Life has been pretty hectic lately. While we regularly share day-to-day happenings on Instagram, I thought it would be fun to start doing monthly blog recaps to keep track of what we’ve been up to — and have something more organized to look back on over time.
Here’s the first overview for November 2022!
TLDR: Top November highlights
- We brought home another foster dog!
- We found out our van will be ready almost a month earlier than anticipated. EEK!
- Sean’s brother came to visit.
- I read more dog-related books. (Shocking turn of events, I know.)
Foster dog shenanigans: Welcome back Mystic
We first fostered puppy Mystic with her littermate Arlo in July. This spunky girl took a piece of my heart when she got adopted — then on November 14th, three months after we said our original goodbyes, the shelter reached out to tell me she’d been picked up as a stray with a broken leg. Finding out that she’d been separated from her adopter and injured was a nightmare scenario.
After other potential foster homes fell through, Sean and I decided to bring Mystic home again on November 21st.
It’s been quite the ride — this puppy is full of energy and does not seem to realize in the slightest that she’s injured — but we’re figuring it out together.
Van life plans: It’s happening!!
Sean and I have been gearing up for full-time van life for well over a year now. (You can read more about how we’ve been preparing Scout since fall of 2021 here.) Our build was originally slated to start on January 9th, but the conversion company is ahead of schedule — and we’ve confirmed a January 10th pickup date for our home on wheels!
The latest we’d planned on hitting the road was March of next year… but it should be January or early February now. We. Can’t. Wait.
What’s new with Scout specifically this past month
Extra snuggles during Hurricane Nicole
We lived in Florida for over two years with no real hurricanes… then got hit with both Ian and Nicole this fall. Scout was utterly thrilled that Sean’s work sent him home during the storm. Our fence didn’t fare too well (we had to replace almost an entire side of it) but we were lucky to barely lose power and get the extra family time!
Quick recovery from a not-great public experience
Scout had a bad experience with a pet-store employee who grabbed her face when she tentatively sniffed him. I’m really proud of how we bounced back! (More on that in this Instagram post.)
Turns out my cattle dog worships my brother-in-law
Sean’s brother came to visit us for a weekend in the middle of the month and Scout was absolutely in love with him. It was adorable. She’s usually reserved with most people, but I’m pretty sure she would have happily gone to live with Evan in Seattle if we’d let her.
Handling another foster dog better than ever
I’ve written at length about our foster integration process before. I expected Scout to struggle more with Mystic this time around than she did with our previous foster puppies — but she’s been blowing me away! While she absolutely is stressed having an energetic, noisy adolescent dog in her house, she’s also handling it like a champion. I could not be more proud (especially considering that Mystic is objectively the most difficult pup we’ve fostered so far).
November reading
(I have a running list of books I’ve read as a dog owner in this article, if you want the full spectrum!)
- What The Dog Knows by Cat Warren (started in October). More narrative and memoir-esue than most of my dog reading, but very enjoyable.
- Domesticated by Richard Francis. Wouldn’t be my top recommendation for dog-specific info, but it was a fascinating look at domestication on the whole.
- The Possibility Dogs by Susannah Charleson. I was surprised by how thoroughly I enjoyed this one!
- Why Dogs Hump and Bees Get Depressed: The Fascinating Science of Animal Intelligence, Emotions, Friendship, and Conservation by Marc Bekoff. I absolutely loved some essays in this collection, was put off by passages in a few others, and ultimately found the whole book thought provoking.
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[…] fostered five dogs in 2022 — an injured adult and four puppies, one of whom came back to us months after her initial adoption with a broken leg — even though it required some extra logistical effort given Scout’s […]
[…] Last month we found out that our van would be ready three full weeks ahead of schedule. The collective excitement in our house has only been heightened ever since. (Scout has no idea why Sean and I keep dancing around the kitchen, but she’s happy to join in.) […]