Paws, Peace, and Purpose

I recently had a dear friend turn 40. The big 4-0. Among my circle of friends, this seems to be the current "dreaded number." We thought turning 30 was hard, but 40? Yikes. Where did the time go? We used to be the young, wild people who stayed out until all hours of the night and somehow functioned perfectly the next day. These days, many of us need a full recovery plan after a late evening. As my friend and I talked about aging and how it sometimes makes us feel older...not old, just older...we both came to an unexpected conclusion: For the first time in our lives, we are blooming. That realization filled me with an incredible sense of joy. Over the past few years, I've worked hard to become healthier in every way possible. Physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, I've been learning what it means to truly care for myself. For the first time, I feel like all of that work is beginning to bear fruit. One of the first things I had to learn was what was exhaust...

  I recently finished a book entitled “Marked” by R.M. Krogman that completely surprised me with how emotional and layered it was. At first, I expected a story filled with only dragons and dark magic, but it became something much deeper. “Marked” is a story about grief, identity, and the danger of judging people based on fear.  “Marked” follows a boy named Davy. He is the son of a shepherd living a happy, and peaceful life until a series of tragic events take place that tear Davy’s life apart. At one point, it is discovered that Davy is “marked”. The people around Davy believe the mark is cursed, and many even whisper that he is connected to the tragedies he has had to endure. Davy becomes isolated, blamed for tragedies or bad luck that he never caused, and treated more like a monster than a human being. Krogman does an excellent job showing how the rejection shapes Davy’s personality. Davy becomes hurt and angry with the world, and starts doing things that aren’t true to who ...

      One thing I have always struggled with is self-respect. For a long time, I truly believed I didn’t deserve respect. If someone treated me poorly, I assumed I had earned it somehow. I didn’t realize how deeply that mindset shaped the way I moved through the world — or how disrespectful I had become toward myself in the process.      Lately, though, I’ve been trying to build self-respect intentionally. I’m beginning to realize that when I respect myself, I also see myself as more capable of following my dreams and reaching my goals. In my last blog, I mentioned that I made one small change that ended up making a huge difference in my life. I think choosing self-respect may become another change like that — one that quietly transforms everything.      As I’ve reflected on this lately, I’ve started noticing the ways I already practice self-respect, even if I didn’t recognize them before.      I started a podcast called Still ...

       I believe that part of healing is making changes in your life. They do not have to be huge or dramatic. Sometimes the smallest shifts create the biggest difference.      For example, summer has always been difficult for me. Every year, I make schedules and plans before summer begins, but I often struggle to follow through. I end up spending days feeling stuck, overwhelmed, and disappointed in myself for not getting the things done that I wanted or needed to do. Eventually, that frustration turns inward.      But this year, I decided that summer would be a season of healing and growth.      Because of that, I took a long, honest look at my routines. For years, I was someone who woke up, prayed, did devotions, and then slowly got ready for the day. But I realized something important: that rhythm was no longer serving me.      So I made one small change.      Now, as soon as I wake up...

  When people think about a life filled with joy, they often imagine big adventures, dramatic milestones, or picture-perfect moments. And while those things can be beautiful, I’ve realized that one of the things I love most about my life is actually much quieter than that. It’s the care woven into my everyday routines. My mornings begin softly. Before the world fully wakes up, there’s the sound of paws on the floor, sleepy pets gathering nearby, food bowls clinking, and the stillness of early light. There’s prayer. Reflection. A warm drink in a favorite mug. Tiny rituals that don’t look extraordinary from the outside, but somehow hold my whole heart together. My life is full of animals who rely on me in different ways—dogs with big personalities, cats curled nearby, little souls who have become family. Loving them has shaped the rhythm of my days. They bring noise, comfort, chaos, laughter, and companionship into this home, and in return, I get the privilege of caring for the...

