Scout's water bowl froze overnight (Dec recap)
Van fiascos, holiday visits, writing announcements, and more as usual!
Wow oh wow has it been a month! Below, December’s recap includes:
Why I’m extra proud of Scout and how her annual vet appointment went
Details of our converted van’s heating issues
Dispatches from driving 27 hours across the country and sleeping in seven different states seven nights in a row
My December reading log
A request to help me pick books for a dog rescue’s foster home library
My big secret project is secret no more: Next year I’ll be a published author!
How I set up a DIY writing retreat the week before Christmas
Additional bits and bobs!
In an attempt to be more organized, I also link to about a dozen past posts here on the Paws and Reflect blog (most from before I converted it to a Substack nuance-letter). This email might be a little long to read in your inbox, so I recommend clicking the headline to open it in a browser instead if you can!
🐺 Scout shenanigans
My timid dog fell asleep at a truck stop
Once upon a time we spent hours each week working on Scout’s comfort and confidence and calmness in public. In the middle of December, she took a proper nap at an interstate truck stop.
I would love to see “glow ups” like this be as widely rewarded as fun, flashy trick videos. My dog fell asleep here? On a long day of driving where she had basically zero fulfillment?! Past Me, setting up relaxation protocols in places where we wouldn’t see another person or pet for hours at a time, would have shrieked with joy.
Annual vet appointment
We also had Scout’s vet exam with the incredible team at Rolling Paws Pet Care. Sandra and Garrett drove their mobile clinic to my parents’ house (where we reliably find ourselves at some point during the holiday season) for the third year in a row.
Scout did not enjoy her vet appointment—no surprise there—but everything went as smoothly as expected. Our vet thought it was the best yet. I’d say it was much like last year’s.
Sean and I restrained Scout for the exam and bloodwork, and he administered her oral vaccine. Being trusted to handle her ourselves—as her people, her teammates, the family she moves through the world with day in and day out—makes a massive difference for everyone. (I can never thank our veterinary team enough for giving us that trust.)
She had her first seizure in a while at the beginning of the month. It sucked as always, but she came through it well and her blood work looked solid. We aren’t making any changes to her epilepsy treatment. (Still twice a day phenobarbital.)
We finally got some as-needed pain medication for Scout’s sorest days. (A low dose of gabapentin to start.) I don’t plan to use it often at this point, but having it on hand is peace of mind: She’s aging, she’s slowing, and I don’t want her to also be hurting.
🚐 Life on the road
Hydronic heating system headaches
After multiple attempts to fix our hydronic heating system, we dropped Hermes at an RV mechanic on December 1st. They insisted the issue was a dud fuel pump (even though it was brand new). We ordered another pump to pick up along our route. Woohoo, we thought! We’ll have heat by the time we’re in the midwest, no problem.
Except installing that pump (which we tested beforehand to ensure it was not also a dud) didn’t fix our issue. Instead, the newer brand-new part also broke. (In hindsight, we were a little naive not to push back more on the mechanic’s assessment.)
Long story short: We had a hard deadline to arrive in Illinois so couldn’t take the van in again, temps were plummeting, and despite our best efforts—purchasing a small space heater and waking up at set intervals to run the engine/cab heat overnight—our water pump froze. So did Scout’s water bowl. (That layer of ice is what finally made me cry.)
Although no heat or running water is about as fun as you think it is (the opposite of fun), I am over-the-moon proud that we handled the whole thing like the team we are. Generally high morale. Zero arguments. Taking turns feeling despair so the other could play the role of comforter. And then, finally—after weeks of struggle and three-creature nights piled into the bed sharing warmth—Sean managed to fix our system while in the morning’s wee hours at a highway rest area. (He also opened up the top of our gas tank from inside the cab, which I did not know you could do.)
Our giddiness lasted a full week. Actually, I still feel it bubbling up! At the time of writing, everything is functioning beautifully—as it ought to, given that we basically replaced the whole system part by part 😅
And December still brought some lovely adventures!
We started the month on the outskirts of Los Angeles before spending a glorious week in Joshua Tree National Park. (One of my favorites now.) Despite the no-heat thing, hiking and marveling—and letting Scout become her Feral Desert Dog alter ego—was exactly the recharge we needed.
Then we drove from southern California to southern Illinois, sleeping at rest areas and Walmarts in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Missouri along the way. After a week near a landfill for Sean’s work (he did indeed come home with a bit of a stench 🤪) we arrived in Wisconsin to embrace the holiday season with family.
Having my house within reach is worth repair stress
I have two nieces now—Elsie Lucille arrived in the world in September, joining her sister Olive Elizabeth—and although I do not share their faces or much else about them publicly, I feel strongly that I was made to be an aunt. Olive gave me a stuffed puppy for Christmas who I will now proudly carry around the country. (I cried into said puppy’s fur for ten minutes when we drove away after a final goodbye.)
One of the things that enables me and Sean to go Full Auntie and Unc Mode when we visit is the fact that our own private home is parked in the driveway. We routinely step out to love on Scout (who would rather not be inside our relatives’ houses), meditate, organize, and otherwise reset. I realize this opportunity is niche to van life but can’t recommend it enough.
