Storyworth: February's Questions

 Yep, I'm behind. As per usual. Time to catch up!

What foods do you dislike? Have these changed over time?

For years, whenever I ate fresh salsa or random Hispanic foods, there was always this unpleasant flavor that I couldn't identify. It tasted to me like metal and the taste would hit at random and was so off-putting that I couldn't finish whatever it was that had caused my instant negative reaction. Those who know me best know that I am most definitely not a picky eater...I will try anything once, and if I don't like it, years later I will try it again just to see if my tastes have changed. Years ago, a friend of mine had a party at her house, and I was eating chips and salsa and tasted the unpleasant flavor. I isolated it to this teeny, tiny little green leaf. I wandered up to my friend who had made it, chip in hand, and demanded to know what that little green leaf was. "It's cilantro!" she happily exclaimed. Mouth before brain, I of course responded with, "This is what I hate!! It's taken me years to figure it out!!" She just laughed and wondered aloud who in the world hates cilantro. Turns out there's a lot of us cilantro haters, and thanks to some diligent scientists, it's been determined that our hatred of cilantro comes not from pickiness, but from a random genetic mutation. I always had a sneaking suspicion that I was some sort of mutant, but I had hoped that my mutant-ness would manifested itself in some sort of super power, rather than just an aversion to an otherwise innocuous plant. I have tried over the years to eat cilantro to lessen my aversion to it, and I recognize when I omit cilantro from dishes that it should be in, there is definitely a flavor profile missing. But try as I might, I don't think I'm ever going to like it. Tolerate it, yes, but like it, probably not. It's not my fault, it's in my DNA. 

Which sports did you play in high school?

In high school I played volleyball in the fall. I had been playing volleyball since the 7th grade, and around my sophomore year of high school I had established myself as quite the server. I never mastered the jump serve, but I could pound the ball over the net, barely a wobble as it cleared the net with barely an inch to spare. Unfortunately, once the coach discovered this, I spent the vast majority of our practices serving to the varsity team, and therefore didn't have much opportunity to develop many other useful skills. It got to the point that I had so little exposure to the actual game that I was rotated in to serve, then out again immediately once the serve switched to the other side. My Junior year I didn't make the varsity squad and spent the fall on the JV team, which was okay, but there weren't enough of us to make a team so we were always begging some of the varsity squad or the B-squad girls to play with us. Some did out of pity, but most the time we just played short and didn't do all that well. I still dressed for all the varsity games, and every now and again I'd get put in to serve, but it just wasn't the same. Senior year I tried out for the varsity squad again, knowing I probably wouldn't make the team, and of course I didn't. Not willing to spend another year on the JV team, I called it quits. It was then that a fellow volleyball teammate of mine approached me about trying out for the dance-line team for the the winter season. Being the farthest thing from a bouncy, bubbly cheerleader and having little to no flexibility to speak of, I don't know what possessed me to try out, but I did. I made the team. And you know what, it was a lot of fun. I wish that I had had the confidence to try out for the dance-line team years prior, because I really enjoyed it. I even helped choreograph a couple routines, which was a lot of fun. Of course I fell flat on my butt during the opening bars of one of the songs that I helped choreograph, but you'll have that. The song, ironically, was Wipe Out...hahaha! I remember the first time I was able to get into the splits...I was so proud of my inflexible self! I could only do it with my right leg forward and my butt cheeks barely grazing the floor, but I had made it! Such fun memories, and I'm so glad that I stepped outside of my comfort zone to try something that I otherwise would never in a million years been inclined to do. 

What is the farthest you have ever traveled?

Me with Frank, Lisa, Nicole, Siobhan, and Kerrie

I've been to Australia and Thailand, and I would have to say that Thailand was the farthest. I think it was 18+ hours of flying time total, not counting the layovers. By the time Simon and I had arrived in Thailand, we were so backwards on our circadian rhythms that it took us almost a full three days to finally switch over to the local time. We had the same issue on our return to the US, awake in the middle of the night, completely exhausted in the middle of the day. We tried so hard to flip back as quickly as possible, but it was a struggle. Thailand was amazing. We volunteered for a week an elephant sanctuary in Chiang Mai, and it was one of the neatest experiences of my life. There was a lot of poop shoveling, but we were shoveling with an amazing group of people, some of whom became life-long friends. Nothing solidifies a friendship like 10 pound elephant turds. The elephants were beautiful, some of them were sweet, some of them were not. We learned about the process that it takes to train an elephant to be safe around humans, and we learned very quickly that "train" is not the appropriate word; "abuse" is far more accurate and appropriate. Wild elephants are not like horses or dogs, they are not curious about humans nor do they want to interact with humans. They would much rather squish us than spend a single minute in our presence. Elephants are stolen from their herds as babies and horrifically abused for weeks to break their spirit. Many of them suffer from intense emotional, physical, and mental trauma...sometimes all three. Every single elephant at the park, outside of the ones who had been born there, had been traumatized. Many of them were scarred or disfigured, the vast majority arrived at the park emaciated and in poor health. Some of them were safe for us to be around, but many of them were not. Luckily when we were out working in the fields around the elephants, the guides at the park knew which ones to steer clear of. There was one moment when one of the guides scurried over to us, pointed to an elevated platform, and said, "We have to go up there, right now!" Several yards behind him was a massive female elephant with her ears sticking straight out, bee-lining towards us, nothing but business. So we ran to the platform and hung out up there until she had decided that she had sufficiently scared us off and returned to her herd. It was amazing to see the way the family units functioned. While there were no free-roaming males in the park (they are far too dangerous to be around, even for those who have extensive experience around elephants), there were several bands of females of various ages, and usually a couple babies. The adult females are called "nannies," and their job is just like it sounds...overseeing the care and safety of the babies. My favorite moments at the sanctuary were in the mornings...Simon and I always got up so early, and we would wander out to the elevated dining area, have a cup of tea, and watch the park wake up. We'd see the elephant families wander by as they made their way to the river to bathe, or out to the designated eating areas for breakfast. Then the water buffalo would wander by, the birds started to sing, the cats and dogs would wander by and find their way onto our laps for an early morning siesta. It was so peaceful, and so very special to have those quiet moments to ourselves. 

Mud bath...best day ever!!

