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Oct 28

Commemorating Your Child’s Art

Over the summer, I photographed all of Alex’s second grade artwork, including artwork made at summer camp, and made a book for her containing images of her art. This has become a summer ritual. Alex made many art pieces at school and at summer camp, and she loves that I have been making her books containing her art for the past several years! It is a great way to help encourage Alex to continue to make her art and to continue to be creative. I made a 40 page book of all of her first grade artwork, approximately 50 pieces of her artwork, via OnceUpon, and I selected the matte paper option. (A sampling is shown below.) The book turned out well, it is simple in design, and not as expensive to print as compared to other places where you can make books.

The best part is—I printed one of these books for Alex, and she loves looking at her art via this book, while simultaneously encouraging her to keep making her beautiful art—she is incredibly creative! The arts are really important, and we hope to keep fostering this love within Alex. I hope to continue to make yearly books of her artwork as a way of preserving her artworks! Here are Alex’s previous artwork books, which you can view here, here, here, and here. I am still making our family yearbooks, and I am a trying to catch up on the editing of our family photographs—these books are so meaningful!

Below is a recent sewing project—a donut pillow! Alex loves to sew!

Oct 19

18 Years In

18 years of marriage. 22 years together, over two decades together, already. 8 years of parenting a little human together. Over 15 years taking care of our beloved rescue shelties. You are my favorite human being. You are always by my side, and supportive through everything. You are the greatest gift of my life, and each day spent with you is truly a gift. I look forward to many, many more years together, knowing that we can get through anything together. Most of all, you are an incredible Daddy! Alex and Jack both love you dearly! We are all so incredibly blessed and grateful for you. Happy eighteenth wedding anniversary, a few days late!

“Love is the Water of Life.” —Rumi

Oct 6

Blessing of the Animals and Remembering our Sweet Fur Girl, Victory

Today marks a year since our beautiful fur girl, Victory, went to the rainbow bridge. She was a remarkable being, and we miss her everyday. Alex devised a creative plan to remember Victory today after school. Also, Alex and I are working on a creative project together on loss, in honor of Victory. We still have Victory’s alter, with her ashes, flowers, and photographs commemorating special times together. I know that Victory is with us everyday, even though, she is not here physically. Last week, we had the Blessing of the Animals at Alex’s school. It was the first time, Victory was not present for this wonderful event, that we have attended for the past five years; we said a special prayer for Victory at the Blessing of the Animals. We know Victory helped to heal our hearts by sending us our beloved, Jack, a rescue sheltie, that became a member of our family last fall. Jack is doing really well, and he is a constant reminder illustrating how paying it forward to help another animal in need, is a very healing and gratifying process. There are so many dogs in need of forever homes. Below is an image of Alex and Jack at the recent Blessing of the Animals, and he did well! Jack is making wonderful progress and he is fully enveloped into our family, and we are in love with Jack, who is such a loving and loyal being, who loves to play and go for his daily walks! He is loving the cooler temperatures!

Pictured below, is a painting of our beautiful Victory.

This past summer was great; however, it was extremely busy, and limited my ability to post here, but I hope to be able to post here more frequently. Life is very full at the moment! Hope that everyone is having a Happy Fall!

Jul 10

Happy Belated 4th of July!

It has been a while since I have posted here! Since school let out in early June, life has been very full and busy—a whirlwind!

We hope you had a wonderful 4th of July! It was a bit rainy here, after an incredibly hot week, but that did not stop us from doing fireworks, which Alex loves! Jack is scared of loud noises, so he was happy to stay inside, and he did well!

Jack is really coming into his own, and it has already been nearly nine months with our fur boy! The time has flown by! He loves his daily walks, he loves playing, he loves to cuddle! He is incredibly animated and he is so sweet and loving! He also loves his toys, and he has even helped himself and chewed the noses off a few of Alex’s stuffies! (Fortunately, they were replaceable!) We think Jack feels more comfortable and he understands this is his forever home! We feel so grateful for our Jack!

Alex is having an incredible summer, and she is one busy little lady!

Here is a photo, on the 4th of July, of our beloved cherubs!

We hope you are having a fun summer!

May 15

Poem about our sweet Jack

This week, Alex’s class had its first Poetry Salon at school, and Alex shared a few of her poems from her poetry book containing several different types of different poems, including: acrostic, haiku, cinquain, diamante, color, shape, and autobiographical poems. It was such a joy to hear Alex share her poems with her classmates and parents!

The first poem appearing in Alex’s poetry book is about her sweet fur brother, Jack, shown below!

Alex and Jack are quite the duo. Jack is his own little being with his own uniqueness, and he continues to bring so much joy and love to us all. He is so playful and social with other dogs! He has so many dog friends in the neighborhood! Now, if we could only get him to sleep in a little bit on the weekends!

Jack loves ice cream! Alex and Jack love sharing ice cream cones together!

Happy Friday!

May 8

Happy Mother’s Day!

I cannot believe Mother’s Day is already upon us. How are we already into May, the year is almost half over?! All mothers and mother figures deserve to be celebrated on Sunday. Mothers that have been blessed with babies; mothers who’s babies left too soon; mothers who are waiting to meet their special baby; mothers who are yearning to become a mom; fur moms; and those who are mother figures. We need all types of mothers to help us through this life. The journey towards motherhood is not always freshly paved. The path towards parenthood, for us, was filled with unexpected twists and turns, which made for a long and complicated journey. I feel so fortunate to be a mom to our little human and our beloved fur boy, Jack. I am very grateful for this season together, which I never take for granted. Alex talks about Victory every day; we all miss her so very much and life is not the same without her physical presence, but Victory sent us a special fur boy who we adore—he is making great progress, and he has the most energy of any of our rescue shelties! Jack is a kind soul, and we are grateful he is a part of our family, and doing so well. So wherever you are in your journey, you are worthy of every celebration held in your honor. Happy Mother’s Day, to every type of mama out there!

