My dog, Guinness, is a therapy dog. That’s why I write books about him. After he became a certified therapy dog, we became involved in a charity called Gabriel’s Angels.
Gabriel’s Angels strives to use pet therapy to instill compassion, confidence, and best behavior in at-risk children.
We like volunteering with this Arizona-based charity because it is more than ‘pet the dog.’ Gabriel’s Angels includes reading and activities in each visit that help the kids focus on positive traits, such as the three listed above.
Each therapy team must qualify to become a part of Gabriel’s Angels, including age requirements, aptitude tests, and health records.
Guinness the Therapy Dog and I are a therapy team that visits the kids in a group setting. Other teams are a part of reading skills activities.
Guinness and I love visiting!
If you are over the age of 18 and have a dog who would like to be involved in pet therapy, then get training!
National Friendship Day is meant to be a day to connect with your friends. These days, that’s even more important than ever.
Remember running into a friend while out running errands? Or meeting for lunch? We can’t do that these days, but we can connect in other ways.
I’ve had Zoom meetings with friends, which was super fun. I’ve also begun handwriting letters and cards. I think handwritten cards and letters are special, especially in these days of email and texts. They can seem so impersonal. A handwritten letter tells someone you think they’re special.
Celebrate your friends today. Say hello. Send a letter. Arrange a video call.
I’m writing this way ahead of time, just so you know. Today is the day we lay my mother-in-law to rest. She died in April and today is the soonest we were able to schedule the graveside service to inter her cremains.
My MIL was a strong and opinionated woman who provided gentle guidance when I first married her youngest son. My husband is her baby, the youngest of six kids. She had an iron fist while also encouraging her kids to be themselves.
She lived her entire life in Tucson, loving the desert. She planted drought- and heat-tolerant plants in her garden while battling the drying winds and temps. She loved rocks and geodes. Her garden and the fireplace hearth was filled with the sparkling crystals. We have some of them now and it’s nice to see them sparkling in the sun and reminding us of the good times.
When a story doesn’t unfold in my brain, it’s a struggle to get it down on paper–or, rather, in ones and zeros. I’m having this issue with Lady Zepherine’s story. She is reluctant to tell her story, and I am having a difficult time writing it. Difficult is putting it mildly. It’s like hammering dull nails into an oak board with a sponge. Yes, that’s impossible.
The hard thing is not writing her story. But I feel like it’s a tortured mess. That’s what editing is for, right?
It’s also tough because parts of her story are so personal to me. Diving into my memories, and interacting with the mean girls and bullies who live there, makes me sad. I wish I had the knowledge that I have now, back then, so I could stand up to them and defend myself instead of ‘taking it’ like I did.
Even now, I try to take the high road and not get pulled down into what I consider trite arguments. The unfortunate side of that is the number of people (who I though were friends) believing the liar and rumor-spreader.
Aren’t you glad that it exposed your false friends? Yes, but it makes for loneliness, too. I wish they had taken the time to find the truth rather than believing the person who had no issues dragging my name through the mud. I hope I haven’t made the same mistake.
