I am an avid reader and journaler. I always have been. My mom taught me to read at home when I was very little and by the time I started kindergarten I was reading Little House on the Prairie books and Nancy Drew books. It was difficult to get my nose out a book…it was my escape, my idea of fun and something to this day I never tire of doing.
Along the way I took up the process of writing and journaling, largely because it is how I process and learn. When I was a student the way I committed things to memory to prepare for tests was to rewrite the information in my own words. If I write it down it was embedded in my head. Eventually I started journaling to process my life and emotions…this has remained a key part of spiritual and emotional health. Because I experience so much loss, taking care of senior dogs, greif is something that I write about alot.
I have always felt that my journaling was a very private thing for me. Over the years as friends have reached out for support and comfort when they lost their pets I have leaned on my own writing to help them. I never felt comfortable directly sharing my writing though…major imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is something I have experienced throughout my life…even when I worked in finance and had qualifications up the hind end…I had moments of imposter syndrome. As an artist I have felt it too.
I guess I am a late bloomer in life, but now in my 50’s, I am finally finding the courage to shirk the imposter feeling and publish some of my writing. The conclusion I have reached…and where I have found courage to escape imposter syndrome is by focusing on what I believe my biggest strength is and that is my desire to do things at a very high level. By which I mean my attitude towards anything I do is that if I am going to do it…I’m going to do it at the best of my abilities. I also never see anything I do as “finished”…as soon as I am done with something…a painting, a handmade journal, a poem…I don’t linger in a feeling of accomplishment but rather get flooded with more ideas of how I can do it differently or better for next time.
I am starting my publishing endeavor small, with some of my poems. I will admit the process has been fun. Learning how to copyright them is easier than I thought it would be. I have already been contacted by a few publishers to publish a collection. I am publishing them for now as cards but at some point want to put them in to a book with photos of all of the beautiful dogs I have lost over the years.
Eventually I hope to write a book on pet loss focused on tackling one of the most difficult issues with pet loss and that is the guilt that often comes with euthanizing a beloved pet. This is something that I have worked really hard to process in my own life.
I am going to start posting some of my poems with my blog letters. This is the first one I published. It is made in to a card at my Etsy Shop and has been selling well for me. All of my shop sales support the Misfits veterinary bills and other expenses. Don’t forget to visit our shop for your holiday shopping for pet lovers! We have ornaments, artwork, cards, gift tags and more. Everything in my shop is made by me.
Our new shop, Court Street Journals, is open on Etsy. We received our first sale after being open only a few days…one of my Edgar Allen Poe bookmarks was my first sale. The moment I heard the chaching for the new shop I was so excited…and then within a few second the imposter syndrome hit and I laid in bed thinking about it for a long time…lol…the upside of the curse of imposter syndrome was as I laid there worrying I also came up with a lot of great ideas for new products, branding and packaging. Please check out our new shop for your holiday gifiting!
That is all for now! Have a wonderful Friday and may you find many blessings in all this new day has to offer.
Nancy & The Misfits
Our new shop Court Street Journals
Our Buymeacoffe Page if you want to buy a the Misfits a treat
While for most people the build up to the holidays is about decorations, party planning, shopping, baking…and all sorts of other fun things…for me it’s about getting ready for cyber week and the flood of sales that come the weeks leading up to Christmas.
There is no such thing as a dull moment at Misfit Manor. While so many of my days seem filled with routine…routine is pretty crucial to juggling a large family of dogs…nothing about life here is ever dull. 
Feeding Rosie is a daily battle. I quickly figured out that she needs to eat sitting up or she gags and chokes on her food. I feed her in a little doggie booster seat I have…one small bit of food at a time. She also gets bored with eating…or perhaps just tired…and we have have to take a lot of breaks. She is also incredibly fussy. There are days where I have to cook her 3 different breakfasts just to find something she wants to eat. I will not give up finding the best solutions for her.
She loves wagon riding! Initially she would just lay down in the wagon the whole time. Now she is stronger and she sits up or stands while she is in the stroller. I’m guessing she has covered more ground in the last few weeks than she has in her whole life.
nicely with her housemates. I am always grateful (and frankly fairly amazed) at how well all my Misfits do together…there is an energy level in this house that I do not understand…but am eternally grateful for. All of my Misfits come from difficult backgrounds…yet once they are here they are very gracious about welcoming new family and helping each other grow.
Rosie has been a lovely addition….Betty adores her (and so does Buster). Betty continues to amaze me…she remains so strong and determined yet she is the gentlest creature I have ever met. She shadows Rosie…wherever Rosie goes Betty follows.
