Monday. My niece, Allison, with Cullen. She has decided that he is her favorite. She also wanted to take him home with her, but that wouldn't be the best idea. I'm very grateful that Daniel and Kathryn offered to take him. I think it will be good for him, hanging out with Reece and Jace. Plus, being around Daniel I think will help him get over his slight nervousness around men.
I have to say, God worked it out really well as far as where my dogs are staying while I'm gone. Cullen's with the Smiths, where he will get to play with Georgie and the boys. Dudley's staying with Tammy in KC, where he gets to hang out with Jackson and a little girl (Elise) who loves to cuddle (and maybe he'll help Jackson to be less afraid of people). And Riley is staying with my dad and stepmom, where he gets to hang out with several dogs. My dad told me that he jumps up and sits with him often when he's watching TV. Thank you, God, for taking care of my boys. And thank you, everyone, for taking care of my boys!!!
Tuesday. I'm unloading suitcases from my car. The boys are watching me do it and waiting for me to come back inside. I won't actually get into those suitcases until right before I leave, but right now they contain some of the clothes I'm considering bringing to Brussels. I will eventually put clothes inside a briefcase and stick that in one of the suitcases. And, unfortunately, I didn't have enough room to bring my pillow with me. I just hope they have non-feather pillows, because I can't sleep on feathered ones.
Wednesday. The boys chilling on one of the two twin beds in the room I am staying it. It's interesting sleeping at night because everyone likes to sleep with me. It's been even more interesting since I've got a cold that's now settled in my chest and leads me to hack, hack, hack at night. And Riley has been extremely nervous the last couple of nights, so he doesn't let me sleep. I'd stick him in the garage, but it's below zero outside. He finally settles down when I 'watch TV' which means I watch Netflix on my phone. I don't know why that helps him calm down, but it seems to be the only thing that really works. Maybe it's because he thinks that if he really needs to, I'll be awake to let him out. I hate it - not because it keeps me awake (which I dislike) but because of the amount of stress it causes him.
Thursday. Back in Columbia. Taken after a very long day. I woke up around 6:30 and left KC around 8, which means I arrived in Columbia right around 10, and, save for a lunch break and a very short stop to eat something for dinner, I (along with my parents and niece) worked until around 8, and then I kept working until around 10. I am very grateful for my family's help because I would not have gotten it done without them in the time I had. All that's left is packing up a few more things, dropping off stuff at good will, taking boxes over to the storage space, taking out the garbage, and cleaning.
I took this picture because it illustrates how much Cullen and Riley are brothers: Riley lets Cullen rest his head on him anywhere, even on his head. They stayed like this for several minutes.
Friday. It may be December 31st, but the high was 62* that day. I decided to take a break from finishing everything and take the boys out to the dog park for an hour or two. There were lots of dogs there, so they got to socialize a lot. Cullen, for some reason, hung out with me most of the time. He usually tags right behind Riley (as in this picture) but most of the time, it was Duds following Riley.
I was glad I got to take them to the park to have some fun before they went to stay with other people. I wanted them to have a really nice day before I didn't see them again for 4 months. I 'know' that dogs don't think like us, and they live in the moment, so maybe it was more for me, but I like to think of them being really happy before they went to stay with someone else.
I quit working around 9:30 (with just a little bit to go) to head out to the New Year's Eve party at the church building. That was really fun. I played Rock Band for the first time. The drums are hard!!! Especially when the line came up - coordinating my leg and my arms. And having to concentrate. It was a little better when I was really clean on the beat. My best score was 78%. However, I scored 100% on the singing part when we did "Eye of the Tiger." Can you tell I like to sing?
Later in the evening we played 'Killer Uno,' a variation of traditional 'Uno,' where you take turns but with a free-for-all. Basically, the traditional color or number applies *when it's your turn,* but the rest of the time, if a number in your hand comes up, you can play it, even if it's not your turn. Play continues according to the last person to play. And what's even more crazy: the face cards (like the Draw 2s and the Skips) are cumulative, so if someone plays a Draw 4 and three more are played, whoever ends up drawing the cards would have to draw 16 cards. It was a blast. I didn't realize how much I missed playing cards with Melissa until we were playing, because she talks a little smack, but not in a mean way.
Saturday. One day, I think it would be cool to do a photo book on how America decorates their houses in celebration of Christmas. And this year, it seemed like there were tons of ornate loaded houses out. I wish I'd been able to go around and photograph, but with the move and everything, I was so exhausted at the end of the day, I just went home and went to bed. On the way home from the New Year's Party, I took some pictures of Christmas lights. Went to bed, headed back over to the house and finished cleaning the floors and got out of dodge. I should have taken a picture of the house empty, but I am so glad to not to ever have to go back there again (where there's a *hole* in the wall where the pipe for the kitchen sink comes in, where you can see outside, and even though I mentioned this to my landlord, he didn't do anything about it, or any of the other little problems while I lived there. And the mice - I did mention the mice, right? Just got some traps, rather than an exterminator. They probably came in through several of the holes in the wall...)
Sunday. A picture taken while on my flight to Maine. I thought about using one of the pictures I took of ridiculous LaGuardia Airport, but I decided to use this instead. It's nice and serene :) And LaGuardia Airport IS RIDICULOUS. I wasn't excited to be flying in there for my layover, because it's one of those airports that gets delays quite frequently. And when we get there, we have to walk outside (not so bad) but then we have to walk up about 30 steps to get to the main terminal. So I get to lug this heavy bag - heavy because I've packed for 4 months in Brussels - up the stairs. In the main terminal, it's extremely crowded and the food is lame and over priced. I ended up spending almost $10 ($9.47) for a hamburger and french fries. The hamburger was pretty good but the fries were not worth $3.95 plus tax. I was sitting there, tired (since I only got about 4 hours worth of sleep, due to figuring out what exactly I wanted to pack), and I needed more water. And isn't it convenient that the water fountain doesn't work. So I ask the flight crew sitting at the table, "Would it be illegal for you to watch my stuff while I go get some more water, since we don't know each other?" One of the guys says, "What's your name?" "Elisa." "I'm Michael. Now we know each other." We had a good laugh and I went and got my water.
I then walked back to my gate (5A) and looked for a place to sit down. I also looked for a place to plug my phone in. I found a plug and these two nice young 20-somethings decided to sprawl out across the floor and completely ignore me when I asked how long they had been charging their phone. Don't you love it when people have 'manners'? They took up the space that about *5* people could sit. I went and found another plug to charge my phone and the socket was so loose it wouldn't charge. But it would charge my computer, so I started charging my phone through my computer.
And how ridiculous is LaGuardia? They had 3 flights leaving through gate 5A within 10-15 minutes of each other. And when you go through your gate, you don't even go directly to your plane. No, you get to ride a bus to your plane. And I didn't even get to sit down. About halfway to the plane, we stopped and waited for about 5-10 minutes. Isn't that just great?
When I got to the airport, I got to wait for about 15 minutes for Alex to arrive. As usual, my parents (mom and stepdad) decided to hang out at home instead of coming to meet me. I pretty much ate dinner, took a shower and went to bed. And *WOW* did my body hurt. Everywhere. It hurt to move. Glad this week is over.
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