i'm back! did you miss me?

my mom and i went down to my cousin's in michigan for a few days to shop and hang out. who doesn't have fun hanging out with your cousins and spending American money from the b&b? it doesn't feel like real money when you don't have to go to the currency exchange for it. ;D we got a whole host of cute tops and i got some fabric from JoAnn for a number of projects i have in the works. awesome.

we got really good deals on the clothes, some things were 40-50% off already sale items. it was kind of sad because i realized that the prices were so low because michigan is one of the hardest hit states in the economic crisis because it is all the automotive industry. it was weird going in to some shops that had four or five people on the floor and we were the only customers. a lot of the stores that we used to see have closed and the plazas they were in have already started to die in their absence.

on a lighter note, i finally made friends with bella the boxer. bella is my cousin's dog, and she is really quite ugly, she has about an inch of underbite, and her tongue doesn't fit in her mouth, her shnoot looks like she rammed her nose into a table repeatedly, but didn't bash the lower jaw. As a result, her nervous habit is to constantly keep her tongue moving, licking everything in site, especially feet and faces. she also had her tail docked, and so wiggles her entire body instead of just her tail. I never really warmed up to her because she never stopped moving, even if her body was still, her tongue wasn't.

and i HATE dog kisses.

i do not like to be slimed, thank you very much. when i was little, i was very little for a long time, and my face was just at the right level to be licked by dogs, which i was afraid of. i like dogs now, but i still hate dog kisses. but bella is now three years old, and has calmed down a bit. this time she was only crazy for the first few hours, and then when we went down to watch a movie, she curled up on my lap and went to sleep. and i was suddenly her best friend. she hung out with me for the rest of the time we were there, and took great pleasure in waking me up in the morning. and apparently misses me now that i am home.

so, all in all, a successful trip, although i could have done without the doggie hair gel in the mornings bells.