiction and one non-fiction, that just captured me completely and had me all...

Hook GIF from Hook GIFs

First up is a novel by an author who most of y'all most likely already know. I've had three Colleen Hoover books on my kindle for YEARS, but like so many other great books, they got shuffled to the back pages of the kindle and I forgot what I had. (This is one reason why I find myself gravitating to more print books the last few years. I can see them on my shelves.) But anyway, when Colleen so kindly blurbed The One You Can't Forget (out June 5th!) I wanted to fix the fact that I hadn't read her books yet. So of course I quickly realized once I started reading that I was a dumb, dumb lady for letting her books languish on my reader. How have I waited so long to read her??? I have since fixed that, don't worry. And it all started with me devouring this book:

About the book:

Sometimes it is the one who loves you who hurts you the most.

Lily hasn’t always had it easy, but that’s never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. She’s come a long way from the small town in Maine where she grew up
— she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business. So when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily’s life suddenly seems almost too good to be true.

Ryle is assertive, stubborn, maybe even a little arrogant. He’s also sensitive, brilliant, and has a total soft spot for Lily. And the way he looks in scrubs certainly doesn’t hurt. Lily can’t get him out of her head. But Ryle’s complete aversion to relationships is disturbing. Even as Lily finds herself becoming the exception to his “no dating” rule, she can’t help but wonder what made him that way in the first place.

As questions about her new relationship overwhelm her, so do thoughts of Atlas Corrigan — her first love and a link to the past she left behind. He was her kindred spirit, her protector. When Atlas suddenly reappears, everything Lily has built with Ryle is threatened.

Buy the book

So this book took on a topic that would be very hard to do well and non-exploitively in a romance, but she completely pulls it off. I don't want to give too much information about what that issue is, but if you're concerned, check online for trigger warnings. I loved how this book showed the gray areas in a relationship/situation that is often looked at as solidly black-and-white by those looking from the outside in. It's also a well done romance on top of that so you'll still get your swoony happy feelings, too. In addition, her author note at the end really hit home for me as I could relate to her childhood experience on a personal level. So it was one of the best books I've read in a while, and that's saying something, because I've read some good ones lately. If you haven't read it, go forth and buy It Ends With Us!

Next up is definitely not a romance and is a difficult read but also a compelling one. If you haven't been living under a rock, you've no doubt heard that they've apprehended the person they believe is the Golden State Killer. This brought the recent book about the case, I'll Be Gone in the Dark, back to the forefront. I don't read true crime often but there are occasions where I'm compelled to know more. This was one of them because the author of the book passed away while she was writing the book, and sadly, will never get to see that her book helped this guy finally get caught. I wanted to read the story she wrote.

This book is about the crimes, the investigation, and the search for the killer, but it's also about the woman who dedicated herself so fully to writing this book. Michelle McNamara did a fantastic job taking decades of evidence and a long list of crimes and organizing the information into a compelling portrait of the time in history all this was happening, the investigators, the victims, and the monster who committed the crimes. It was written with a deft hand and in a non-sensationalizing way.

I will say that you should not make the mistake I did and read it when you're home alone at night, but it was worth the read. It's also a good example of how a book can actually change things. I truly believe that the killer was found in part because of this author raising the profile of the case. She also directly suggests in the book the very method they used to catch him.

About the book:

For more than ten years, a mysterious and violent predator committed fifty sexual assaults in Northern California before moving south, where he perpetrated ten sadistic murders. Then he disappeared, eluding capture by multiple police forces and some of the best detectives in the area.

Three decades later, Michelle McNamara, a true crime journalist who created the popular website TrueCrimeDiary.com, was determined to find the violent psychopath she called "the Golden State Killer." Michelle pored over police reports, interviewed victims, and embedded herself in the online communities that were as obsessed with the case as she was.

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark—the masterpiece McNamara was writing at the time of her sudden death—offers an atmospheric snapshot of a moment in American history and a chilling account of a criminal mastermind and the wreckage he left behind. It is also a portrait of a woman’s obsession and her unflagging pursuit of the truth. Utterly original and compelling, it has been hailed as a modern true crime classic—one which fulfilled Michelle's dream: helping unmask the Golden State Killer.

Buy the book

BOOK NEWS

If you haven't heard, The Ones Who Got Away is currently on sale for $1.99!

And book 2, The One You Can't Forget, is almost here! Pre-order your copy and it will be in your hands June 5th. It's gotten three STARRED reviews, y'all! Rebecca's straight-A girl self would be super happy to know her book got all the gold stars. ;)

Book Sale Alert!!!

May 15, 2018 Roni Loren

THE ONES WHO GOT AWAY is only sale for $1.99 for a limited time! Get your summer reading stack ready and prepare for the release of The One You Can't Forget June 5th!

DEVICE-FREE SUMMER 2.0

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