There are a lot of elephant "sanctuaries" in the Chiang Mai area, but I chose Elephant Nature Park because they don't allow riding of the elephants, and are actually making moves to have their sanctuary be entirely hands-free, meaning no physical contact with any of the guests and volunteers. Being able to be so close to the elephants was so special, but I understand that our presence is actually quite stressful for most of the them. And truly, just getting to be near them, observing them from an elevated platform, watching them go about their lives, was still so very rewarding. If you are ever interested in volunteering at or visiting a sanctuary in Thailand, without a doubt I believe this place would be your best choice. 

If you could have as much money as you wanted, what would you do with it?

Well this just ties into the previous question. Without a doubt, I would travel. I would spend months in Europe riding the rails, eating all the things, soaking up all the World War II history that I could, as I've always had a special interest in it, probably because both of my grandpas served in that war. I would go to Ireland, Iceland, and England. I want to go back to Thailand, and to explore more of Asia. I would go on extensive road trips in the US, and stop at all the funny little points of interest along the way. I would finally ride in a hot air balloon, maybe multiple times over multiple cities in multiple countries. Maybe I'd even ride in a blimp, as there is one still operating in Europe for tourists. I can't remember how outrageous it is for a 45-minute ride, but if I had as much money as I wanted, maybe I'd just rent it for the entire day, or maybe even multiple days! I'd take some bike trips across Europe, and since I'd have all the money I wanted, I'd bring along a bunch of friends. I would go on river cruises in Europe, and maybe I'd even do one of the running cruises where at each port you get out and run a 5-10k. Maybe I'd go to culinary school, just to learn how to cook fancy. Or maybe instead of school, I'd just book one of those cooking cruises where you take cooking classes on the ship, then get out at port and let the real chefs make their local fare. Lots of eating, lots of traveling. That's what I'd do. Of course, one can't ignore the practical things like paying off the house, donating to charity, starting an animal sanctuary, funding a massive countries-wide spay/neuter initiative for dogs and cats, etc...traveling just makes for a better fantasy. :)

And that's it for February's questions. I've had a lot of nervous energy lately as Simon and I search for jobs, waiting in limbo to find out where we're going to go. Being someone who likes to pack up everything far in advance and plan for all the things that I might need (whilst also bringing all the things that I won't), I've been spinning my wheels these past few weeks because where we end up determines what we bring. Are we going somewhere warm? Cold? Far? Near? Staying with friends? Renting our own place? So many uncertainties, and I know everything will work itself out, but in the meantime I need to find productive ways to manage my energy, and this was a good way to do it. So yeah, more to come. :)

StoryWorth: The Beginning

Around Christmas this past year, I stumbled across this website called StoryWorth. The premise of the site is that you sign up for it, and every week for an entire year, the website will send a question to the person of your choice for them to answer. At the end of the year (or 52 weeks time if you don't start at the beginning of a calendar year), the folks at StoryWorth will compile all the questions and their answers into a book for you to have. I thought this would be a wonderful gift for my mom. My mom is a great writer, and I'm sure there are so many stories from her past that I haven't yet heard. I thought this would be a great way to get to know her just a little bit better. I also thought it might be fun to play along and answer some of the questions about myself on my blog. So I'll get to it...unfortunately I had planned to keep up with this like she did, but I'm already 5 months behind so I'll be playing some catch-up. I'll start with January's questions and go from there. :)

How did you get your first job?

Well, my very first job was probably babysitting some of the neighborhood kids. I grew up on a street in a small town in rural Minnesota, and there were lots of kids both older and younger than me. Babysitting was a little bit like the passing of a torch for all the neighborhood girls. When the older girls got too old to babysit, or I became too old to be babysat, it was then my turn to start watching the next crop of young kids. This was back before babysitters had any sort of certifications or took any classes...you basically just had to be older than the kids you were watching. When I think back to my 11 year-old self taking care of my neighbors' infants, I just can't believe I was trusted to do something like that. But I think the comfort came in the parents of the infants knowing that my own parents were just a few houses down, and only a phone call away. I don't remember calling my parents all that often when I was babysitting, but I always knew that they were there if I needed them, and that made it a lot easier. I absolutely loved watching babies. They were so warm and snuggly and so wonderful to hold. I loved listening to them breathe and watching the way their little lips would move as they dreamed about who knows what. I didn't know it at the time, but I think I was driven home on several occasions by a drunk parent or two, which is funny to think about now, because I had no idea back then. But it was a small town and they didn't have far to go. It could have been worse. Alas, after a while, I too became too old to babysit; sports and friends and better paying jobs in Rochester pulled me from the warm homes and the warm babies of my neighbors. 

What was your first big trip?

I consider myself extremely lucky that I grew up with a family who loved to take road trips. When I was younger, we would always drive to northern Minnesota for one week every summer to go fishing. It's funny to think that back then, I thought it took us all day to get up there. In reality, it's probably only about a 5-6 hour drive, but when you factor in young children with short attention spans, as a parent you have to get creative to keep them quiet and contained for that long. I remember car games, walkmans, and lots of stops at roadside attractions...the Cannonball restaurant in Cannon Falls; a mere hour's drive from our home but we almost always stopped there for breakfast. The big walleye statue at Lake Mille Lacs, north of the Twin Cities. I don't remember where we stopped for lunch, but I remember feeling like the trip would never end. And then all the sudden the pine trees appeared, the air felt cooler, and we knew we were in northern Minnesota. The mosquitos and wood ticks were there to welcome us with open arms! Hahaha! So that was our yearly summer trip. We stopped going after my Grandpa Ellringer passed away in 1991. It was just too sad to be there without him. 

My first big road trip was to South Dakota when I was 11. After that it was to Oklahoma when I was 14. After that it was Texas when I was 15. My first flight on an airplane was to Jamaica when I was 22. Ever since then I've been traveling all over the country and the world, adding more and more places to the list of places to go all the time. 

Are you still friends with any of your friends from high school? How have they changed since then?

