I Prefer Natu

Woman with a Secret - Sophie Hannah

I have no memory of this book whatsoever, other than the fact that the cover on the Amazon page looks familiar.  This can't be a good sign.

The Darkest Secret - Alex Marwood

OK, let's consider a different secret instead.  Now this one I remember very well!  To celebrate his birthday, a wealthy man invites a gathering of friends (and their children) to his expensive vacation home for a few days of debauchery.  The kids are left alone in the house while the adults party at a restaurant (yep, always a wise choice), and during the night, one of his 3 year old twin daughters disappears.  Years later, he dies, and various friends and family members are reunited for his funeral.  The author is fully in control of the alternating present-day funeral story and past birthday party story lines, the mystery is interesting with the requisite twists and turns, and there are many horrible people to enjoy disapproving of.  Recommended!

In the Coral Navy--Monday, 9/11/17

I continue to be a fan of navy and coral/orange together, and I love how different each of the outfits with this skirt of a thousand colors turns out. Matching the white and aqua with my nerdy-girl-rabbit watch and Fitbit pleases me.

Outfit cost per wear (OCPW) $7.59

We Have a Winner--Tuesday, 9/12/17

I think this is my favorite outfit with this cardigan so far.  It's simple, but the details make it interesting--the lace texture, the messy swags of the necklace, the (impossible to see here) shutterfolds on the skirt.

OCPW: $8.61

Complimentary--Wednesday, 9/13/17

A woman in the elevator said she really liked my scarf.  So do I.  I want to try it with the same skirt (the salmon pink color matches the flowers perfectly) and a navy top or cardigan next time.

I wore this on a day I had an 8:00 sharp meeting that we'd had 4 previous meetings planning.  It was a data dig with the managers of about 8-10 of our sites.  I'd been a bit stressed about it, even though I did not have a formal role in presenting anything, but it turns out that other than walking around and helping people with questions about the reports they were looking at, the only thing I was required to do was--when asked by one of the managers, "Can we get this same trend report for [Group A] and [Group B]?"--say "Yes you can" and then spend a couple hours after the meeting making them.

OCPW: $14.65

Star of the Show--Thursday, 9/14/17

This silk scarf is always the stand-out feature of any outfit I wear it with, partly of course because of the way I tie it so it's front and center and bold as all get out.  Now that I have a lime top and purple pants (not shown here; do not try to adjust your screen), I'm enjoying wearing it more often again.

I wore this to the 3rd meeting we had (in about a 2 week time period) about redesigning one of the department's reports (not one that I produce).  In addition to a greater leadership role, my department head also wants me to be more involved in design decisions, and it was clear she was very happy with my input on this one.  It was funny--at one point, she told my manager J that something he didn't want to have changed a particular way was going to be changed, saying "We all have to give up something" and listed things that she and the other two people in the meeting had to give up.  My office mate asked me, "So what have you had to give up?"  In truth, basically nothing, but I pointed to my "strong belief that the [X] column should be before the [Y] column," which I kind of made up on the spot.  I did believe that, but I also didn't think it was important.

OCPW: $9.52

Outfit With Light Mustard--Friday, 9/15/17

This outfit had a serendipitous beginning.  I was wearing these jeans and the necklace + shoes combo on the weekend when an order from Loft arrived.  I tried on this navy sleeveless blouse and then put on the very first short-sleeved cardigan that came to hand just to see how the top worked with an outer layer.  The navy/yellow/grey color combination is quite unexpected and unusual to my eye, but I kind of liked it at the same time.  So I decided to wear the outfit the next Friday.  It still looks a bit odd to me (maybe  in part because the differing yellow vs. mustard tones are more obvious here than they were with my floral top that had a yellow color that was in between the two and bridged the gap) but it was fine.

*Navy sleeveless smocked blouse (Loft), $26.70

OCPW: $29.65

I think this Shoveler did the pop of yellow thing a little better than I did (bill and feet).  And of course this pose kicks my ass as well.  So I should probably just turn this style blog over to the state fair ducks from here out.

In other news...In thinking about my preference for a clear demarcation between work and leisure, I was reminded of a psychology professor in college saying that B. F. Skinner kept different desks for his professional writing and his personal tasks (paying bills, writing letters, etc.) so that he could keep these domains separate.  Here is a brief description of Skinner's work regimen.

And here is a longer journal article about how Skinner's self-management techniques seem to conflict with his strong belief in determinism, which you probably don't want to read in its entirety.  Here are some amusing points:

It includes descriptions of the Rube Goldberg style machines he built to manage things in life...like remembering to putting his pajamas away in the morning. Skinner writes of how he solved this boyhood problem:

The clothes closet in my room was near the door, and in it I fastened a hook on the end of a string which passed over a nail and along the wall to a nail above the center of the door. A sign reading ‘‘Hang up your pajamas’’ hung at the other end. When the pajamas were in place, the sign was up out of the way, but when I took them off the hook at night, the sign dropped to the middle of the door where I would bump into it on my way out.

I have never read his novel Walden Two, but from this article it sounds pretty interesting in that Ayn Rand-ian only-sort-of-novel-of-crazy-utopian-ideas sense.  In one chapter, the Skinner-like character describes techniques for increasing self-control in children, like having them wear lollipops around their necks, which is called "a display of sadistic tyranny" by another character.