 Dear Season of Renewal and Hope, Thank you for being such an integral part of my life right now. This has been a difficult season for me in so many ways. And yet, spring has arrived, bringing quiet renewal with it. This year, renewal has not looked like a dramatic reinvention. Instead, it has felt like a steady return to myself. I’ve been building a life filled with softness, care, and meaning in small daily ways: early mornings spent in prayer, cozy routines with my husband and my fur babies, creating whimsy instead of rushing past it, allowing myself to rest without guilt, and making space for joy and grief to exist together. This spring feels less like becoming someone new and more like remembering who I am underneath exhaustion, pressure, and survival mode. It has reminded me that tenderness is strength, that home can be sacred, that nurturing others does not require abandoning myself, and that healing often looks ordinary long before it looks miraculous. There is hope ...

     Today is the last day of school with students. Tomorrow, I work a half day. Usually, this is the stretch of time when my mind officially shifts from spring to summer, a seasonal turning point that always invites reflection.      This year, spring taught me some of my most important lessons.      I learned that joy and grief can exist at the same time.      This is a lesson I spent years chasing. I had heard people say it. I wanted to believe it. Still, I struggled to understand how joy could survive alongside deep sorrow.      As I mentioned in my blog about what my grandma taught me, grief used to be all-consuming. It was all I could feel, all I could breathe. It shaped what I noticed in the world and how I moved through it.      But I am not the same person I once was.      This spring, I lost my grandma. Tomorrow, Lois will be joining her. At the same time, I am learnin...

      I began this journey feeling helpless and hopeless. I'm pleased to say that I have made some growth. Some of my growth seems to be happening in quiet, deeply rooted ways. The kind of growth that doesn't always look dramatic from the outside, but completely changes how a person moves through life.      I've become more emotionally articulate. Even when I'm overwhelmed, I work hard to understand my feelings instead of reacting to them. I have come to realize that this takes maturity and self-awareness. I had always considered myself mature, but I have been working on self-awareness for years. I'm so proud of myself for developing that skill.     I allow softness without seeing it as weakness. I used to see it as a weakness. Every tear I cried, every time my heart was broken, every time I felt emotion, I felt ashamed of how weak I was. Now, I value tenderness, comfort, whimsy, cozy moments, devotion, animals, movie nights, celebrations, and emo...

      On April 20, 2026, my grandma passed away peacefully at a local hospital. As with all kinds of grief, the grief I've had for my grandma's passing has been heavy and complicated. I will get into this more later, but her passing brought up a lot of thoughts about my own future. Instead of focusing on that aspect today, I'm going to focus on the things she taught me and things that I plan on applying to my life, despite the fact that my grandma and I lived very different lives.      The first thing I learned from my grandma is how to care deeply for vulnerable beings. Since I can remember, my grandma has always had cats or dogs around her house. She cared deeply for the animals in her care and did what she could to provide them with the love and attention they needed. When I was young, I would sometimes spend time with my grandma during the summer. I remember sitting out on her front porch in the evening as the sun would set, and she would point out any ...

      I don't think it's a secret that life can feel hard. Not just for the people dealing with infertility, but for everyone. I know that I, personally, have had moments where life didn't only feel hard...it felt impossible. There were moments, and still are moments, where I wonder how I can possibly thrive and live the full, incredible life that I long for. The answer that keeps presenting itself is hope.     How does one find hope when life feels hard? I've asked myself this question millions of times. My journey has brought up so many questions. What are holidays, or any celebration, going to look like in my later years? What is my legacy going to look like? Am I going to be lonely? Will anyone care about me in my later years, or will I be the only one who cares about me? What happens when I can't take care of myself? I have many, many more questions. Too many to list.     Admittedly, I don't have all the answers to all of my questions. I most like...

 A question that I recently got was, “How do you handle others living out your dreams?” When they ask this, they mean, “What’s it like to watch other couples have children when you can’t?” The answer has become simple for me now.  It’s no longer my dream.  The hardest part for me in being child-free after infertility is reimagining all of my dreams. Everything from the house we purchased to my job were all linked to eventually having children. There is a content creator called “Blooming with Care” on TikTok. She is also child-free after infertility, and she once spoke about “the room”. For those of you who don’t know what “the room” refers to, it is the room you were planning on having as your baby’s room. The original thought was my “Diva Den” was eventually going to be our baby’s room. Sure, I put some stuff in there, but only with the understanding that we would eventually turn it into a nursery.  I’m lucky because “the room” was already something for me. All I ha...