Part 3: What Has Your Pet Taught You? by da-AL

Black Labrador puppy dog eyes

Life with dogs... The twin puppies we adopted ate and ate and ate. And pooed and pooed and pooed. Six months later, they'd grown to 50 and 50 pounds! Plus, I'd learned nothing about training them. One day... As usual, for 10 deafening minutes, they barked at the mailman across the street. Later that day,… Continue reading Part 3: What Has Your Pet Taught You? by da-AL

Guest Blog Post: The Little Guy Who Stole Our Hearts by Debbie Centeno

Chewy closeup

Live long enough, and we're bound to encounter challenges. With the help of a friend, Debbie Centeno (who runs this blog and this blog) uses her grief to help others... I never knew how much a person could grow to love their pet. I wasn’t raised with pets, other than fish in a tank. And,… Continue reading Guest Blog Post: The Little Guy Who Stole Our Hearts by Debbie Centeno

How Pets Help Raise Kids by Emily Parker

Emily Parker and Gus

Blogger Emily Parker describes herself as, “A proud cat parent of two black cats, Gus and Louis (even though Gus only has one eye!). I help cat parents love their cats better by providing helpful articles on my website.” Click here for her “How Pets Help Raise Kids” infographic. Have pets helped raise kids you… Continue reading How Pets Help Raise Kids by Emily Parker

Now We Are 3 (only)

black labrador mix head and shoulders photo

This morning I stayed in bed till late. I was awake, but I didn’t want to get up to a house without Pierre in it. Yesterday I had to put my dog down. Such a gentle euphemism for murder. To put one to sleep. My dear, dear dog-man trusted me, yet I tricked him. First… Continue reading Now We Are 3 (only)

Be Your Own Best Role Model + Learning to make homes by Elizabeth Semende

Real hand with two toy figures in which heads are replaced with toy hands.
Thank you, Ryan McGuire.

Role models can be great. They provide wisdom for how to get where we’d like to be.

Take care, though.

In our eagerness, we risk blindness and deafness to how sometimes they’re better examples of what not to do. Of the ones we love, those who are closest to us, their familiarity can feel like normalcy.

The amazing poem posted by afroliz of Zimbabwe that follows illustrates what I’m trying to say.

I believe we must all continually work to be our own best role models. Let us be lighthearted in working toward that goal. Let us be as serious as happiness when it comes to understanding which role models we might already have unwittingly chosen.

afroliz's avatarflowers and poems 🌼

In these places where women come to die

My mother’s words take turns to hit my ears:

“When you find a man, carve a home beneath his pride and

learn to make homes from nothing.”
Then I screamed: Mother this is not my home!

This is not a home!

It carries the weight of a man’s pride

the same way corpses carry the weight of tombstones​

In silence.

Mother did not listen.
She too found a home

In these places where nothing remains

but a swam of men urinating on the flame of our souls

She said: that is how we make homes out of nothing

By carrying the weight of a man’s pride

In silence.

© Elizabeth Semende

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