But I’m in a different season of life and now I look forward to burrowing in for the winter. My work load on the property slows down considerably and I can allow myself more time for art, play, cooking and spiritual pursuits…perhaps even a vacation this year. I can’t wait to have this time to slow down and re-charge. The older I get the more clarity I have into the relevance of the cycles and spirals of all life; the agricultural seasons, the cycle of birth and death and the constant sprials of evolving as an older woman. I find the this latest cycle to be one of the most empowering times in my life.
Every pet in our home has a background story…none of them are pleasant…some are much worse than others. But, for the most part, our pets are “over it” in regards to things that happened to them in the past. They live happy and carefree lives. Even Turnip, who has deep emotional scars, has come so far and embraced joy. Mom though, being the flawed human that I am, doesn’t always “get over it” as quickly as they do. I have moments, when I am reminded of their painful stories and I quickly retreat to feelings of anger and heart break.
lick his head when he cried. The entire scenario was horrible. But slowly…Snoopy regained his strength and his courage and definitely his joy.
When I had that moment the other day when I saw his “tripod shadow”…a poignant reminder of the cruelty he suffered…I became angry all over again…”he shouldn’t have to live as a tripod”…”he shouldn’t’ have had to suffer through an amputation”…I was wishing again I could get my hands on the S.O.B. who did this to him.
The first day I picked up Snoopy from our local Humane Society, despite his broken leg, he seemed a typical rambunctious and happy puppy….until I loaded him in my car. He began to howl (like really loud), squirm and was clearly very agitated. If he wasn’t harnessed in a car seat it would have been chaos. He calmed back down when we got out of the car. I ended up taking him to the vet within a few hours as it was pretty clear he was having pain issues. When we got back in the car…it was the same howling and anxiety all over again…which then recurred every time we got in the car throughout his several week ordeal (broken leg that was eventually amputated). It was clear that he was associating riding in the car with bad things…who could blame him with all he has been through in his short little life. Years ago I adopted a two year lab (Sparky) who had extreme anxiety in the car…it made life a lot more complicated and it took years to work him through the anxiety. No chance I was going to let this happen with Snoopy.
Facebook, every once in awhile, pops up “memory pictures and posts”. I have mixed emotions about this feature because sometimes it brings back a memory I don’t want to revisit. Recently, Facebook delivered pictures of a fox hound we fostered last year, named Marge.
I posted her on every possible rescue and shelter site within a several hundred miles. I paid for a pet “amber alert”. 
We held out for quite a while. But it was crickets. No one was looking for sweet Marge. We loved having her with us for Christmas. Eventually, after zero contact from her family, our local Humane Society put her up for adoption. She was adopted quickly by a lovely couple. We said that terribly sad “foster dog goodbye” but knew Marge was headed for a great life. Both Bret and I moped around the house for days after she left. Maddie and Buster missed her a lot. Her new dad called us daily for a while with reports on how Marge was adjusting. They clearly loved her and had compassion for how hard it is to say goodbye to a foster. Good people.
And thus, the “paradox of rescue”. I exist on the periphery of rescue. I adopt only rescues, foster and volunteer where I can. I use my art to raise money. But I do not work deep in the trenches of rescue like many of my friends do. But I see more than enough to make me angry…a lot…it is steadily costing me my faith in humanity. Neglect and cruelty are rampant where I live…I realize these problems are every where…but here in Kentucky there are no laws to protect animals…no deterrents…and there is certainly no justice for animals.
There is no grey area…too many animals suffer in this country at the hands of humans. Only humans can fix it. The moral of the Marge story is this, and it didn’t hit me until I finished this post, Marge completely understood the “paradox of rescue”…in fact…most animals do. She had every reason to hate people…to resent the creepy bastards who left her behind in a yard to starve…yet she chose (or you could argue she was created) to put her faith in people. Maybe the only solution to the “paradox of rescue” is to think more like the dogs.
is this very first painting.
nds down… the sassiest dog I have ever met is our Lhasa mix; Lacey Mae. They say that the dogs that challenge us the most are the dogs we love the most…I can say from experience that this is true. Lacey was a challenge literally from the moment I met her…and we love every bit of her. Now that my shop is up and running steady I (in theory) have time to expand this year and Lacey Mae is going to step up to the plate and become my newest Pawffiti Artist. Through her I 
d it is in everyone’s best interest for them to either live life out in a sanctuary (there are very few that can do this) or be humanely euthanized…it sucks (believe me it sucks) but it is sometimes the most humane outcome. Lacey however, despite being labeled a “chronic biter”, was not one of those dogs.