You know, high school is a bit of a sore subject for me, because I was bullied for a large part of it. I don't really feel like getting into that right now, right here, but I will say that if not for the support of the few friends that I did have, I don't know where I would be right now. My friend Dana was my best friend and I still consider her among my best friends to this day. We've known each other since kindergarten...she remembers peering under the shared door between our kindergarten classrooms, and seeing my little face looking back at her. I don't remember this, but I'm so glad that she does, because it's such a sweet memory and even though it isn't mine, I still hold it very close to my heart. Dana and I didn't become good friends until about 7th grade, and we were inseparable from there on out. We were silly, we were goofy, we spoke almost exclusively in annoying British accents, and we let our imaginations run wild playing with model horses, running around in the yard, riding our bikes all over town, and just getting into general mischief. But sometimes we were quiet. Sometimes laid next to each other on my bed and read books for hours, not a sound to be heard except the turning of pages. She would come with me to my grandma's house after school and we would play cards with my grandma. Most of my best memories from high school have Dana in them. Dana and I went to college together in Winona, Minnesota for four years. We lived together our freshman year, and everyone told us that was a mistake, that it would ruin our friendship. There were some hard times, of course, as any two people sharing a bedroom and a living space for the first time would have, but we beat the odds and finished our freshman year together, still best friends. We had our own rooms in the dorm sophomore year, and then lived together in a house with some other friends junior and senior year of college. Our friendship hasn't always been easy, mostly because of me, I think. I used to be a very insecure, negative, and jealous person, and too frequently I think Dana was my punching bag for that. She had every reason in the world to drop me like a hot potato, but she never did. She stuck with me through my worst times, and I will forever be grateful to her for that. A few years ago, I went to visit her in Minneapolis, and I apologized for all the times that I was mean to her. It felt so good to get that off to my chest, and to give her the opportunity to acknowledge that yes, I wasn't always a very good friend. She didn't let me off the hook, but she forgave me. So there we were, crying together in her little apartment in Uptown Minneapolis, and I couldn't have loved her any more than I did in that moment. She has always been my rock, and I think that she always will be. Geography, work, life, and circumstance have created their distance between us over the years, but every time we talk or see each other, we fall right back into our old rhythm again...the British accents might be gone, but all the love and laughter is still very much there.

I'm also still very close with my friend Elizabeth, who lived just down the street from me. Our paths post-high school took us far away from each other, both geographically and emotionally, I guess you could say. There are a few years in there where we weren't in each other's lives at all. While I sometimes mourn the years that could have been, I'm so incredibly grateful that we found our way back into each other's lives, and I consider her one of my best friends as well. She and her family live in Montana, and we've found a way to add on a visit with them when we're driving home to visit people in Minnesota. No matter how much or how little time we have to physically be in each other's presence, it is always the very best of times, even if all we're doing is drinking coffee and going for drives. The conversation when we're together truly doesn't stop, and I find myself wondering how in the world we could possibly have so much to talk about. But I love it...I love our conversations so much. Elizabeth and I talk very frequently on Marco Polo, and I adore her husband and children. I truly love them like family, because to me, they are family. 

I'm still friends with a few others from high school, but not many. Several of us are friends on Facebook, of course, but the friendship doesn't extend much past there. I went to my 10-year high school reunion, and it was actually a really good time. I had crazy anxiety leading up to it, wondering how I would be received, if the people who treated me poorly would be there, and if they would continue to treat me poorly. I was pleased to see that we had all grown up quite a lot, and I had such a good time getting reacquainted with all these people with whom I had spent so many of my early years. 

 What was your mom like when you were a child?

When I think of my mom through my childhood eyes, I picture her dancing. My mom was always a be-bopper. She had a large record collection and she was always playing music. When I was home in April of this year, I found a bunch of her records stacked in one of the spare bedrooms. I didn't have time to go through them and relive some of those memories of her playing music and dancing around the room, but next time I'm home, I'm going to. I love those records and I love thinking about her playing them, because they brought her so much joy. My mom has always been a very warm, touchy person. When you see photos of her with her siblings, her parents, us kids, my dad, she's always holding hands with someone or touching someone. She's a very tactile person. I remember her hugs, and I remember her wrapping me in her arms when I would come home from school, upset about an interaction that I'd had with one of my classmates. She always told me, "Someday this will be over, and you'll leave all these mean people behind, and you'll realize that they don't matter; that they never did." I don't know how many times she told me that, but I needed to hear it every time that she did. Of all the things I remember her saying to me when I was a kid, that stands out the most. The best part is, she was right...because as a kid, she had gone through it too. But mom wasn't always soft hugs and inspirational quotes...she had high expectations for my brothers and I, and punishment was swift when those expectations were not meant. We were never physically abused, but it was definitely made known that our behavior had disappointed my dad and her, and that was almost worse than any spanking would have been. I remember getting grounded, having my car keys taken away, getting a stricter curfew. One of my favorite funny moments was when I had gotten grounded and the keys taken away for something, and my friend Kevin came over to sweet talk my mom into letting me go out with him and some of my friends that evening. He assured her that he would be fully responsible for making sure that I was home by curfew. I couldn't help but notice the little smirk on her face as she listened to his proposal. In the end she let me go out, because she truly trusted me, and she trusted my friends, and I tried really hard to maintain that trust as best I could. Another thing I remember about my mom is that she loved to read. She has shelves and shelves and shelves of books in her house, most of them with little post-it markers sticking out of the pages, denoting quotes that she liked. Sometimes I'll pull out a book and flip to a page that's been marked; I'll read through those pages to try to figure out which quote it was that she liked, and I'm usually right. It's a neat little piece of her that I enjoy exploring.

What were your favorite toys as a child?

Hands down, my most favorite toys were my Breyer model horses. I still remember the first one I ever got...it was for Christmas one year when I was still pretty young. I remember how devastated I was when I broke one of the back legs from playing too rough with it. Dad tried his best to glue the leg back on, and while he succeeded in glueing the leg back on, still continued to snap it off playing with it. I remember crying the day that horse got thrown in the trash. My parents still continued to buy me those horses as gifts, and as I got older and more careful, less and less legs needed to be repaired. When I was in 7th or 8th grade, my grandma and I made tiny little horse blankets for all of them out of remnant cloth she had from her quilting. I loved going to her house after school and cutting out patterns, and choosing fun ribbons to sew on as accents. I think I had about 60 of those horses by the time I was done playing with/collecting them. By the time I graduated high school they were just sitting on shelves in my bedroom as decoration. A few years ago Simon and I brought all my model horses back to Flagstaff with us. I wasn't sure what to do with them at first. But then I had an idea...I wanted to give them to other little boys and girls, in the hopes that the horses would provide them as much fun and entertainment as I had. I posted a little ad on my Facebook page, and my friends and coworkers messaged me immediately with requests. Some for a particular breed, some wanted models that looked like horses their kids rode or had ridden when they were little. It felt really special and really good for me to be passing them on to a new generation. I remember going to a friend's house and seeing of my my horses in the sandbox outside, the legs snapped off, the tail missing, the paint scratched, and for a moment, I had this horrible sinking feeling in my stomach, that I had done something wrong with the toys that I had loved so much. But then...I remembered that toys are meant to be played with, and that sometimes toys get broken, and I managed to find a way to be okay with the fact that something that I had cherished and cared for, even though it was now battered and broken, was still bringing happiness to someone else. At the end of the day, that's all that matters. I did manage to keep a few of my favorites...they're sitting in a box out in the shed, and I know that someday I'll get around to giving those away too, but right now I'm just not ready to let go of that piece of my childhood, and that's okay. 

