A Fuller Picture

Sure, most of my posts will be about living with chronic illness, but if you're going to read about my living and loving, I'm positive a few things will come up (probably pretty often):

1) My family: As I said in my first post, they're everything
2) My friends: Add them to the aforementioned "everything"
3) John (and his family):  I'll try not to embarrass my boyfriend too much, but he's such a huge part of my life that I'm sure he'll make his way in here fairly often. I know his amazing family will too since they've made me feel like a part of it.
4) Animals: It typically takes at most 10 minutes of talking to me to see what an animal lover I am. I'm that strange girl on NYC streets content in engaging your dog in conversation...and not you (oops)
5) Vegetarianism and Animal Rights: I promise not to turn this into a blog about animal rights, but it will come up. I'm profoundly passionate about this issue, so hopefully you'll either find it interesting and useful or you wont mind too much. I know it's not for everyone, nor am I trying to push it on anyone.
6) Poetry and Writing:I was an English/Creative Writing major at Colby and had the greatest professors. Writing isn't just my favorite past time, it's almost spiritual at this point. It connects me to people through time and space. It just makes me feel alive.

7) Music: I grew up on music and it's just a part of me. I really listen to the lyrics. I've also been singing my whole life, took part in countless choruses (including All-New York State in high school. Sorry for the brag.) and am an alumni of the Colbyettes (Colby's first all-female a cappella group). I'm fully aware of how dorky a cappella is, but it was also a great time in my life and I really miss those girls (see photo). I'm always looking for new music and artists, so if you have suggestions please send away!

8) Travel: I've been lucky enough to travel a lot for a 24 year-old. I've loved everywhere I've been and have even gotten to live in Quito, Ecuador and Melbourne, Australia. Somewhere down the line I'll probably post about those experiences since travelling and living abroad with chronic illness is a whole new barrel of monkeys.

So enough talking for today. How about some sweet pictures of the pooches in my life?

This is our Bernese Mountain Dog, Riley (also known as "Bear", "Panda-Cow", "Boo Bear", Buddha Bear", "Puppy man", "Ry-Pie" and so on.) Interests include: bagels, napping, being a mush, bagels, rolling down hills, cuddling, snow, bagels.  He's the BEST therapy. If you have the time, space and means for an animal, there's really no better medicine.
Here's the other pooch I love:

Meet Lily, the German-Shepard mix we adopted from North Shore Animal League here on Long Island (also known as "Lady wolf", "Sheppy", Lilybelle", and so on...). She can be a real nut job and is definitely the "Alpha Dog" (Riley never had a prayer), but she is also very sweet. Never met a dog who's so in tune with my emotions - she always knows when I'm having a "bad day" in terms of my pain and tries her best to fix it.