Put your Best Foot Foward

        So a time in which I, Angela Dunlay, have been at my best has been when my sister left home for college last year.  My mother, bless her soul, is the kindest women you will ever meet.  She also I feel has a serious separation anxiety with her daughters.  Last year when my sister went off to UNI she had a little bit of difficulties with seperating with my sister.  So I came up with a cleaaver invention, to get a dog to replace my sister.  It worked quite nicely and I had always wanted a dog and my sister hated dogs so we could never get one.  Now that she was off to college it was the perfect opportunity.  Our dogs name is Emma and she was exactly what my mother needed to get her through this rough transition.

      My mother and I trained Emma like we tried to train my sister for years, and too our amazement she was actually trained in 6 short months. the transition to college is always difficult for parents I believe but it is always good for us to leave home and experience the world without your parents supervision all of the time.  This is a time that I have felt I have been at my best because I helped my mother when she was going through a difficult time.

     Being at your best I believe dose not always mean that you have to be winning at something it can sometimes just mean that you are helping someone out to the best of your abilities.  I feel that helping a loved one out in the end is much more rewarding and teaches you life long lessons.  Lessons that I learned from hleping my mother deal with my sister move away were learning that everything must change at some point.  No matter how much I loved my sister and wanted her to stay at home both me and my mother knew she belonged in college which also helped us with letting her go.

     This year I left home, and I suggested another dog but my mother said one was enough so I'm thinking of getting her a fish for Christmas :)