Well, there you have it. The first month of StoryWorth questions. It felt really good to write all that out, and I'm looking forward to answering some of the other questions. I've been a little bit on the struggle bus as of late, and it felt good to sit down and write. I hope you enjoyed it too. Until next time, my friends.  

Itchy McItcherson: The Follow-up

So, I've been getting a lot of questions lately asking about how my low-nickel eczema diet has been going. I'm happy to report that it's actually going quite well. Initially I was freaking out about all the staple foodstuffs that I would have to eliminate from my diet, but after just a few short weeks of cutting them out, it wasn't so bad after all. 

It's a pretty counter-intuitive diet to what I had been eating for years previously. To recap, I essentially cut out all nuts, all seeds, all whole grains, all beans/legumes (including soy, which is super high in nickel and is in just about everything processed), all canned foods, and all chocolate. I also cut out a few a few fruits and veggies, including raspberries, pineapple, peas, green beans, and green leafy vegetables. Sounds like a lot to cut out, right? So what, exactly, have I been eating? 

For starters, rather than eating whole grain bread, I started to eat English muffins and bagels. That switch ended up being a pretty tasty alternative, as there are so many flavors of bagels, many of which didn't contain anything that I was trying to avoid. To be fair, I didn't really eat all that much bread before starting this diet, so adding in bagels was actually more of a treat than anything. There is a wonderful bagel shop here in Flagstaff called Biff's Bagels, and if I can get my butt out of bed and into town early enough on a weekday, I'm usually able to snag a baker's dozen of day-old bagels at half the price of the fresh ones. They are pre-bagged, which also eliminates me standing there awkwardly counting on my fingers, picking out flavors of the fresh ones. Math is hard for me, especially when put on the spot, so having those 13 bagels already counted out and bagged up is a win-win. 

Eliminating whole grains in general has been a little harder. I loved whole grain pasta, all kinds of rice, quinoa, oatmeal, whole grain cereals, baked goods with whole wheat flours, and the like. Now I eat white rice, white pasta, and I no longer eat cereal because my options are limited to corn flakes and rice Chex, and I'd rather just not. The white grains and flours definitely don't have as tasty of a flavor profile as the whole grains. It seems so unhealthy given that we've been given information about how whole grains are better for our health than overly processed grains, and I don't disagree with that, but if giving up whole grains makes my hands feel better, then I guess it'll have to be worth it. 

I did worry about my bowel health (and overall health in general) and becoming constipated due to a lack of dietary fiber initially, but I started taking a probiotic and I try to eat a lot of fruit throughout the day, and so far that's been okay. Not that you needed to hear about my bowels, but that was something that I worried about in the beginning, seeing as I was cutting out most of my prior sources of dietary fiber. I also started taking a multi-vitamin along with some other vitamins and minerals in an attempt to try to capture the nutrients that I'm missing by cutting so much out of my diet. Truthfully, I could probably just change my diet to capture the appropriate vitamins and minerals, but I'm a lazy person at baseline and for right now, things just need to be easy to ensure my compliance. It helps that all my vitamins are in gummy form as well. 200 calories in fruit snacks every morning? Don't mind if I do! Hahaha! I tell myself that they're nutrient-dense calories, which technically isn't untrue. Historically, vitamins in pill form have also made me super nauseated, and the gummies don't, so that helps with the compliance as well. 

Cutting out nuts and seeds has been a lot harder, as nuts served as a high-protein snack for me. I'm also one of those people who is completely content and truly enjoys eating peanut butter right out of the jar. Out of all the things I've had to give up, peanut butter is probably the one food I miss the most. It's unfortunate that peanuts are one of the nuts with the highest nickel content as well, meaning that I most likely won't ever be able to add them back in, even in small amounts. Nuts and seeds are also trail-snack and road trip staples, so going on long hikes or long drives and packing enough of the right snacks to keep me from bottoming out presented a unique challenge. Pretty much all granola, protein, and trail bars are full of either nuts, seeds, grains, chocolate, or a combination of all four. Delicious, filling, compact...all the things you want in a quick and easy snack; unless, of course, you have diet-related eczema. I started packing really bourgeois snacks...cheeses, salami, packets of pickles and olives, dried/fresh fruit, goldfish crackers. Basically, trail charcuterie. So fancy, but at the same time, a really nice alternative to traditional snacks. It does take a little extra planning, as I don't routinely have all those snacks stashed away for consumption at a moment's notice like I do with granola bars, but it was a simple switch that ended up being okay in the end. I've eaten small amounts of pistachios with no issue, but other than that, I've pretty much avoided all other sources of nuts and seeds, including nut and seed oils. The jury is still out on exactly how much nickel is actually in nut and seed oils, so for now I've been avoiding those as much as possible, just in case. I've been able to find some potato and tortilla chips that are made with either olive or avocado oil, but other than that, most processed snacks have been avoided. You'd think I'd be losing weight since I've had to cut out all these snacks, and at first I did, but I've crept back up to my pre-low-nickel diet weight. Balls. 

Prior to changing my diet, Simon and I had been dabbling in incorporating alternative dairy into our diet. I was using almond milk in just about anything I would use cow's milk. I baked with it, I cooked with it, and I added it to my coffee. We were even making our own almond milk at home in the blender, which is a super easy process, and kept us from buying and throwing away the milk that we didn't get to before it expired. Since I can no longer have nut or seed milks, it's back to cow's milk. I don't drink or eat all that much dairy, but I do crave simple sources of protein, and dairy fits the bill. We also dabbled every now and again in going vegetarian, but with literally all non-meat sources of protein being beans and grains, I've pretty much given up on that idea. So, back to traditional protein sources. It's a little morally defeating, as I struggle with the meat industry and the way the animals are treated. I've touched on this in the past so I won't get into it much here, but hopefully moving forward I can start making better choices at home about where my meat comes from. I can have most meats, but shellfish and certain kinds of seafood have been taken away. You know, in the past I had always noticed that my hands were incredibly itchy when eating peel-and-eat shrimp or crab legs, mostly after touching the shells. I'm wondering if it's the shells that are causing the reaction or the actual seafood itself...could be both, I guess. In any case, I haven't eaten shellfish since back in November. I've had a few different types of ocean fish and have been fine with those. Canned fish (anything canned, really) is completely off the menu. 

