Meet Pico.
Only a few months after Pocket died, the girls started lobbying for another dog. At one point, Chris and I were even given a Christmas wishlist slideshow presentation featuring multiple dogs available for adoption. But, with our crazy lives, I kept saying no. Between building a new house, moving, and all the travel we had planned over the last two years, introducing a new creature to care for did not make sense.
Last December, when we wrote our company budget for 2026, we knew we wanted to rebuild our website and that we would need to hire a designer. We ended up shifting the marketing travel budget to subcontractors to pay for a designer. Which means that, for the first time since COVID, I will not be traveling to any conferences this year.
The nonprofit that I am on the board of, WP Accessibility Day, tried, as an experiment, to run a crowdfunding campaign for a sponsor booth at WordCamp Europe. We were hoping to run an accessibility help desk, raise accessibility awareness, and use funds to cover board member travel costs to WordCamp Europe. Unfortunately, while we received some traction, we didn’t get the response we needed to make it happen, so no WordCamp for me.
I’m bummed not to be going to any WordCamps this year, and definitely sad not to be going to WordCamp Europe in Poland. WordCamp Europe is my favorite WordCamp and a great way to continue expanding our reach in Europe. But when you’re bootstrapping, there’s not infinite money for all the things, and we’re definitely at a point where investing in a new website is the best use of marketing budget.
So I was sad not to be going to Poland in June, but a year with no travel also presented an opportunity…
Make the kids’ day and get a puppy!
I surfed around Petfinder, and one Monday, we surprised the girls after school with a trip to visit a litter of puppies at a rescue in Cedar Park.
The rescue hadn’t seen the mom, just the puppies, so we’re not completely sure what he is, but he’s the cutest little terrier mix with scruffy fur. He’s 16 weeks old now and 15 lbs, so he’ll be bigger than Pocket, but not by much.
Following our tradition of choosing “P” names for pets, the girls named him Pico… as in Pico de Gallo. 😆
Diesel seems pretty happy to have a dog sibling again, too. They’ve been playing together and sharing a bed, plus puppy training means lots of treats all day long for both of them, which he’s definitely not complaining about.
As far as the upsides of not going to Europe this year, a new puppy is a pretty good consolation prize.
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