My new favorite place!

To celebrate the rebirth of my blog, I give you "Kickapoo Joy Juice" from my new favorite store, The Soda Gallery, in my new favorite area, The Bishop Arts District.

Courtney and Phil's pastor took them there for lunch a couple of weeks ago, and they liked it so much that they called me to have dinner there with them that night. We ate at a little Italian restaurant called Vitto. While we were there, a group of carolers came in! It was so Christmasy and cute! All the shops were taking part in a Christmas Jingle Bell celebration, so they all had different types of drinks and snacks out for munching and browsing!

I fell in love with the Soda Gallery the second I stepped in the door. It's such a cool store! They have Dublin Dr. Pepper, all different types of Coke, a plethora of Root Beer, and Sioux City Sasparilla, among countless others! Everything is in glass bottles, too. Call me old fashioned, but I love that.

Courtney and Phil knew that I'd love this area as soon as they saw it, and when they saw how excited I was about the Soda Gallery, they got a great idea for my birthday present. My friend Peter came into Dallas for the weekend, and we met up with another friend, Dan, and Courtney and Phil in...you guessed it...the Bishop Arts District! After lunch was over, they took me across the street to pick out a six pack of the sodas of my choice! It took quite some time, but I ended up with a great selection of crazy flavors.

Kickapoo Joy Juice has been my first to try so far. I have no idea why, but it's called "The Original Dogpatch Recipe." It's super sweet and citrusy- kind of like a hint of Mountain Dew in a bottle of Sprite. Some may say too sweet, but I thought it was deeeeelicious!

More to come on flavors as I taste-test them!

The waking up of a pug

Who likes to sleep on large tupperware...

Waking up with a boy in my bed...

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, and I realized how much you all need an update on the adventures of Sheldon the wonder-pug! As soon as I got home on Saturday night from the land of cheese and the Packers, Courtney and I drove down to Kaufman to pick up little Sheldon.

Mike and his wife Lisa live on a ranch in Athens, TX, and they have two pugs -- Boteefah and Crotch Focker. This was their first and last litter of pug puppies because Boteefah gave birth to a huge litter of 7, and she's a pretty tiny pug, so it was hard on her. Anyway, I've certainly been blessed by their puppies, so I'm grateful for little Boteefah!
Ruby and Dora didn't really know what to do with him at first, and he was pretty timid, but they're starting to rough house a little now!

We hung out all day on Sunday, and we'd play hard, and then he's crash, and I would read New Dawn (yes, Twilight is a great series!). Unfortunately I had to go back to work on Monday, but Courtney has the month of December off while she's waiting to start her new job, so she's being a great pug aunt and taking care of Sheldon during the day. He's been really good and not having many accidents at all. We keep a little log of all Sheldon's activities (and I mean all), so we can all be in the know, and Courtney kept me updated on his day through her blog.

He's had a couple fleas, so on Monday night, Sheldon got the spa treatment. For puppies who can't have flea powder yet, dawn dishwashing soap is supposed to help get rid of fleas. Afterward, I clipped his nails and cleaned his ears.

"Let me out, mom!! I'm wet!"

"This is better...maybe I'll go to sleep..."

Sheldon has also gotten to have a lot of company! On Sunday night, Courtney's sister-in-law, Kelsey and her husband Lance brought Ann and Debbie over to meet him. Ann and Debbie are best friends and really loved meeting Sheldon.

He also got to play with Megan, the daughter of one of Courtney's friends from church. She LOVES pugs and American Girls. Luckily, Courtney did too as a kid, so she has some Megan got to play with.

You may be thinking, he's such a laid-back puppy! Wow, so good! But.....watch out he goes CRAZY after work and has a strange obsession with my forearmpits, which he likes to lick and bite. We're working on dominance issues. I'm the alpha, not little Sheldon. Yes, he truly is one of God's little weirdos!

And the title? Well, last night, I made a little blockade so Sheldon wouldn't have to be in his crate because he hates it and cries to get out and be on my bed, but I'm trying to make sure his flea problem doesn't get worse, so I don't want him to sleep with me. So, I put him down beside me, and he cried for a while but I pet him, and he finally fell asleep (thanks Trey). But I woke up at 4:30 this morning because he was sleeping on my neck (his favorite spot), and for the life of me, I cannot remember picking him up during the night! Maybe he is wonder pug...

In love and obsessed...

I think I've visited my blog more than anyone else this weekend. Quite possibly more than everyone combined. How can you possibly love something this much when you just meet them?! I just can't wait for Sheldon to come home! I spent Saturday morning at Target and Petco getting all the essentials for puppy-upbringing, including a cute (yet still masculine) leash, the tiniest little harness, food bowls, food, treats, toys, etc! Needless to say, Sheldon is going to be well loved!

