It's about darn time.

Our official move in date was May 1st. We spent our first night here 5 days later. We "officially" moved in (as in ALL our stuff joined us) May 8th at midnight. It is now May 26th. It has taken us 26 days to move in to the point where I can walk from the bedroom to the bathroom without tripping over something. It's glorious! While I worked on my paper late into the night, Chad filled our new "closets," broke down boxes, and made a clear path throughout the entire house. I'm so very lucky to have a Chad. See for yourself.

Dining room BEFORE (well, actually it looked worse than this but you get the point.)

Dining room AFTER (only it looks better than this but you get the point.)

Please excuse the tags on the chairs... I meant to remove them.

Living room BEFORE (please notice metal blinds on the windows.)

Living room AFTER (still needs some work but it's coming along.)

You can get a small glimpse of our balcony on the left side of the picture.

Garden BEFORE.

Garden AFTER.

What? You thought I was kidding about the garden gnome?

Chad using our German lawn mower. Which you PLUG in.

No Before or After of kitchen because I tried to keep it a little clean and orderly.

Coffee station. Only because we had no room for the coffee machine in the kitchen.

Entry BEFORE.

Entry AFTER.

Upstairs Bathroom.

W.C. (downstairs... oh and I should have put the seat down, sorry).

View from the office (3rd floor).

Office.

Master bedroom.

Guest room (Ya, we lifted the box spring through the second story balcony doors and really impressed the Turkish children across the street).

I also thought I'd include the cake I made for Chad last weekend....

with help from this 20lb. bad boy. Also known as the transformer, which allows me to use all our fun 110 V appliances. It's a little unsightly in the kitchen but that's okay.

Flowers from my landlord & his wife (for being locked out and such).

Last, but not least.... Neighborhood Watch.
The End.

p.s. I dedicate this before and after blog to Rae. For she is the queen of before and afters. And thank you for waiting... patiently... for a really long time.

big mac karma

I will keep this brief because I'm still recovering from over blogging and thumb blisters (hello? did you read my last blog?). I will say, however, I would like to add this next comment onto my last blog with which I wrote about the week from hell.

Chad and I topped that week off by getting into a car accident in my new car. Yep, Chad wanted a big mac so badly that we whipped into the drive thru and on our way out, a German woman in her Volvo SUV backed into us. I would post pictures but right now I'd rather not see the damage. It's too sad. No injuries to us... just my poor vehicle. New front end needed.


Have a better week than us!

Ciao.

It's Official

last week was the week from hell.

*Readers, I must warn you, this blog is quite extensive. I do apologize for the length, but once you read it, you'll understand how it got to be so long. I had quite a lot of time to think about it. READ ON.*

Seriously. Nothing could go right and just when I thought it couldn't get any worse.... oh it did. I'll start off with Sunday (May 10th). Chad leaves for Northern Germany to compete in his NCO of the Year for Europe. How convenient that he skips town when I'm smothered in boxes. I'm left to do heavy lifting and box cutting until I have formed disgusting blisters on both thumbs! Lovely. Once my thumbs were void of skin, I felt the need to reward myself a break with some ice cream. Walking down into the cellar only made matters worse because as I hit the last step, my flip flopped foot splashed down into 2 inches of water. You see, we've had torrential downpours Monday - Wednesday. Totally out of character for this time of year. That may explain why our drains were backed up and water then began overflowing into the cellar. I call the landlord immediately (after getting my ice cream) and he comes over and takes care of it. What a good lord of the land he is (that's what he called it one time... he's learning English).

Anyways, Chad returns home on Wednesday (exhausted of course so no help there) only to tell me he has to work on Thursday (the day he promised he had off). GREAT! PEACHY! So on Thursday he tells his boss the pathetic state of mind I am in and he takes pity on me and sends Chad home. We go to the temp. house and I put my pent up frustration to good use by scrubbing the house FURIOUSLY clean.