Apr 24

Spring Break 2026

This post is a little late, as life has been so full and busy!

Right before our spring break trip, Alex had her swim championships, where she dropped time in almost every event she swam! Her fly is really coming along, where she earned fourth place!

Over Alex’s spring break, we visited Lexington, Kentucky, where we spent Easter together! Jack did very well in the car, which is great progress; since we adopted him, he has been fearful of the car, so he has made great strides. Jack also did well at the Airbnb, where he was a little nervous, but he settled in pretty well! Alex decorated some Easter eggs and we celebrated her first Easter with Jack, along with her favorite part of Easter morning—an Easter egg hunt, which she has always loved since she was very little, and she always begged us to re-hide the empty plastic eggs for her!

While in Lexington, Jack had his first vanilla Greater’s ice cream cone, and he absolutely loved it! We also visited Keeneland! Alex had a great time, and the weather was warm and beautiful!

We also visited the Kentucky Horse Park! Alex loved seeing all the beautiful, unique horses! She is an animal lover through and through! Jack loved walking around the Horse Park, a completely new adventure for him! Doug and Alex did a long horse ride together on some nearby trails, while I stayed back with Jack! We were fortunate to have beautiful weather while in Lexington! And, by the time we headed home, everyone was tired!

Happy Friday!

Mar 31

Creativity and Dogs

Have you seen this recent New York Times article about creativity, focusing on writing and dogs?

This article explores how dogs play a meaningful role in the lives and creative processes of several well-known writers, especially Alice Hoffman.

Hoffman, who often writes in solitude, says having a dog nearby keeps her from feeling lonely. Her dogs—past and present—have inspired her fiction, though she finds writing dog characters challenging because of their mysterious nature. After losing her longtime dog Shelby, she adopted a joyful, people-loving puppy named Violet.

Editing The Best Dog in the World, Hoffman gathered essays from other authors who share similar bonds with their dogs.

Isabel Allende includes dogs in nearly all her novels and lives with two dogs who keep her constant company, even “listening” as she writes.

Roxane Gay, once not a dog person, is now deeply attached to her dog Max, who even joins her while she works and has become part of her writing routine.

Ann Leary initially struggled to love her difficult, anxious dog Eddie but grew to appreciate him, realizing they share similar traits. He now keeps her company and even interrupts her work when needed.

Amy Tan’s small but demanding dog Bobo stays close while she writes and even humorously “chooses” books, favoring one about dogs over her own novel.

Paul Yoon credits his dog Oscar with transforming his life and perspective, ultimately influencing his fiction, including writing from a dog’s point of view.

Overall, this piece illustrates how dogs provide companionship, emotional support, inspiration, and even creative breakthroughs for writers, shaping both their daily routines and their storytelling.

In my experience, I think our dogs are essential to the entire creative process—they are almost a portal to another realm. I feel fortunate for all of our rescue dogs, who have entered our lives; they have helped my creative process, while teaching me many lessons, enriching my life immensely. I cannot imagine a life without a rescue dog as a part of our family.

Mar 12

Our Jack

This week has been quite wacky with spring-like and summer temperatures for a few days, and we now have snow today, all within a few days of each other! Hopefully, it will really be and feel like spring soon! When the weather was so nice earlier this week, we took Jack for his first dinner outing, at Alex’s request, and he did well! He was a little apprehensive at first, but he quickly settled in! There were even a few dogs also sitting on the patio, and he was delighted to greet the other furry friends! Our Jack has been through a lot, but he is so resilient, and he is making good progress adjusting, and we think he feels like he is “home.” We are still adjusting to him getting up incredibly early, no matter what time we go to bed—he seems to require very little rest! We are so grateful for our Jack—he is full of personality, warmth, and love!

Happy Thursday!

Mar 3

Frankie: A Special Rescue Dog

At Alex’s school there is a special furry friend named Frankie, a three-legged chihuahua-pug mix rescue dog, that visits the classrooms, whom everyone has fallen in love with!

Steve Springer, the new Head of School, adopted Frankie while living in Los Angeles. Frankie was hit by a car and was subsequently brought to a dog rescue, and veterinarians had to amputate her front leg. However, Frankie’s injury did not impact her sweet and gentle disposition or her mobility.

Mr. Springer started bringing Frankie into school over this past summer, and everyone fell instantly in love. Once school resumed this past fall, the students also quickly fell in love with Frankie! Frankie is a certified therapy dog; she goes to classes and reads with the kids, and she does math with them, too!

Students bring Frankie mail filled with notes and drawings. Frankie even has her own adorable school uniform, and her photograph is proudly displayed by the front office, for all to see!

Frankie was especially helpful to Alex when Victory passed away this fall. We all were heartbroken, and Frankie brought comfort to Alex during this difficult time.

Most of all, Frankie teaches us all about the importance of love, kindness, acceptance, resilience, and the importance of animals.

You can view the video segment here featuring Frankie’s wonderful story with Alex’s class!

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