Ruby and Dora are enjoying lots of quality Aunt Bea time since Courtney and Phil left for Darcey's wedding yesterday morning, and we went for a long walk tonight, but at the end, I said, "Who wants TURKEY TURKEY TURKEY?" and they sure sprinted home for that!!

I'm realizing that maybe living by myself is slightly over-rated. I totally freaked out last night because when I got home, the carbon monoxide detector was beeping, and even though it was just the battery warning, it made me really worried, so I grabbed Ruby and Dora, turned off the heat upstairs, closed my door and opened my window wide! It was kind of chilly, but I made sure to cover the pugs up with a big quilt, and every once in a while they'd get under the covers with me. Man, I just get scared so easily and always imagine the worst. Apartment living is going to be a bigger step for me than I thought!

Sleepy time now...I have to go to work tomorrow.

I'm a Mommy!!

Introducing...

Sheldon! (aka Don Juan Triumphant)

The adoption went through tonight, and now I'm the proud mommy of a brand new baby pug! Since I'll be going out of town for Thanksgiving, I got to meet him tonight, but he went back to his house for the rest of the week. I get to bring him home when I fly in on Saturday evening.

He is the most precious pug ever!! It was really cold outside, so he was shivering, and I put him inside my vest, and he was just so snuggly and adorable. Mike said he was a real goofball and loved to make everybody laugh. Right now, his parents have been calling him CJ for Crotch Junior! Haha, his dad's name is Crotch Penny Berry Focker, named Crotch just because he's kind of a "crotch". They were really funny, and they obviously love their pugs! Who couldn't?!

Here are some more pictures to enjoy!! Oh, my vest still smells like baby pug, and I never want to wash it!!!!

St. Louis!!

So, I think a few updates are in line. A few weeks ago, Trey found out that he was going to have to work on the weekend that he originally planned to come visit me, and I really wanted to see him, so I booked a flight to St. Louis!

On Friday night, we met Rick and Debbie at Ted Drewes for the best concretes in the world. They had just gotten back from a Blues Hockey game, where they were supposed to have gotten a free blizzard for 3 goals, but it turns out they weren't supposed to run that promotion. Oops! Ted Drewes is better, anyway!

On Saturday, after some yummy pancakes from the Doerrs' bed and breakfast, Rick, Debbie, Trey and I headed out to play golf. Even though we were pretty slow, the group in front of us was painfully slow, so we ended up playing for close to 7 hours! But we had a really good time, and Rick found a wealth of golf balls!

Trey takes a good picture while driving a golf cart, huh?

Here's a better one. Notice the hat...oh such a stylish golfer!

A mother-son photo op on the course! It was a really fun day.

Isn't this little guy cute? Trey found him in the leaves while we were waiting for a group to pass us. I think he was a little scared at first, but he like us after a little bit.

Sunday we went up to Prin to visit Karen and Peter, so we had lunch at Jimmy Johns, where I was dared to eat a whole wad of alfalfa sprouts (not recommended, and aren't I such a lady?) if Peter would ask if they delivered to Prin. Then we went back to Karen's place (which is huge and really cool). We played with the cats for a while, which was pretty entertaining. They have these wands with toys on the end that are just as amusing for us humans as they are for the cats. Trey looks like a giant in this picture! I think Peter was trying to fish for a cat.

Here's Peter and I having fun on the tramp out back.

And this is me hula hooping one legged while spinning in circles. Beat that, Wii Fit!

It was a really great weekend, and before I left, Trey and I went to Stir Crazy, which I think is one of my favorite restaurants in St. Louis! Sorry it's been such a long time since I've updated! More to come soon, but for now I've got to study!

Attacked!

This afternoon, walking out of my building after work, I was attacked! Someone had a camera, so they might have gotten evidence of it, but I'm not sure. It all happened so fast, and it was really noisy. It may sound like science fiction, but I assure you, it's not. I could describer my attacker as a white dragon, and luckily he didn't stick around long enough to show me his firebreathing abilities. Ok, so the real story is that there is an Asian Art Gallery connected to the Trammel Crow Center, and today they had some show going on, and there were drummers and two dragons dancing and "greeting" people as they walked out of the building. I think most people were scared and went out the other side, but I thought it looked kind of cool, so I walked out, not really realizing how close they planned on getting! He kind of danced the dragon head by me for a while and then kept dancing for the onlookers. It was pretty random and definitely made me laugh!