Snow + Dogs = Lots of Photos

I hope everyone enjoyed their holidays! I have been living on Cloud 9 the last week or so! Celebrating Christmas in our new house was simply perfect. I'll post on Christmas later, but first, snow! In a delightful turn of events, we received about 4-5" of snow here on Christmas Eve day. Not too much, not too little. While I planned on working part of the day, my brother and my sister-in-law arrived earlier than expected from their Maine-Missouri drive. I said, screw work, I'm going to spend some time with family on Christmas! So, we loaded up Neptune and Levi and headed over to my mom's for some playtime in the snow.

Watching Neptune in the snow was hilarious! He is like a giant puppy! He's still really gangly and his paws seem out-of-proportionally large compared to his body. He's also incredibly playful and just seems to take delight in even the small things. Here he is trying to catch snowballs in mid-air. When the snowball fell, you could just see those little wheels turning trying to figure out where the ball went. I apologize that so many of these are blurry-these two were moving fast!

Levi got in on the snowball action too.

There was also a lot of running around and playing.

You have no idea how much I wish this picture was in focus.

While Levi and Neptune went crazy, my brother and sister-in-law's dog, Zoe, mostly hung back and observed. She is a gentle old lady. They adopted her a few years ago when she was a spry 10-year-old dog. She still gets excited about food and will play a little bit, but she is too delicate for my unruly pair. Apparently someone once commented that she looks like a Jim Henson creation and I think that's just about the most apt description for her.

I had to get a glamor shot of each of my boys. A beauty shot, as Tyra would say.

And last but not least, the photo that makes my heart grow bigger each time I look at it. This was the dog portion of our Christmas card this year.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Christmas Decorations Photo Dump

Here are way more Christmas decoration photos than you'd ever want to see. I'm just excited to actually be able to decorate this year. Last year we didn't decorate at all because the condo was on the market. We decided to not buy a big tree this year because, frankly, we have enough on our plate with having just moved and adopting Neptune. But, our living room provides the perfect setting for pine roping and ornaments. Some of you have also said you want to see pictures of the house when we get settled, so I can show you a few of the rooms that don't actually look like a bomb exploded in them. Getting settled is going to take forever!

So, here is my favorite room in the house, the living room, all decorated for Christmas!

We only bought two new things for this room: the rug and the entertainment center. We really lucked out with the rug because it was on sale at Crate and Barrel and we had a 15% off coupon. We put the couch in here and after much debate, decided to also added the daybed that used to be in our office. It never got used in there and it is sooooo comfortable. I thought that if we actually have people over (what are the odds?), it would be nice to have extra seating. I also like to lay on it on the weekends after the birds go to bed. Then I usually fall asleep. It's that cozy. Anyway, here is the room with just the Christmas lights on.

View of the couch. I would love to get a new couch, but that will have to wait. I bought this one when I still lived in DC in 2001. The slipcover makes it look nicer, but I have my eye on a few at Crate and Barrel. I also wanted to point out that I did not do all the necessary tucking (couch) and grunting (me) to get the slipcover looking its best, so pardon me for that. We are also not sure where we're going to put all the photos and art on the shelves, so they are all temporarily in the living room. At some point, they will be scattered around the house.

Here is the new entertainment center and the wall-mounted TV. Again, we got it on sale and had a 10% off coupon at Best Buy. When you change your address with the postal service, you are eligible for all of these great coupons and we decided to take advantage of that. My sister bought me this tree since I told her I wouldn't be getting one this year.

Feel free to just scroll on down through all these boring ornament photos. I'm mostly trying to practice my camera skills. I have a long way to go, obviously.

I needlepointed this ornament, but you will see it pales in comparison to some of my other projects.

We actually have two of these Waterford ornaments. Our engagement party was just after Christmas in 2006, so two people kindly gave us these ornaments as gifts. They are so pretty.

Here is where we decided to hang our stockings! I needlepointed all of these. I've been working on a fourth one for like three years, but I haven't worked on it in probably a year. I really need to finish that for next year. I have a fourth regular stocking to hang so that we all have one. And no, the birds don't have stockings. Sorry, guys.

This is the first one I did. The date on it says 1992, and I think that's the year I finished it. So, I must have started it when I was around 12 or 13. Crazy.

This one is dated 1993, but I think that's the year I started it. I was 15.

Here is the third one. I'm pretty sure I started it in 1998, not finished it. I have always loved Alice in Wonderland, so I couldn't resist doing this project even though it's not Christmas-related, per se.

Here is the entryway. I think that if we do get a tree next year, it would look pretty where that tall bookcase is standing. On the table I put out some photos and then I also bought two large poinsettias for display.

I love this little area. I bought this table at a nursery and gift shop called Ahner's in Des Peres. I saw that mirror at an antique store in the Central West End and Jason bought it for me one year. I also framed the picture of my dad and me from our wedding that Jason gave me in Belize. Then there's my little girl robot I bought at the St. Louis Art Fair a few years ago.