I haven't been super strict with this diet, and because of that I've had some obvious diet related flare-ups, but nothing like I had before I started being more selective about what I could and couldn't eat. I also notice that my flare-ups are smaller and tend to heal faster when I'm following my dietary restrictions. I try to keep my diet pretty consistent these days, but I leave room for experimentation and trial and error. There has been some debate about whether or not the nickel sensitivity is a cumulative sensitivity (how much in a day is too much), or if it's more related the amount of nickel in an individual item. For instance, I've been able to sporadically eat chocolate in small amounts. Unfortunately, the chocolate that I've been eating is not the Dove dark chocolate that I prefer, but rather it's been chocolate icing on donuts, or chocolate flavored things, and how much chocolate is even in that, really? I've had chocolate croissants with no issue, but again, what is the concentration of dark chocolate in those? With regard to chocolate, it's the amount of actual cocoa that's in the chocolate that I react to, so the more diluted the cocoa is with other additives, the less likely I am to react. But I don't really like diluted chocolates, so I just haven't been eating them. Thankfully I haven't been missing it all that much; I was really concerned in the beginning that excluding chocolate from my list of indulgences was going to be really hard. Instead of drinking mochas, I've switched to lattes with honey and cinnamon. They're delightful. I love cinnamon, and that little bit of sweetness from the honey is just icing on the cake. So that was an easy transition. I really, really miss the dark chocolate peanut butter cups from Trader Joe's. I haven't had a single one, not even a little nibble, since I started this diet. The combination of dark chocolate and peanut butter has high potential for disaster, so I've reluctantly avoided them all together. At Christmas time my friend Sonia made us Oreo truffles, and I had a little bite of one and passed the rest of it to Simon. It was so good, and that little taste was all I needed. Again, there's that question of how much cocoa is in Oreos? Probably not all that much, but indulging has not been without its risks. 

Recently I had a vegan dish at a friend's house that was full of lentils and nut cheese, and I paid for that one with open wounds on my hands a day later. No bueno. In that same span of time I had also had two pieces of Dove chocolate...one was milk chocolate with caramel, and the other was dark chocolate with white chocolate swirls. I had also worked a shift at the hospital during that two-day span, then slept about 3 hours afterwards and packed up the van for a camping trip. So...poor dietary choices plus work plus lack of sleep equals a recipe for disaster. Narrowing down which was the biggest contributor to that particular flare-up is difficult and likely multi-factorial, so I've decided no more experimentation on that level. The nuts, the legumes, the chocolate...all are back on the "no" list. It's been hard eating at other people's houses, because so many of my friends are fantastic cooks, and while I would never ask them to tailor their cooking to my specific restrictions, I've typically been able to pick around the things I shouldn't have. And again, there's a lot of trial and error with this diet, and I like seizing the opportunity to try different things to see how/if I will react. 

I've also come to realize that potentially more than anything, my stress level definitely exacerbates the eczema, in addition to but partly unrelated to what I'm eating. When I'm at work, I try to eat the same tried-and-true non-reactive things every night with little to no deviation: grapes, strawberries, clementines, hard-boiled eggs, cottage cheese, avocado/olive oil potato chips, and some sort of hot meal consisting of a meat, a veggie, and either white rice or pasta. I bring my own food and I am very selective if I go to the cafeteria for a snack. Despite all that, even when I behave as much as possible with my diet, I always have a flare-up when I'm working; the more shifts in a row I work, the worse the flare-up will be. I can sometimes get away with one shift in a row with no issues, but after two I start noticing itchy spots, and after three or four shifts there's definitely open cracks, blisters, and intense pain. It absolutely could be due to the excessive amount of hand washing and hand sanitizer use, but I know the stress is definitely a contributor. I won't get into it much here, but I'm planning on making some career changes that will hopefully help with my stress level at work. More on that in a later blog. 

So many products: CeraVe daily lotion frequently applied to my hands throughout the day, Cetaphil Gentle Skin Cleanser for handwashing, CeraVe Moisturizing Cream on my hands at night, CeraVe Hydrating cream-to-foam cleanser as a body wash, and Vanicream as an all-over moisturizer after the shower.

I've made some pretty major changes to my personal care regimen as well, and that seems to have helped. One of the biggest things that's made a difference is when I feel the itching or a flare-up coming on related to a personal care product, I'll run my hands under cold water and wash with one of my dermatologic soaps and follow up with a moisturizing lotion. It sounds kind of silly, but it seems to cool down the flare-up. Most of the time it works, but not always. I had been using a few different Monat shampoos, conditioners, and facial cleansers/scrubs, and I noticed that after using some of them, I'd exit the shower with super itchy hands, so I've gotten rid of those. There are a few I can still use, but I'm slowly using them up with the intention of switching to Beauty Counter products, which have not yet produced a single itch. I think overall the Beauty Counter products have less reactive ingredients than the Monat products, at least that's been my experience so far. There's an app called EWG Healthy Living that I've been using to help with my decision-making when it comes to personal products, and the Beauty Counter products are consistently rated lowest when it comes to "chemicals of concern." I switched my facial regimen from Monat to Beauty Counter as well, and that seems to have made a big difference for my hands, not to mention my face, which feels so soft these days. I'm currently in the process of switching all of my personal care products to Beauty Counter; more on that in a later blog. I wear gloves when I'm doing the dishes, bathing the dog, or using any sort of cleaning products, and that seems to help as well. 

In addition to changes to my diet and personal care regimen, I started taking Singulair in the morning and Xyzal (a 24-hour antihistamine) at night, and I think they're making quite the difference. I definitely notice if I miss a dose, particularly of the Singulair. I'm hoping that maybe with this regimen my seasonal allergies will be better this year as well, but we'll see; it's too early to tell yet. The true test will be once the ponderosas start dropping their pollen and the aspens start budding, which is always a problematic time for me.

So, kind of a long update, but there are so many factors involved with managing an auto-immune disorder that I wanted to touch on all of them and share what's worked, and what hasn't. Overall these past few months have been some of the best months I've had with regard to my flare-ups, and I'm super stoked about that. All of the changes I've made, whether it was adding something new or subtracting something I loved, have absolutely been worth it. I know there are probably more things that I could be doing, but for now, this seems to be working without affecting my daily life all that much. I've made peace with the fact that I might never be able to eat peanut butter again, but it's been so refreshing to look at my hands most days and not see a single blister, a single red spot, or an open wound. To think that I had been living like that for over a decade is mind boggling, but it's nice to know that I don't have to anymore. 

