— Here’s What I Have to Say —

Most of the time I send my followers on Instagram over to my book page, @minihaysreads, to hear about a book. This book was too important to hope people would go over there and read about it. So I posted it in both places this time. Read this book! To all my white friends, you must read...

I have been a reading as much as I can during quarantine. I always wish I had read more or faster, but I’m still happy to be finding time to read in whatever form I can get right now. But I have been in a bit of a slump. The kind of slump where I...

This time in our lives is so weird and unique. No one has ever been through this same set of circumstances. We are paving the way for this virus and making huge strides in technology to accommodate life. But we are also making history. Our parents and grandparents have seen hard times and lived through...

My sweet boy had his last day of preschool ever yesterday. He didn’t seem to care that things are over for him. He was telling his sisters it was his last Zoom meeting and seemed pretty happy. He’s just so excited for kindergarten! Me on the other hand, I was a mess! I cried off...

I received an ARC (Advanced Reader’s Copy) of The Apartment by K. L. Slater through NetGalley. I am so thankful to have found this community and the ability to read new books. I haven’t read any of her books, but I might look into some of them after this one. I was intrigued by the...

Chuck always sends me the newest Duo promo videos. This one is cute and the song will definitely get stuck in your head! 🎵🎶 It’s so fun to see Duo commercials on TV and hear about people using (and loving) the product he works on.

I have been an emotional rollercoaster recently. I have been crying over everything. Reasonable or not. I cry if I’m happy or sad. I cried myself to sleep the other night because it was all just too much emotionally. Let’s think about the things I have cried about: General pandemic School being closed Moving (both...

This is our first empty room. This is what the room looked like before we started packing and before the house was put on the market. I was feeling overwhelmed by all the things around to pack. So the other night we cleared out one room. It needs cleaning, but it’s done. We have a...

There are a number of chatting and video apps available right now (and everyone has their own favorite), but I wanted to remind you about (or introduce you to) **Duo!** It’s the app my hubby has worked on at @google for many years now. It works on iOS and Android and works between the two. It even...

Fairly recently, I started reviewing book on NetGalley. I have loved getting Advanced Readers Copies (ARC) of books and getting to give my honest reviews. I am so glad that an online friend (thanks Caitlin for the recommendation) told me about NetGalley. She also read Pretty Things and after reading her review, I immediately got...

Do you ever get something in your head and you just can’t get rid of it? I’ve been trying to figure out a couple things on my site here that have been bothering me and I can’t focus on anything else. I haven’t figured out how to fix it, so all I do is think...

A little over 18 years ago, I came across this cute guy with these stunning blue eyes on a yahoo dating site. (Yes, we met online back when it wasn’t cool or even really recommended. 😬) I immediately sent a message and we started chatting….LOTS. After we had been talking and video chatting for a...

We have been doing distance learning for about a month now. It has been quite an adjustment, but I think we are doing better with it than we were at the beginning. Before distance learning started, we did some homeschooling at home. A lot of people thought this was a little weird because we had...

I’m having a hard time today staying happy and feeling useful. I just feel like no matter what I suggest to my kids, someone whines about it or gets upset with me. I’m feeling kind of useless today. I know that we are all going through feelings like this right now, but I’m just struggling...

I have been thinking a lot about how we will act after all of this is over. So many people are so hopeful this will be over soon and go back to normal. But I fear what normal will be after this. I have noticed this in simple things. While reading a book, while watching...

I’ve always been an extrovert. I need to be around people to thrive. This means this quarantine time has been hard for me. But not as hard as I thought it would be….let’s figure out why. I think if this had happened during a time where social media wasn’t so prevalent and we weren’t able...

When all of this started, weekends were such a sought after time. You work all week to get to the weekend and get to play and make plans and do whatever. But now, I don’t really look forward to the weekends. What is there to look forward to? You don’t have plans. You can’t make...

Chuck and I have always had a dream to have a place on a lake. We weren’t sure if that would be a cabin or living on the lake. When we first started considering living on the lake, we made lists of pros and cons for cabins vs. lake houses. The more we thought about...

We’ve been under quarantine and social distancing for almost 6 weeks now. The coronavirus (COVID19) has taken over our lives here in 2020. Every waking (and sometimes even non-waking) moment is spent thinking about what going on. Worrying. The repercussions of this will be lasting. This won’t be something anyone will forget.  Everything has been...

We have all been told that it’s a good thing to make time for yourself. As a mom or parent, the majority of your time is spent taking care of kids, doing adult things, working, cleaning, shopping, keeping everyone alive and happy, keeping that fun, love and spark alive in a marriage and also balancing...