Here is the dining "room" set up. I haven't unpacked those boxes because the movers broke the glass in the cabinet that is going to go in that corner on the right. All of that stuff goes in that cabinet. I'm a little annoyed I haven't gotten it back from them yet, but that's for another day. This room looks better than it did when the seller had his stuff in here. I still want to change it up, but I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet. Maybe wallpaper or a fancy decal. At some point, I would also like to get a buffet for our china, which is still in a big storage container.

Just another little table to display my knick-knacks! My brother and sister-in-law gave us the wine holder guy for Christmas one year in a Yankee swap.

I decided to bust out my wine bottle hats and scarves from Uncommon Goods to make them seem more festive.

Our cabinet that holds all of the glassware. Holy cow, do we have a lot of wine glasses.

And just a few last touches.

So, Christmas decorating was a little last minute this year, but I'm happy to have everything up. I hope to collect more meaningful ornaments over the years. Jason and I are going to start a new tradition of making stockings for each other each year. We aren't going to do big gifts (hello, new house!), but just a few small things to make Christmas morning special. And of course we will be stuffing stockings for Levi and Neptune!

Neptune's First Days

I really do want to get back to telling the nightmare story of our house buying experience, but I wanted to document Neptune's first few weeks with us before I forget anything. I briefly discussed his story before, but I'll tell it again since he is officially our boy now. Neptune was rescued by Stray Rescue of St. Louis in a very bad area of East St. Louis. If you are new to my blog, Jason and I are active volunteers with the group (see all the posts about them in my tags) and we adopted Levi from them in June 2008. They take the sickest, neediest, most pregnant dogs off the street and vow to find them a home. They are no-kill, even since taking over the duties of the city's animal control in July. I believe they have only euthanized three dogs in all that time, either for extreme aggression or severe illness.

Anyway, Neptune was one sad man when they found him. Like many dogs they rescue, he was emaciated and covered in scars. He also had a large abscess on his neck, a dull coat, and was just hollow inside, emotionally. Here are a few pictures of him from his rescue. You can just see the light is gone from his eyes.

Following his rescue, Neptune was taken to Stray Rescue's largest shelter and treated for his health problems. I remember seeing him in his apartment and thinking how sad he looked and feeling very sorry for him. My friend Andrea also felt sorry for him. She had recently decided to take a break from fostering after losing a Panda Program dog (Stray Rescue's hospice foster program) way before his time. Here is his story, but you might want tissues handy. But she just couldn't resist Neptune's charms. When she brought him home to meet her pack, he pancaked. Slowly, he came out of his shell and began to love life in a home where he realized people weren't ever going to hurt him again. As he got good nutrition, his old coat fell out and was replaced with shiny fur. Six cups of puppy food/day put on much needed weight.

In the meantime, Neptune was carving out a place in Andrea's heart. She has fostered so many dogs, but she knew he was special and she didn't want him to go to just anyone. Due to his extremely submissive nature, she thought he might be a great candidate dog for us. A simple, firm "no" would likely be enough of a message to him to leave the birds alone. She suggested we meet up in the park, which we did, twice. Levi and Neptune hit it off. I was sad to see that picking up a stick and putting it over my head to throw caused him to cower. I'm not convinced Levi was abused (I think he was more neglected), but I am pretty confident Neptune was. Who could do anything to such a sweet dog? Since we were under contract for a house, we decided to apply to adopt Neptune. Andrea would hold onto him until we were settled in the new house. Isn't she the best???

And the rest is history, so to speak! We moved on a Tuesday and Andrea dropped him off on Saturday night. She is happy that she will get to see him whenever she wants. His official Gotcha Day will be Sunday, December 5th because that is Andrea's birthday and we all owe so much to her. People have asked if we are keeping his name and we are. I was one giant mythology dork growing up and into high school, so I will always think of him as the ruler of the seas rather than a planet sandwiched between Uranus and a disgraced former planet. Andrea nicknamed him Tuna, so we call him that as well.

So now, here are some pictures of Neptune and Levi from the last few weeks.

My handsome boys sunning themselves.

Trying to fit on Levi's bed together.

The handsomest butts in all the land.

Last weekend, we worked on the house for two days straight. The dogs "helped" by following us everywhere and getting in our business. They were just curious:) Here is Neptune congratulating Jason on a job well done on building the new media center.

On Sunday morning, we experienced our first snow both at the new house and with Neptune. We were armed with camera and the Flip, but the dogs weren't too interested in staying out in that freezing weather.

I bought Neptune his very own bed so that he doesn't have to share with Levi if he doesn't want to. I bought one big enough for the two of them in case they want to snuggle. Hint, hint, boys.

I also bought them this froggie, which Neptune decapitated in approximately 73 seconds.

How cute is he in this picture? I can't stand it!

I'm so lucky to have this guy in my life! I'm looking forward to the holidays and taking a few days off to get to know him better.