As most of you who follow me on social media know, I have a sweet old lady pup named Prissy. She’s 10 years old and has been my side kick for the last 8 years of my life. My family rescued her from a local animal shelter when I was a junior in high school. She was a skittish little girl who came from a traumatic situation. So when I got her, she took a little time to adjust and trust me.

She’s been my shadow since the day I got down in the floor of the animal shelter and let her wander into my lap very gently. I never coaxed her to come to me, she just saw a gentle person that she could give a new chance to trust. And from that moment on, we were in love with one another. She has taught me so much about patience and gentleness. What a good girl she truly is.

I have always found it interesting to try to understand what a dog is thinking and feeling. Although they cannot truly speak to us, they can communicate in unique ways. I know exactly what Prissy needs just by the way she acts and the movements she makes. She’s such an expressive and funny girl now that she’s had 8 years to warm up to me and learn how to deal with transition (new home, moving out of that home and into an apartment with me, moving back into the house she came from, having Zach move in to the ‘all girls club’ and now moving to north Georgia). Ask anyone in our family…she’s night and day different and it’s the cutest.

For the record, my website is not the only blog that I publish on!!

I wrote this article for the national cystic fibrosis blog, so you may have already read it.

But in any case, I wanted to share this blog post with you because it captures just how I feel about making new friends and letting them into my CF world!

Christmas time is just around the corner and despite the judgement from those who choose to wait until after Thanksgiving to put up their tree, I’ve already got mine up and am sitting here burning a Christmas candle…

It’s my absolute FAVORITE time of year and I want to enjoy it as long as I can. Christmas time brings me joy and this year, one of my spiritual words was joy. So I’m indulging in it.

But today, something else brought me that same joyous feeling and I just can’t help but brag on it.

It’s been a HOT minute since I’ve written a blog post, and to be honest with you, I’m struggling with confidence in my writing right now.

But to you, my lovely viewers, I feel like it’s my responsibility to let you in and let you know what’s been going on.

First of all, this summer was a straight-up HURRICANE in the best possible way!

The hubs and I traveled a lot, hung out with our favorite teenagers (we are youth pastors, incase you forgot), swam in a volcano in El Salvador, swam in the Pacific Ocean, and surfed…yes, you heard that right…SURFED in the Atlantic Ocean. So needless to say, my summer was not dull even for a moment and I embraced every single part of it with every ounce of energy my body could muster up.

But a few times throughout the summer, I had days where I just didn’t feel good. Like, literally just couldn’t find the energy some days…can you relate?

But, I’d get over it after a day or two of rest and then I’d pick myself up and keep on going.

And then the summer ended…