Daily Posting

Back in June, I set a personal goal to write a blog post every single day for three months - June, July, and August. I ended up writing exactly one post a day in both June (30) and August (31), and 49 posts in July between the summer trip, state count, and baseball stadiums!

That's a nice thing about summer break...lots of time for fun things, including writing. I had originally planned to stop writing a daily post on August 31, but then I realized that the final part of the 50 states quest was at the beginning of September and Ginny's Gotcha Day was September 11. So I continued writing daily for the first part of September as well, which brings us to today.

It's much harder to write a daily post now because the school year is underway! As such, this is the end of the daily posts - for now at least! I'm pretty impressed that I managed to write at least one post for 104 days in a row! Over those 104 days, I wrote a total of 123 posts!

I'll still be posting when something is, as I call it, "blog-worthy." I'll certainly be writing about our travels, family, Ginny, life, and whatever else comes up, but I won't be doing it every day. I'd been doing a monthly "Life Lately" post prior to June, and I think I'm going to return to that. With school already being very busy, relieving myself of the pressure to post daily is going to be a very good thing. While I love writing, I don’t want it to feel like just another thing on my to-do list each day! My time during the school year is limited and I have to choose how to spend it wisely!

The expectation to always be doing more at school - especially outside of school hours - is very real, and it is utterly exhausting to always feel like you’re not doing enough. I’m trying not to let those outside opinions affect me this year, because anyone who has ever spent time in a school knows that teachers are always doing more than enough. In fact, it’s become a culture of toxic positivity and I am NOT here for it.

I’m off to enjoy this beautiful day with C and Ginny!

Happy Tails to you!

Gotcha Day!

On September 11, 2009, Ginny joined our family!

It's hard to believe it's been 12 years already...she was 13 months old then and she's 13 years old now and I really don't know where the time has gone. What I do know is how much joy she's brought to our lives! Happy Gotcha Day to our sweet gal!

"It's just the most amazing thing to love a dog, isn't it?"

~ John Grogan ~

our little niece's drawing of Ginny...
better than any photo!

our everything

Happy Tails to you!

A Love of Travel

Of the 602 total posts I've written, 269 are tagged as travel posts. And almost all of them are about traveling with this guy.

Something I love about traveling is the feeling of discomfort. Unfamiliarity. The unknown.

I feel alive in a way that I miss in our regular day-to-day routine. C and I have traveled to countries where we don't speak the language and where we don't know the customs, and those are some of my favorite trips because we only had each other and we had to figure things out together.

When I saw this quote a couple of days ago, I knew I had to share it. Our travels are such an important part of our story because every single trip - short, long, domestic, abroad - has enriched us as individuals and as a couple. While I don't know the "secret" to a long and happy marriage, I like to think we have exactly that, and I do know that for us, travel has added immeasurable joy and priceless memories to our life!

"May your adventures bring you closer together,

even as they take you far away from home."

~ Trenton Lee Stewart ~

Happy Tails to you!

Nine-Nine!

I was late to the game in terms of becoming a fan of Brooklyn 99 - we didn't start watching it until the end of 2019. But I absolutely love it and it's in regular rotation with The Office and Schitt's Creek at our house.

All of the characters are entertaining, but Captain Holt is my favorite - well, Cheddar is my actual favorite - but of the human characters, Holt is my guy. I'm so sad the series will be over next week! The writing and the delivery make for great TV, but there are also deep, poignant moments that really ground the show.

Since today is 9/9, it's perfect timing to share one of his best lines:

“Every time someone steps up and says who they are,

the world becomes a better, more interesting place.”

If you've never watched the show, I highly recommend it!

Happy Tails to you!

The Electric City

We made one final touristy stop on our weekend trip and it was pretty fun! I love The Office and since we would be driving home through PA yesterday, we stopped in Scranton so I could take some pictures of places from the show. I found a map online of where some of the landmarks were, so we just drove around the town finding what we could. We were only there about an hour, but it was still awesome!

when lit up, this sign reads
SCRANTON THE ELECTRIC CITY
but obviously you can't see anything during the day!

When we picked Ginny up from my mom's, it seemed as though she had really missed us because she was super cuddly and that is not typical behavior for her! She was very happy to get back into her seat and look out the window as we drove home, and honestly, we were happy, too! It's weird when she's not in the car with us!

Happy Tails to you!

Lake Placid

We left Vermont yesterday morning and drove into New York, and on our way, we crossed the Lake Champlain Bridge. We noticed that there was a sidewalk once we drove over it into NY, so we decided to park and walk back across it, which was fun and provided some really nice views!

We continued driving to Lake Placid, which was a must-see for these hockey fans. We brought our skates with us and had grand plans, but it turns out that the Olympic rink is under construction and therefore closed. Not only could we not go skating, but we couldn't even visit the rink. Quite disappointing! They did have a small exhibit with a little bit of the hockey history included, so it was still a cool place to go. Obviously I will always cheer for Team Canada over everyone, but the significance of that semi-final game between the U.S. and the Soviet Union cannot be overstated!

After Lake Placid, we drove to Albany and then on to Binghamton where we stayed overnight. That entire portion of NY is absolutely beautiful and I can only imagine how amazing it will be when the leaves change color!

meanwhile Ginny got to hang out with
her beloved Max while we were away...
she has loved him forever and now they're
both seniors with white muzzles...
SO PRECIOUS!

Happy Tails to you!