Our December overnight stay stats:
12 nights parked on friend’s or family’s property
7 nights at campgrounds (a record, I think—thanks, Joshua Tree!)
6 nights in hotels or Airbnbs (another record… sarcastic thanks, heating issues!)
6 nights in parking lots or rest areas
Aaand I finally updated our overnight-stay map for the first time in nearly a year!
📚 Reading
Books I read this month
2025 was my slowest reading year since I started keeping my massive tracker spreadsheet. And that’s okay! I rounded out December with:
No Less Strange or Wonderful: Essays in Curiosity by A Kendra Greene: An eclectic and engaging and empathetic read about… well, about a lot of things. In a good way!
Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life by Jason Roberts: Pulitzer-prize-winning account of two men competing to classify life on earth.
Kingdom of Play: What Ball-bouncing Octopuses, Belly-flopping Monkeys, and Mud-sliding Elephants Reveal about Life Itself by David Toomey: A lovely nonfiction exploration I can’t help but feel was written for me (and wish I’d written myself).
Juniper’s Christmas by Eoin Colfer: I continue to stand by the fact that adults should read children’s literature!
And, of course, more rereading of The Arrogant Ape by Christine Webb.
Noteworthy essays and other pieces
Everything Off Assignment publishes is gold, and I particularly loved Maggie Hart’s Letter to a Stranger from November. (I then went down a rabbit hole of Hart’s other writing. This short piece deserved its Narratively grand prize!)
It was otherwise, again, a slow reading month. But just a few newsletters I always open when they arrive in my inbox include: Unresolving by author Emily J. Smith, The Auntie Bulletin by Lisa Sibbett, Before and After the Book Deal by Courtney Maum, Half Life by Courtney Bowers, AF WKLY by Ann Friedman, Months to Years by the MTY lit journal team, and everything under the Chill Subs umbrella.
Question for you: Titles for a dog rescue’s foster library?
I’m helping a friend set up a library for her dog rescue’s foster homes. Please take a look at the books we’ve collected so far and let me know what you would add below!
✍🏼 Writing life
THE DOG LOVER’S BUCKET LIST
I got to announce the big, exciting project I kept secret (but hinted about) for six months!! I wrote a book with Quarto’s Epic Ink Imprint. My education-inspiration-journal, THE DOG LOVER’S BUCKET LIST, hits shelves May 19th.
Other publications
New pieces coming out in Kinship and Insider soon!
DIY writing retreat
The week before Christmas, I set up a mini creative retreat for myself at a 200-square-foot cabin. (I had planned this before we knew the van’s heating system would still be broken when we arrived in the midwest. Thank goodness I did!)
For four days, Scout and I hung out in a room composed entirely of wood. I bought a holiday pack of Ghiradelli chocolates, put them in a mason jar, and treated myself to one whenever I felt accomplished (and also when I did not feel accomplished but wanted a taste of Christmas). I used the big-screen TV exclusively to play hours-long videos of crackling fireplaces (and possibly also the Phineas and Ferb Christmas Vacation special, which I love, earnestly). I listened to so much Cozy Christmas Jazz. I journaled about 2025 by a pine-scented candle. I had to walk outside every time I needed to use the bathroom, which was terrible overnight but delightful during the day, when it’s all too easy to sit slumped at a desk for hours at a time.
Was I as “productive” as I hoped? It depends on how you define productivity. I did not finish my PAWS AND REFLECT memoir proposal and manuscript revisions. I did collage the most epic six-panel Christmas card for my niece. I reached out to friends. I painted my nails with tiny Santa hats.
I let myself rest.
(I hope you were able to let yourself rest some this month, too.)
I’m taking more writing courses!
In 2025, I tried to put myself out there to become a better literary citizen—finally submitting to lit mags, volunteering as a reader, attending in-person workshops during our time in Portland, reaching out to authors I admire, shouting out more writers publicly—and I want to take that further in 2026.
Thanks to support from loved ones who also believe in gifting experiences more than physical stuff this time of year, I’ve signed up for two courses through Off Assignment: “Generating the Personal Essay” with Brian Benson (a fellow Wisconsinite and UW-Madison grad) and “Writing Essays for Magazines” with Jessica Ciencin Henriquez (and guest authors like Daniel Jones from Modern Love).
In case you missed it
Last month’s roundup below.
Thanks for being here
As I finish this post (recovering from a terrible head cold, dark chocolate mocha poised to my right) I’m struck by how much joy I still get from rambling to you all on the internet. My online engagement has changed drastically over the years—both that I give and that I receive—and I can’t say enough how much I appreciate you signing up for these emails and reading all the disparate thoughts I put together.
I go through every comment and message you send. I cried when so many of you shared that you preordered THE DOG LOVER’S BUCKET LIST even though it’s not the dream memoir I’ve been working on (and yapping about) for so long. I won’t pretend I know exactly what Paws and Reflect will look like in the future—I’ve never known, really, what any of my internet sharing will become!—but I absolutely know how much your connection and support means.
Oh vey! Reading about your heat (well, lack there of) and the layer of ice nearly put me into tears! Really beautiful how you handled it together though. Taking notes 🧡🧡