Hanging with Mr. Cooper

Handsome little man

It's been over 6 years since I've had to write one of these things. I guess there's no better place to start than at the beginning. Back in 2004, I was living in Rochester, MN. I had bought my first house at the beginning of that year, and was working at the Mayo Clinic as a Registered Nurse on a general care floor. I had 2 dogs, Lady and Brie. Lady was a cattle dog mix, and Brie was a pug. For reasons even I can't begin to fathom, I felt I needed a pug friend for Brie. I started working with some rescues, and after a few disappointments, I decided to get a puppy. At this time, I don't even know if Craigslist was a thing, and so I was searching the online classifieds for pug puppies from newspapers all over the state. It was a very laborious process, to say the least. I finally found an ad for pug puppies in a newspaper out of Duluth, MN, which was about 5 hours from where I lived. Turns out the puppy was actually located right outside International Falls, MN, which is basically Canada, and also 8 hours from where I lived. I was undeterred. The woman who had the puppies explained that she had recently adopted a rescued female pug who hadn't yet been spayed, and that this batch of puppies was an "oops" litter. Apparently she had a friend with a young male pug, and neither of them thought that he was old enough to impregnate her female. Well, he was. And along came a litter of pugs. The thing I appreciated the most about her is that she asked me a lot of questions about pugs. Did I knew their breed-specific medical issues, did I have a fenced yard, did I have other dogs for the puppy to play with, what did I do for a job and how long would the puppy be alone, on average. This was truly a person who cared about where her puppy was going to go, and wanted the new home to be a success.

My three loves...Brie, Ladybird, and Cooper

So I drove all the way up to International Falls to get this puppy. This little black ball of fluff with huge brown eyes and tiniest little curly tail. I was immediately in love. He was so little that I could put him inside my shirt to keep him warm, and his little head would poke out right under my chin. The owner had been calling him Beaner, because he looked like a little black bean. I had been going back and forth between Eddie and Cooper as potential names for my new puppy, but I thought Beaner was also kind of cute, so I decided to go with that name. That is, until a few days later when I was in the breakroom for lunch with a bunch of my coworkers and told them that I had decided to name the puppy Beaner. From the end of the table came the exclamation, "You've got to be fucking kidding me. Beaner??" So I stammered something about maybe sounding like a pothead because my brother was always talking about how you have to get the beaners out of the weed before you smoke it, but she interrupted me and basically yelled for all to hear, "Beaner is a racist term for a Mexican!" I was shocked. This is how white-girl I truly was. I had never, ever heard the word Beaner as being a description for a Mexican. To this I asked, "Why are they called Beaners?" because I truly didn't know. "Because they eat beans...duh" was the explanation I was given by this woman at the end of the table (ironic that I was the one being made to feel like a racist in this situation). She was from southern California and never wasted any time telling everyone that; apparently being from that locale also made her an expert about everything (case in point, she pronounced all the S's in Des Moines, even after being corrected; she also withheld Morphine from a hospice patient because she didn't want him to become addicted. Sooo...she was basically an ignorant idiot and a terrible nurse). But I wasn't about to argue with her and sat there shamefully eating my lunch along with all my other coworkers who were also learning about the term Beaner for the very first time. It was an honest mistake. Out of defiance, I almost kept the name, but then I remembered that I lived in a mixed-race neighborhood and standing outside yelling Beaner would probably be ill-received. And truly, I didn't want to be one of those idiots who name their dogs a racist or inappropriate word because they think it's funny/ironic/whatever. So, it was between Eddie and Cooper. I couldn't get the phrase Hanging with Mr. Cooper out of my head, so Cooper it was. It should be noted that I'd never seen the show 'Hanging with Mr. Cooper,' and didn't know that Mr. Cooper was, in fact, a black man and Cooper was a black dog...so apparently I didn't escape some racial ambiguity in the end).  

Empty water bottles were come of his favorite toys

I had barely had Cooper a year before I started travel nursing. Initially I just took the pugs with me, as there were a lot of weight restrictions (most only allowed dogs under 25 pounds; Lady was 50) and 2-dog limits in the apartments I was renting. Lady stayed with my parents for those first couple years. I felt bad leaving her behind, but the pugs were so bonded that I didn't want to split them up, and I didn't want to leave them behind, either. So off we went. Cooper has lived in and visited more states than most people I know. He's been to the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, the Rocky Mountains, the Appalachian Mountains, the Green Mountains of Vermont. He's swam in lakes, he's paddle boarded, he's summited mountains. That little dude had quite the adventurous life. For most of you in Flagstaff, you only knew him as a grumpy little old man, but that little dog used to tear around like a crazed tasmanian devil. He used to run circles around me and I couldn't catch him. He could jump onto every piece of furniture and could even jump over baby gates. He and Brie used to chase each other around for hours; his signature move was diving under the bed and army crawling to the middle to wait out Brie, as by the time she got frustrated enough to crawl under there after him, he was already out and down the hallway, barking all the way. I used to laugh so hard at their shenanigans. He adored little kids, to the point that he would get so excited and wiggly and snorty with his wide open mouth that he would typically scare them away.

At the top of Pinnacle Mountain in Little Rock, Arkansas

Cooper was always an odd little dog. He seemed to always know when I was messing with him and would become visibly disgruntled about it. He would sigh loudly just to let me know how unimpressed he was with my attempts to be funny at his expense. He loved fruits and vegetables. He would do anything and everything for a cherry tomato, a carrot, or a piece of popcorn. I'm actually allergic to dog saliva, so I wasn't in the habit of letting dogs lick me. He picked up on this, and instead of trying to give me kisses, he would put his muzzle up against my cheek and open and close his mouth, the closest thing he could get to giving me a kiss. I always found that to be so very cute and endearing. Every now again he would give me the teeniest, tiniest little lick right on the tip of my nose. He always pranced when he walked. When we were out on walks, he looked like a miniature percheron trotting away, particularly when I had him and Brie hooked up with the double leash to their harnesses...like two little draft horses pulling me along. He was always the biggest dog in the yard, no matter where we happened to be or who else happened to be there. I remember he took down a malamute at the dog park once...he launched himself like a little black pug missile at that dog and knocked it right over. I was so in shock by the whole scene that I just stood there with my mouth agape, and then had to suppress a laugh at the malamute's owner as she threatened me with vet bills if her dog was injured (it wasn't, and perhaps maybe it learned a little lesson about trying to mount little dogs at the dog park). That was, however, Cooper's last visit to the dog park. He screamed through his baths. Just the most terrible sound ever. He hated to be brushed and he hated having his nails trimmed.

