Once they recommended we all get boosted again this year, I’ve been keeping an eye out for an appointment for Denisa and me to get our shots. This basically consisted of going to the Walmart pharmacy site every day and seeing if they had openings. On Wednesday, they suddenly had a bunch of openings for yesterday (the first time I’d seen our local Walmart with them), so Denisa and I signed up. In case you’re…

Not a ton of time to write today, but I did want to briefly discuss something I’m reading about in my Psychology of Personality class. I’ve long believed that people generally don’t change who they are. They might tweak a thing or two here or there for a while, but they almost always return back to their norm. Not that I thought that was a hard and fast rule, but I thought that for people…

I (Bryce) spoke too soon yesterday. Tomas sent out his letter yesterday afternoon, detailing more on what’s going on right now. Sorry about jumping the gun. Here it is now: Привіт! I don’t know if you could tell by the title but I have some big news… Mid transfers have come and gone and I am yet again here in Trenčín (let’s gooo!!) but of course Prez won’t be making it easy. I am training…

This is Bryce here, not Tomas. While he didn’t say outright that he wouldn’t be sending an email this week, I’ll be very surprised if he does. He found out last week that he’d be training a new missionary, and that started on Saturday, so he’s got his hands more than a little full right now. Training a new missionary is already an added load, but this particular instance makes it even more challenging. His…

This was such a stunningly good book. I usually read more squarely in the area of genre fiction. Fantasy, thriller, science fiction. I read books for escapism, so the fact that I loved this one speaks to just how great it is. Because it’s anything but escapism. Wells writes a memoir of her childhood, growing up in conditions that bring new meaning to the word squalor. She pulls no punches, portraying her family and the…

We had planned to go to the fair on Monday, as we usually do. Mondays they have ride bracelets, so the kids can ride as many rides as they want for one price. However, the rain had different plans. Monday wasn’t an option, so we had to reevaluate. We’ve gone Wednesday before (the other ride bracelet day), but it’s been such a bad experience: so, so, so many people. Huge lines. Just chaos. So instead,…

It looks like it’s that time of year again! My Facebook feed is exploding with well wishes, and I’ve got people knowing about my birthday left and right in person. (I have many complaints about Facebook, but this is not one of them. I think it’s great that it gives people something small like this to connect over, though I am a habitually terrible Happy Birthday wisher.) When you’re a kid, a birthday is an…

I read reviews and chatter about books online. It comes with the territory of being an author and librarian. And a personal pet peeve of mine is when books are dismissed as being “too young adult.” (I mean, of course it would irritate me, seeing as how I write young adult literature. I’d like to make a particular side note of an even bigger pet peeve: when adults criticize a YA book for being “too…

Today marks the anniversary of Tomas’s first day as a missionary. I’ve been taking some time to think back on how the year has gone. As I imagine most would expect, it went very quickly and very slowly at the same time. We check in with him once a week, and often it feels like there’s been almost no time at all since the last time we talked to him. The first few months he…

With the announcement of the latest update to the Apple Watch line, I started wondering just how long it’s been that I’ve had mine. A little bit of spelunking in my Gmail got me the answer: 7 years. That’s pretty surprising, honestly. Am I still happy with it? Do I want to get a new one? First, the happiness scale. Overall, I don’t have a ton of complaints, though I don’t know how much I’m…