What Makes Something “Young Adult”?

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 YA.” That’s like me getting angry that my chocolate ice cream tastes like chocolate.) From context, I gather that when people talk about something being

Missionary Parent: One Year In

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 was gone felt very long, but it’s picked up quite a bit since then. Yesterday when we talked to him, I realized that we’re now

Apple Watch: Seven Years On

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 really putting the watch to use. For reference, I’ve got a series 1, so it doesn’t get any older than what I’m using. I put

Hurricane Lee and Me

I live in Maine, and people keep hearing about Hurricane Lee and Maine, so I suppose it’s no wonder I’ve also been asked “What’s happening with the hurricane?” a fair bit. We don’t get hurricanes here in Maine very often (and it doesn’t look like we’re going to get one this time, either), but I can just update you all at once about what’s up with the storm in my corner of the state. Honestly, I’m not expecting it to amount to much for me. It will be windy. Right now they’re saying wind should top out at 26mph by

A Few Political Thoughts: 2023 Edition

No matter how much I try to ignore it, I have to face the fact that another presidential election year is staggering toward me, lolling from side to side like some sort of deranged zombie, and I’m just staring at it in horror, unable to move. It’s especially discouraging this year because I have little hope that it’ll be anything other than a mulligan of 2020’s election. If Trump is once more selected by the Republicans as their candidate, I’ll have no choice but to vote against him. That said, I’ve been unimpressed at best with Biden. A trained cocker