I don’t profess to know much about anything—I am pretty good at teaching, I can make a mean Shepherd’s Pie. The tenth Doctor will always be my favorite, and I love a good British TV show I can stream on Netflix. However, I am passionate about Veterans. I am an advocate for my husband (who is a Veteran), and I want to learn and understand the Veteran experience.
I spent most of my graduate school career reading, listening, talking to, and working with Veterans. These guys and gals came from all walks of life and some were even students in my classroom. When I met my husband, I had no idea that he would fall into some of my work–I read about missions similar to ones he’d been on…I read about loss and death as he would share with me…I learned first hand from a Veteran.
I started this blog with a passion–a passion for sharing a little bit about our life with a service dog. There have been posts that have been very challenging to write (see “Don’t Rain on My Parade”), and there have been some that have made me wonder, “why in the world did you write that?” However, I hope I never run out of material. I am passionate about Veterans and service dogs, and the importance of learning about service dogs. I hope I can write about those things and people can understand what life is like for Veterans when they return home from war (with and without a service dog).
Writing is something that has come sort of natural to me…I don’t claim to be an expert, nor am I a perfect writer, so at times, this blog will be less than perfect. You’ll find some typos, occasional grammar snafus (and I even teach that stuff to college kids)…but no one is perfect. There’s no perfect blog, and I’m certainly not a perfect author.
I plan to post daily, but also want to take weekends off. I don’t know if the posts will ever come at the same time Monday-Friday, but I will try. I want to share photos of our family, of Memphis, and I hope they are quality photos, and I hope you continue to read, follow, share, and comment on these posts…blogging is a fairly new thing to me, so I am a work in progress, and am learning as I go.
Who knows about this blog? Friends, family, folks on social media…people who might be interested in Veterans or service dogs. Who reads this blog? Friends, family, folks on social media and people interested in Veterans and service dogs I hope. I know at times the posts are sappy, emotional, full of spunk or very real, but that is good. I want you all to see what life is like for us from time to time. I want you to understand the role of a service dog, and how important organizations like This Able Veteran are to Veterans across the U.S.
I have hit delete more times than I can count. I’ve tried to save posts, and then edited/deleted the whole thing. I let Sam read most of the content before I hit publish. I make mistakes. I might seem rude or like I am complaining, but sometimes this is a way to express myself, express the thoughts we have, and get that out (therapy? Writing is quite therapeutic).
So, what can you expect to find? Our journey. Our life with Memphis. Our ups, downs, happy times, sad times, good times, bad times…a little bit of everything. My goal is to reach a lot of folks–to interview other Veterans, talk to their spouses, work on asking trainers some questions, give you insight to our life with Memphis, dogs, and kids. This is our story, and it is a pleasure and privilege to write and share it.
2017 is around the corner…I look forward to what that has to offer–the journey–the challenge–the ups, downs…every single thing 2017 has to offer…why? 2016 was pretty good (okay, all the celebrity deaths have slowly drained parts of my childhood, but…), 2016 was good for me.
Please stick with me…I am trying new things as a “blogger” and am working out kinks that I didn’t know about when I first started posting. I promise the content comes from the heart and means the world to me…