Today, as I sat in JFK Airport waiting to board my flight to Charleston, South Carolina, I was scrolling through the camera roll on my phone. As most of my fellow dog-loving friends will understand, of the 7,807 pictures in my camera roll, roughly 7,500 are of my dogs, and the other 300 are split between family, food, and friends! The photo that jumped out at me today was one of my three dogs that you see posted on my blog. In this photo, each dog is wearing a decorative chalkboard necklace adorned with one of the words from the simple three-word quote, ”live, love, laugh.” Like a true dog lover and crazy dog lady, I take my dogs to get their photo professionally taken each year for our family’s annual holiday card. At this point, I will confess that I have only done this for my human family four times in nineteen years. Again, something my fellow dog-lovers will understand.  I will talk a bit more about the significance of this picture shortly, but first, I feel an obligation to fill you in on my reason for flying to Charleston in the first place.

Sometime back in March, the owner of the company for which I work had the good fortune to be invited to the home of Jack Canfield, author of the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” books. While visiting, he met a recently published author, Jenni Raney Edwards, who had just written a book called, “Bumping Down Highways:  From Boardrooms to Backroads in an RV.” After hearing me rave at the office about my RV vacations, my associate felt compelled to mention me and how he thought Jenni and I would be fast friends. As the conversation continued, my associate said that I had recently transported a rescue puppy from South Carolina to New York and posted our journey on social media live from the road.  He mentioned that upon my return from that trip, I dreamed that someday I would be able to combine my love of RVing and passion for dogs and dog rescue to periodically transport dogs from Point A to Point B in the search for loving homes while raising awareness and highlighting various dog rescues on social media. It was no surprise to Jenni to hear that when I posted from the road with the dog, that people actively followed and waited on the edge of their seats to see where the dog stopped next on the way to their new furever home.  Jenni travels with her dog, Emmi, and when she posts on social media with Emmi in the picture, her impressions increase. Plain and simple, people love dogs! This conversation that took place at Jack Canfield’s house resulted in my associate connecting Jenni and me via email, and the rest is history.

Jenni is not only a newly published author but a motivational speaker.  Without giving away too much about her book, she is all about achieving goals and pursuing dreams.  If there are obstacles in the way of your goals and dreams, you need to figure out a way to remove those obstacles.  In our first few conversations, we discussed some specific goals and dreams and realized that we each had something to offer the other to help remove an obstacle or two, and so begins the journey! 

Today, I flew to Charleston and was picked up at the airport by my huge-hearted friend, Shannon Jones.  Shannon runs Lakeside Animal Rescue. They are a 501(c)3 dog rescue based in Holly Hill, South Carolina.  Upon my arrival at the airport, I was introduced to the puppy that is going be part of making my dream come true.  Tomorrow, after months of emails, texts, Facebook messages, and phone calls, Jenni Raney Edwards is scheduled to arrive in her 40 ft. RV to pick up the rescue pup and me and we begin traveling up the east coast.  Since Jenni’s book released on July 9th, we will be making scheduled stops for book signings along the way, with the culmination being a book release party/book club meeting in my hometown on Long Island, at which time, we hope to announce and meet the furever family of rescue puppy #1.  There will be lots of other fun stuff along the way, but since I want you to come back and read my future blog posts, I am not giving too much more out today!  

Boy, it took me a long time to get to this point in the blog post, but I want to circle back to the beginning.  I suspect the reason why the picture of my three dogs resonated so much with me today is that today was day one of a very special trip. If all goes as planned, it will be more than just a trip, but the beginning of a journey.  A journey to ” live” more fully, “love” more selflessly, and “laugh” more frequently.  

To wrap up the inaugural blog post, I would like to add one more word to the end of “live, love, laugh.” That word would be “luck!”  I consider myself extremely lucky to have:

1) a husband who supports me always

2) two amazing children who think I am nuts but indulge me nonetheless

3) a boss who when asked, “how do you feel about me working remotely from an RV for a little while this summer,” answers, “I never said you couldn’t.”  I truly work for the best company out there!  

Thanks for reading!  I hope you will continue to follow my journey via this blog and on Facebook.

Happy trails and happy tails!

Katie the Crazy Dog Lady