It feels too soon to recap a month we aren’t halfway through, but this last week has been a doozy. If I don’t get some thoughts down soon, I think I might lose my mind! The first week of school absolutely walloped us. We planned our summer vacations poorly (all in August) which meant we returned from back to back trips to Maine and then Disney World, after a busy July, only to be absolutely inundated with fall hosting requests that took up most of Labor Day weekend. Our trips were exhausting, but wonderful. I will recap those once I come up for air, but first, I have a few more meet and greets to get through at the beginning of next week and then I think I will probably turn my Rover profile OFF because I can’t field any more new clients. Woof. Literally!
I know this is a wonderful problem to have, but the customer service side of this business is so time consuming and as we get our kids back into a school routine, I finding I’m drowning in all this. New clients means a lot of time chatting and messaging to get information about pets, snapping quality photos to share with newbies to make sure they can relax while their pets are in our care, and the actual pet care itself is always very involved when we are working with someone new. I absolutely love working with rescues, but one of the pups we hosted over Labor Day weekend was so skittish around strangers (us!) that I spent an incredible amount of time just working with her to get her to enter our home. We think she was abused in some fashion with doors slamming on her because she wouldn’t enter our home without extreme coaxing. She turned out to be one of our absolute favorite boards to date though, Lexi, a border collie/Australian shepherd mix. When her family scooped her after the weekend, Brian turned to me and said: you should have filmed that reunion to show others why they should adopt rescues because she was SO EXCITED to see her family again I could have cried, she was trembling and jumping and barking.
The kids are loving the routine of back to school though and lucked out with truly wonderful teachers that really suit each of them well which I’m incredibly grateful for. The school start time was moved earlier so we’re adjusting to that still and figuring out how to fill the afternoons more creatively. We’re doing gymnastics and swim for our extracurriculars. After delaying so many activities for the girls until we could get the twins their Coronavirus vaccines, it feels so strange to finally be shuttling the kids to activities. Definitely a new level of chauffeuring on my part; I feel like I live in the car these days! I have to get Emilia enrolled in CCD still so she can make her First Communion this May and really need to get the girls started in Girl Scouts. It’s busy busy here. Just another season of life we’re in, so trying to appreciate it. On that note, I should take a moment to also mention how spectacular the foliage is right now. Loving all the maple trees right now. New England really does shine in the autumn.
Cheers, friends. Hope your September is lovely.
Married with Style 