The infamous malamute, immediately prior to pug missile deployment

Over the course of his life, Cooper had several nicknames. In no particular order: Little Buddy, Coop, Coop-a-loop, Mighty Coopah, Duder, The Buddy, Montenegro, Coop-a-Troop, Li'l Man, The Grumpus, Little Fuzz Butt, Squish, Squishy. There might be more...he was called all kinds of things by all the people he met throughout the course of his life. 

Cooper on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon

Pugs don't stay as physically fit for as long as most other breeds I've encountered. I think Cooper's last long walk happened in 2014. We took him up to Lockett Meadow the day after Brie died and we hiked almost to the top where the trail meets Waterline Road. That's a long way for a little guy. He was 10 years old at the time, and he definitely struggled on the way back down and had to be carried. After that the walks were much shorter, usually just around the block. We took him camping with us a lot, and he was a funny little camping dog. You don't see too many pugs in campgrounds, but he loved exploring and smelling (and peeing on) all the things. He loved going places with us in the camper van, and had his own little laundry basket to sleep in while we were driving. I think it gave him a sense of security to be all snuggled in like that. Cooper's last camping trip was to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon this past fall. I'd like to think he enjoyed it, but he had lost his hearing and most of his eyesight by then, and was mostly content to just nap.

The little camping dog in Madera Canyon, Arizona

It's funny looking back at old photos of him, seeing how black his face used to be, how physically capable he used to be. It's weird how much his face changed through the years...not just the ever encroaching gray hair, but his muzzle became more droopy, his eyes became less bright, his ears and tail became less perky, and his overall stance became more feeble and frail. I remember noticing that he was slowing down, but most of the changes were so gradual that it just kind of became the natural progression of things. The last few years I used to jokingly remark with disdain that he wasn't a cuddler. He hadn't been very snuggly for the past few years, I think mostly because the arthritis he had in his spine and his hips made it hard for him to find a comfortable position, but as I look back in photos, he definitely used to be both a snuggler and a lap dog. He and Brie used to pig pile on top of me, and that was their favorite place to be. It's funny how quickly I had forgotten that about him. Maybe it's a little bit of a blessing that we don't mourn the way things used to be as we adjust to the new normal.

Simon wrangling all the dogs on Fort Myers Beach, Florida

That being said, I remember each decline like it was yesterday. I remember when he wasn't able to go on walks anymore. I remember when he could no longer jump onto the bed, and then it was the couch. I remember when he became too unsteady to use the pet steps and we had to lift him on and off the bed and the couch. I remember when he stopped playing with toys. I remember when he lost his hearing, because he no longer tilted his head when I was talking to him. The loss of the head-tilt was devastating. I remember when it happened to Brie too; they could tell I was talking to them because they were watching me, but they weren't grabbing any of my words anymore. I remember when I felt that first little nubbin of his spine as he started to lose muscle tone to the arthritis. I remember when his back started to arch all the time. I remember when he started to limp as the arthritis moved to his hips, and then after that to his shoulders. I remember how he started to sleep more during the day, and I remember how deeply he slept after he lost his hearing. I remember when he started to lose his vision, how he would stand at the threshold of the hallway if the light was off because he couldn't see well enough to confidently wander to the bedroom. I remember putting a nightlight in the bathroom so he could see to find his water dish. I remember all of those things. I remember him getting old, and along the way I forgot what it was like for him to be young.

Morning cuppa at Kick Stand Coffee in Flagstaff, Arizona

I never thought he would live as long as he did. Brie died when she was 12, and Cooper was 10 at the time. I thought maybe we had about 2-4 years left with him, but he surprised us all and just kept on kicking. Luckily he had always been a healthy young pug, which carried on into his older years. He lost his hearing, he mostly lost his vision, he lost the ability to jump up on things, he lost the ability to go on walks. He lost so much these last few years, but he never seemed unhappy. Grumpy, absolutely, but never unhappy. As long as he had me, his treats, and a comfortable place to lay, he was content.

I adore the little smile on his face in this photo

 On his last two days of life, I did his two most hated things to him...I gave him a bath and I brushed him. And did that little turd fight me every second of it. He had always loathed bath time, which is funny because when he was young, he used to jump into the shower with me all the time. It was funny seeing him tearing around the bathtub, seemingly confused about how he had gotten there, and perplexed as to how to get out of that situation. Had I known he had so little time left, I probably wouldn't have bothered with the bathing or the brushing, but he was getting a little stinky, he had had an accident that he had lain in, and we were going out of town and I didn't want to leave a smelly, sheddy little dog for the dog sitters. 

Post-bath death stare from under his favorite blanket

I'm trying so hard not to feel guilty about the fact that I helped him pass the day before we went on a trip...I didn't want it to feel rash, and I wanted myself to feel more ready. The thing is, despite telling myself I was ready, I don't think I was ever going to be fully ready. Years ago when he started declining, I knew first and foremost that I didn't want him to suffer; this was very, very important to me. The last week of his life he seemed markedly different; more anxious, more uncomfortable, his stance changed to the point that he didn't seem comfortable sitting or standing, he was pacing more than usual, and he even seemed to have trouble getting comfortable while lying down. It took me a week of going back and forth to finally make the decision to help him pass. My worst fear was that he was going to decline to the point that my dog sitters would have to take action on my behalf, and that's the last thing I wanted for them or for him. It has always been very important to me that when it comes to my dogs and their time to pass, it has to be me. I owe them everything but I especially owe them that. When I really stopped to think about things, I had to ask myself if I would be coming to a different conclusion if I wasn't going on a trip. And the answer I kept coming back to was no, no I wouldn't be doing anything different...it was just his time, and this decision had been made long ago. Actually, I would have done one thing different. I would have planned ahead and had the at-home vet come and help him pass here at home. That's the only thing I would have done differently. The at-home vet wasn't available to come out on the day I made the decision, and I didn't want to wait any longer because I could tell that it was time. In the end, it was an incredibly hard decision, but as his person it was one I had to make, and so I did. Cooper has never really had issue with going to the vet, and quite honestly, he rather enjoyed going to the vet so he could pick fights with the other dogs in the waiting area. He was such a tough guy right up until the end. The vet we use has a 'hospice room' that has soft lighting, a couch, treats, etc. It's actually a nice quiet place to spend some time with him to say goodbye. He sat on my lap the whole time while we reminisced about all things Cooper, which was unusual for him given his disdain for snuggling, but I think he knew, and I think he was okay with it. I think he was ready.

