We survived the last week

I'm back. What do you think of the new Damask background? The week was crazy. We spent all day Monday prepping for Tuesday's packout. Tuesday came and the packout went great. There were 2 Americans on the team. I like to think that was a good sign. Around 2pm Tuesday the woman who took Rusty decided he wasn't a good fit for her so, she returned him within 15 min. despite my best efforts to get her to wait until after we finished the packout. Then 30 min after that, she came back to get her friends couches just as the loaner furniture arrived. So, we had couches coming in the front door and going out the back at the same time. Some people have no respect for what others are doing. I was pretty annoyed by then the way the whole thing was handled. I'm glad Rusty was returned. He hasn't acted right since he came back which makes me wonder what she did to him. I was exhausted and in bed by 9pm, which is rare for me.

Wednesday Tim went out in town to get Rusty looked at by the Italian vet for his flight on Thursday. This went well. I went to quilting class and almost got 1 block finished. I want a little more done before I leave but we will see.

Thursday we brought Rusty to the airport to got to South Florida where my father-in-law will hold him until we get settled. We had to get the next size down in carrier to fit in the car. We arrived at the airport at 4pm just to be turned away b/c the Italians didn't like the size of the carrier. Mind you, Rusty could stand up and turn around. Needless to say we missed the flight b/c there was no way we could get back to the house and get back within 1 hour before the Alitalia people left. We got home at 4:45 and Tim locked himself in the office to make some calls to the airline. Luckily he got someone right of the bat that spoke English. Rusty would leave on Friday.

Friday, we collapsed the XL carrier and tied it down in the trunk and got Rusty back to the airport. Waited for about 45 min then it took another hour to do paperwork, weigh him, etc. We go to pay and I hand the worker my credit card. "Sorry, we don't take credit cards." What???!!! No one told us this. There are Visa and MC signs up. GRRRRR. . . so we run over to the main terminal and Tim maxed out his daily allotment in euro which left us half a payment short. My pin doesn't work so that left me in a pickle. I went to the currency exchange windsow. It is 11:05 and they open again at 11:15. Why me? As I start to walk away the worker is back. She tries my MC and it won't let me take out money (even if I had to do a cash advance I would do it at this point). Some security feature prevented this option. Ok, that's good now I don't have to get a cash advance fee. Next, try the debit card again. Luckily, by some miracle it allowed the transaction to go through. Thank you God! We now had the proper amount of euro to ship Rusty. Off he went to Miami. FYI: My father in law e-mail us this am and Rusty arrived in 1 piece.

Saturday was spent doing some yard work and stamping with a friend 1 last time. Today, Sunday is pretty calm. Actually to the point of boring. I have stuff to do, just not here in Sicily. I feel done here, just going through the motions and waiting to leave. I've been brainstorming window treatments, wall colors, etc. We got the housing contract this week and will send that back to the states tomorrow. We also got our final travel plans this past week. Even with a few hiccups this week, we still managed to pull everything off that needed to be done.