Nearly three years ago, I started Staycation Club for Dogs, inspired by my immense love of dogs, home, and travel, and shaped by our search for truly specialized care for our dog Maddie after she became paralyzed, just before a trip to Northern Spain.

Today, I care for a small handful of dogs in my home, offering a calmer, more personal alternative to high-energy boarding.

It’s deeply meaningful work and truly a labor of love. I love all of the dogs like my own, and caring for them feels like exactly what I’m meant to be doing.

Four years ago, at 38, I was diagnosed with hormone-positive breast cancer. I chose a double mastectomy and reconstruction, but after 3 surgeries, implants never truly felt like home. I recently underwent my 4th surgery to remove my implants. I now have an aesthetic flat closure and my upper body is still very much healing.

Cancer survivorship looks a lot like taking better care of myself. I’m still in active treatment for several more years as I work to reduce my risk of recurrence. Tamoxifen comes with a lovely list of side effects, including onco menopause and joint pain 🤪

We’re finally putting our Global Entry to good use, and it feels so good to be out in the world again.

Lately, that’s taken us to Mexico, Africa, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan—with a handful of smaller trips in between.

I’ve also started documenting our travels, which has become a creative outlet I genuinely love. Along the way, we’ve come across so many special places and experiences, and I’ve found a lot of joy in sharing those finds with others planning their own trips.

I realize this is a good problem to have—too many travel photos to go through! From our Africa trip alone, I took around 5,000—and turned a fraction of them into a giant coffee table book.

I spend an unreasonable amount of time in Adobe Lightroom, always telling myself “just a few,” before inevitably revisiting entire trips.

At this point, I’ll probably document every big trip we take. I love the process of bringing it all back to life—and rediscovering the places we fell in love with along the way.

The past seven years have been marked by deep grief. I’ve lost some of the most important figures in my life—my parents and my dogs—and these years have been shaped by their absence.

I carry them with me in everything I do, and I’m learning to stay present in what’s here now, even when it’s tender, even when everything I used to know has changed.

I’m continuing to move through this season with intention—making space for deep rest and healing, and allowing things to slowly find their balance again in their own time.

I’m learning to find my place of belonging—both in the world and within myself. Letting go of what drains me and choosing what feels real. I no longer feel the need to prove myself by running myself into the ground, or staying anywhere that doesn’t feel good to be in.

Things feel clearer now. I have less anxiety. I make space for myself, move more, rest deeply, and write often. I feel more at home in myself than I have before—maybe ever—and it’s something I return to daily.

We weren’t planning on adopting another dog, but Bluey had other plans. From the moment he met Maddie, they shared an unspoken bond—they were inseparable. I never thought I’d be a boy mom, but I love it.

He came with a bad knee, a bad hip, and a serious heart condition. Genetically a disaster, but completely ours.

We don’t know how much time we have with him, so we’re just trying to make every day with him count.

She came to us as Francis, a rescue needing a temporary stay after having puppies, but she settled in like she’d always belonged, instantly bonding with Bluey.

The minute we started dreaming up names for her, it was clear she wasn’t going anywhere.

It’s funny—Maddie had a little paw print marking on the back of her head, and Birdie has something similar in the exact same spot. It feels like Maddie left her stamp of approval.

Our nearly 100-year-old home is always evolving. Walls have come down, old knob-and-tube wiring has been replaced, the kitchen fully remodeled, an ADU built, and a once-empty dirt lot slowly turned into a green oasis—all over time.

Next up is transforming our one-car garage into a studio for the business.

I’m learning to embrace the in-between and trust that this home—like us—will continue to evolve over time.