pictures

life pictures:

gregory and i have been spending alot of time in our backyard making it look pretty. this is one of the flowers we bought to spruce things up a bit. the good thing about this plant is, is that it can be taken inside in the winter. that means it doesnt die! that is, if we can keep it alive in the winter.

flower boxes on our wall.

the flower box in our shed.

my monsterous pumpkin plant!

alternate angle of the pumpkin plant

could it be the beginning of a pumpkin?

the sweater i'm working on.

the strawberries i ate!

day off

i had to work this weekend. it was a Belgian holiday and everything. not only did i have to work on my American Independence day, but i had to work on the Belgian one too. at least i got over time for it.
so today i have the day off and so far i haven't spent it doing anything special. i had wanted to get my hair done today, but when i tried to make an appointment i learned that its the "Kortrijk holiday" simply put most everything closes down for a week in the city. because you know, PEOPLE NEED THEIR HOLIDAYS , HERE! pssssshhhhhht like they don't get enough throughout out the year. so anyway, my guy, or as Gregory likes to put it "the expensive hairdresser" isn't in until Thursday.
i woke at 8.45 this morning which was a welcomed change. cleaned the living room and kitchen because we let it sit and rot all weekend then walked/ran with Roxy in the rain. took a shower, made lunch and vegged on the couch for a bit. now I'm here. at least i did something a little productive this morning!
since i don't have anything better to do i found this little quiz thing. enjoy:


The game is SCATTERGORIES, and it’s harder than it looks!
Here are the rules:
Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following. They MUST be real places, names, things…NOTHING made up! If you can’t think of anything, skip it. Try to use different answers if the person before you had the same 1st initial. You CAN’T use your name for the boy/girl name question. Have fun!

Your Name: Amanda

1. Famous Singer/Band: Adam Ant
2. 4 letter word: ache
3. Street: Allen ave
4. Color: apricot (just look in your nearest box of crayolas, its there)
5. Gifts/Presents: angora
6. Vehicle: airplane
7. Things in a Souvenir Shop: ape post cards
8. Boy Name: Alexander
9. Girl Name: Alexia
10. Movie Title: absolute beginners (with David bowie!!)
11. Drink: almond milk
12. Occupation: anesthesiologist
13. Celebrity: Adam sandler
14. Magazine: allure
15. U.S. City: attleboro
16. Pro Sports Teams: angels
18. Reason for Being Late for Work: automobile crashed
19. Something You Throw Away: aluminum foil
20. Things You Shout: AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
21. Cartoon Character: Adora (the real name of she-ra, princess of power)

Weekend recap

this weekend was one of the best i've had in a long time!

• friday night was the first kick off to a weekend as a working girl in over a year!



• it had to be done right. we went to a fesitval in the next village over.



• we rode our bikes because we were planning on drinking heavily.



• and we did just that. 3 cocktails and 2 beers, i was wasted and it was time to go home.



• turns out we werent well fitted to be riding our bikes anymore.



• while pedaling on an unlit bike path through fields, we both fell. i, gently, and what felt like in slow-motion, tipped over sideways while gregory toppled over frontways and landed on his knee.



• he's ok now. he took one for the team that night. all in a nights partying.



• saturday, after visiting his parents and gregory showing his nephews how to ride a skateboard (and me noticing his knee was good enough for skateboard tricks) we went to what is known as Bellegem woods. i think its the only woods around for..half the country.



• roxy loved it. we only let her off the leash for 5.3 seconds because gregory was nervous.



• she ran off the path a little bit but she came right back after we called her.



• we found 2 ticks on her. but according to gregory ticks dont exist in belgium. musta been pretend ticks.



• sunday evening we had a barbeque and i ate a small sausage. it was good.

some pictures from the weekend:

pretending to smoke

drunk! i think i'm ripping off gregory's lip.

the morning after. Roxy is supporting gregory in a nap

helping gregory sleep.

Life is full of surprises..

as i wrote the other day of the Belgian's often mistaken my last name for my first, i thought they were all just crazy. I've always known it as a man's name, and thought the world would perceive it as that as well. but then again, i always thought Benedict was a man's name and Kelly a woman's but I've been proven wrong on both those accounts as well.
today i was proven wrong once again.

after work i was waiting in the Director's office to give him a few papers he needed to complete my work file. a girl had come in after me and we were waiting patiently together. after i was able to speak to the director, he then called the next girl in, calling her by name, which happens to be my last name. i think i stopped in my tracks for a moment. it was like a sign. a sign showing me how ass backwards Belgium is for one, and for two, showing me that they're not stupid, just confused.
i guess Gregory was sparing himself of an endless argument when he just agreed that it's a man's name. he never told me they call girls that here. he probably knew I'd scoff at him and all of Belgium.
i should go tell him the story right now so i can still scoff at him and all of Belgium.
bwahaha!

incognito

i speak dutch at my new job. its not very good, but i speak it none the less. i don't talk a lot to people because in the time it take for me to thing of something to say, or retort, the moment has usually past. i have talked a bit with the old people and by the end of the day i wondered how i got past an entire day with only one old person knowing i was from America. i wasn't even the one who told her, it was the person i was working with how ratted me out.
all the old people speak dialect and i certainly don't and i thought they would have found it weird.
today was the same..almost.
i made it through the entire day with no one raising an eyebrow at me. until the last room. 5 minutes before i was leaving, i was talking to one of the old people, as i was leaving her room she finally noticed that something was off with me so she asked
"you don't speak kortrijk?" meaning, i don't speak the dialect from the city.
"no" i said and told her i was from America.
she was so surprised. she was all holy cow! I'm seeing a real American girl right here. and she asked why i was here and she just kept acting flabbergasted.
i found it funny. there are 2 old ladies that i have spoke more to than this particular one who found me out and they haven't even questioned my accent or my lack of dialect or anything.
i wonder if i can get through the week without everyone knowing?

ABK on: bringing home the bacon

my first day at my new job; being a cleaning lady at a nursing home.
this week I'm on the first floor with people i don't know, and the rest of the 6 months will be on the second floor with Gregory's mom and her crew.
i haven't worked on the second floor yet, but from past experience with working inside i nursing home, i know that the floors go as followed: first= only slightly crazy old people, mostly mobile, pretty much self sufficient. second floor=demented old people who need loads of help. from my old job this is where you could expect to be scratched and bitten and other forms of abuse. third= Alzheimer's and severely demented old people.
so on account of that, i don't want to work on the second floor. working on the first was pretty OK today. we had to help pass out the food trays which is something i used to do as a nursing assistant so that wasn't so bad. i then began to clean every room. on Mondays and Fridays they do a more thorough cleaning. so we had to take everything off of shelves and dust and wash everything which was a pain in the ass because all the old people have about 10,000 pictures and other knick-knacky things. i was told the people on the second floor don't have as much furniture/things because they're demented. i guess dementia patients don't like looking at things.
not too much to report on the day. it was all the same. dust furniture, swiffer the floor, wash toilet, wash sink and shelf and whatnot in bathroom, empty trash, run a mop over the floors.
the day went by fast and the people were nice. the old people were pretty friendly as well.
i was told i have a nice name. its funny because my name is pretty common back home but here no ones heard of it before, so much in fact, alot of people confuse my last name for my first name because my last name they have heard of as a name. i argue with Gregory that my last name would be a man's name but even that name is foreign enough that people don't know that its only for boys. heck, they name girls Benedict over here, what do they know?