 

Camping at Pine Grove campground outside Flagstaff, Arizona

You know, we used to joke about all the things we were going to do with his body after he had passed. Stuff him and put him in a pet bed so it was like he was still there; make a rug, a purse, a fur stole, or a hat out of his pelt; make a key chain out of his tail; get his ashes and mix them with paint to make a painting. We used to laugh about these things because although it was kind of morbid, it was preparing us for the inevitable. In the end we didn't do any of those things. I had him cremated and I elected not to get his ashes. I did, however, find out that that the pet crematorium dumps the ashes along a forest service road north of the Walnut Canyon area, which is a beautiful area in the woods. Apparently there's a grove of oak trees there that turn bright red in the fall, some speculate due to the ashes mixing into the soil. Whether any of that is true, it's a really nice thought to think of all my little buddies giving back to nature in a way for all of us to enjoy. The vet's office will have made a paw print for me, and I'll go pick that up once it stops snowing. I did grab a little ball of his fur from the brushing and put it in an empty pill bottle. I don't yet know what I'll do with it, if anything, but for now that's all I have left of him.

Probably my most favorite picture of Cooper and I

For almost 19 years of my life, I was the girl with the pugs. It became as much a part of my identity as talking about poop, my refusal to dye my hair, and my penchant for all things Lululemon. I have so much pug stuff...shirts, sweaters, leggings, photos, paintings, books, magnets. Being a pug person is who I am. But now I'm not. I didn't just lose my little buddy as he took his last breath, I lost a part of myself too. So now I sit here and I wonder, Who am I? Where do I go from here? How do I go from here? I have all these moments...moments of good, moments of bad; moments of laughter, moments of sad. They come at me without warning and I'm still working through it. The house is so quiet without him here. I didn't realize how noisy Cooper was until he was gone. He was always skittering about; if he wasn't looking for me he was checking his food dish to see if any treats had materialized in it since the last time he checked, or he was skittering to get a drink of water, or he was skittering to the back door hoping that we would notice and let him out to go to the bathroom. If he wasn't skittering, he was napping. When he was napping, he was snoring. If he wasn't napping or skittering, he was next to me on the couch...not snuggling, god forbid, but close enough so that he knew I was there. I was his true north...if he knew where I was, everything was right in his world. 

Pug pig pile

I moved his bowl out of the kitchen and just about lost it. I picked up all the pieces of food on the floor because he used to just rustle around in the dish to take the treats in his mouth and spit the rest of the food all over the place. How he managed that with less than 10 teeth, I'll never know. It's funny, a few years back before we realized that we had a mouse in the house, I would find dog food in the weirdest of places, and for a while there, I thought that it was Cooper. I remember being so confused as to why he was dropping mouth fulls of food into my shoes. Little did we know...hahaha! The pet bed next to my desk sits empty, and I cry almost every time I look at it, but I just can't put it away because every time I take something away that was his, I feel like I'm erasing him. I guess I'm just not ready to accept yet that he's no longer here. I find bits of his hair on my things, and I can just see in my mind all the last places where he was. Sometimes I think I'm all done crying, that I'm able to just be okay with the fact that he brought me so much love and happiness, and then I see that pet bed and it starts all over again. But I can't move it yet. I just can't. He used to lay on the bath mat when I would shower, and I'd have to be careful not to step on him when I got out of the tub. He won't be there anymore. Sometimes he would push the bathroom door open while I was on the toilet, and he would just stand there and stare at me as if I should have been doing something else with my time. He always had to know where I was, all the time. What's ironic is that in the last year or so, I always had to know where he was too. Because he couldn't see or hear, and he was a frail little old man, I felt this need to always know where he was to make sure that he was comfortable and safe, that he hadn't gotten shut in a bedroom or gotten lost in a corner somewhere.

Being carried back to the car after the long hike at Lockett Meadow

It's funny how a pair of pants lying on the floor or a little blanket rumpled up in the pet bed can look like him when I'm going about my business and catch a glimpse out of the corner of my eye. Or when I get back from taking Kiki for a walk I have this random thought about where he might be laying when we get in the house. He had his few favorite places where he would wait for us to come home. Being the creature of habit that I was, I would check all of his favorite places to see where he was. Sometimes I would wake him up to give him pets, otherwise I would let him slumber on and he would wake up on his own time, seemingly taken aback over the fact that we had materialized out of no where. Over time those thoughts will diminish; I'll stop looking for him and the pants on the floor will just be pants on the floor. Kiki has already claimed his favorite blanket (which was actually a rather expensive Rumpl blanket that I had bought for myself but was letting Cooper have because it was his very favorite), so I guess maybe that blanket will forever just be a dog blanket. The things we do for our pets.

Such a little cutie!!

I think one of the most powerful parts of this whole dying process, was my friend Eli saying to Cooper, "Thank you, Cooper" as he passed away. In my sadness I hadn't thought about all the things Cooper had brought into my life that I was thankful for. It was the perfect sentiment and the perfect goodbye to that little bugger who had given me so very much, in truth he had given me everything he had to give. So many memories, so many laughs, so many opportunities for learning. There are so many things that could have been said, but I think 'Thank You' was the very best of all. 

So, I'll end with that, Thank You, Cooper. Thanks for everything. 

Hiking with Brie in La Crosse, Wisconsin

At the top with Simon in La Crosse, Wisconsin

Pug Pile on Simon

Chilling poolside in Cape Coral, Florida

Simon has been making me pug-inspired birthday cards for years :)

Squishy face

Hanging out with Simon

Such a regal looking little dude

Hanging out with Nora

Camping along the Yellowstone River in Montana

Visiting the Badlands in South Dakota

Paddle boarding in Minneapolis, MN

Lap Time is Nap Time

Camping at Pine Flat in Sedona, Arizona

Hammock time on the Grand Canyon North Rim

Tolerating proximity from his new sibling, Kiki

I'm so going to miss that little face

In doggy jail with his buddy, Brie

In the pet bed next to my desk

Chilling on the couch in our apartment in Flagstaff, Arizona

One of our first pics together in our new home in Flagstaff

On a road trip to Minnesota in the Sprinter

Always so cute

A perfect morning...sunshine, coffee, and my little buddy