We return home Thursday night with loads of wet laundry, which I will attempt to dry in my German dryer. Chad, however, offers to take care of that for me and does so. Kinda. After a couple hours of "drying" he complains the clothes are still wet. He sets the dryer again and we go to bed. Unfortunately, an hour later I wake with a start, run downstairs to see if Chad has emptied the dryer's water. German dryers literally suck the water out of your clothes and deposit it into this water holding drawer that you MUST empty after every cycle. Otherwise, the water will just redeposit itself into the drying drum and you are essentially swishing your clothes around in the water you'd hope to remove. Chad knew this... but must have forgotten. I also examine what we thought was the lint trap that we'd been cleaning and thought WHERE IS THE LINT GOING? Something wasn't right. I glance at the door and see a few dog hairs sticking out of this slot and alas... the lint trap.... STUFFED TO CAPACITY ( probably beyond capacity) with lint. Oh yes, we are thankful to have not burned the house down via lint trap over crowding. Crisis averted.

Friday, Chad leaves for Switzerland for a 50 K ruck march. Alone again. Just me, the dogs, and a crap load of boxes. I stay inside all day Friday and Saturday working on the house and must admit I was seeing progress. Sunday, I planned to jump in fully and finish at least one darn room. This is where the week really goes downhill.

Sunday morning, wake up. Let the dogs out. It's hot. Sun is shining. Meatloaf goes #2. Being the responsible dog owner and good neighbor I strive to be, I get a bag and go pick up the poop. Then, all of a sudden, our metal "shades" on the door that I MUST use to get into the house closes. Now I know this is hard to understand, but I'll do my best to explain it. German's use to have shutters on the outside of their homes, which they would shut at night or in bad weather. They've since upgraded to metal doors that make you feel like you're inside a VAULT. No lie. You can roll them down from the inside, but they are on the OUTSIDE of the doors and windows. They are pretty much impenetrable. Unfortunately, the one on our door to the garden is automatic. It has a mind of it's own. It thought it would be funny to close at 9 in the morning, locking ME and the DOGS out of the HOUSE. Hello Panic! It's 9 am, Chad is in another country, I have no phone, I have no phone numbers, I have no water. WE'RE GONNA DIE. Those are just a few thoughts running through my head, others might include a lot of profanity. After skittishly trying to open EVERY window, lift the metal door, and punch in every code imaginable to man in order to get into my car and retrieve the garage door opener with no success... I sit on the step and cry. FOR TWO HOURS.

Then there is HOPE, who comes in the form of my dear neighbor, Helga. She is unsuspecting and innocently reading her paper in her garden when I approach her. She's in her PJ's and throws on a robe (can't be seen without one). God knows what she thought of me, I'm in my ducky pj pants that I've had since Junior year in high school. I'm also wearing no bra, but a UCLA sweatshirt in 80 degree weather. I'm glad I had enough sense to remove my face mask before walking outside because that surely would have made things worse.

Anyways, I tell her of my situation. She feels horrible and will call my landlord.... his wife... his parents-in-law... and the painter of our house. No answers. She then brings me water, the dogs water, and insists on bringing me yogurts. (The best damn yogurts I've ever had.) She passes a chair over the hedge. And continues calling, every number, every hour for the next 10 hours. That's right folks. I watched bees pollinate oleanders for 1o hours. Helga brought me a bowl of spaghetti and a glass of wine at about 7 in the evening. She invited me and the dogs into her home but I couldn't do that to her. Then, it started to rain.

And rain it did for the next two hours. Chad came home (had not received a house key yet), we sat in his truck, then I went back in the garden in the rain to sit with Gnocchi who wouldn't fit in the truck. And even though the landlord was on his way home from Lake Constance to open the house, the automatic door opened after being closed for 12 hours.

In the end, I've learned some valuable lessons with which I will close this blog. Always leave a window open when going into your German garden.... you never know when you'll have to climb through one. Also, memorize your key-less entry for your vehicle. It will come in handy. Lastly, get a hideous garden gnome and put a spare key near it for good measure. In case the other two fail.

Oh and... be nice to your neighbors.

Something to look forward to-

avoiding our flooded garage and cellar......nearly escaping a fire caused by lint overproduction..... suffering in silence for 12 hours (one metal door away from freedom!)...... first German oven baking experience (with mathematical conversions)...... and pictures of a nearly finished German home.

I know it makes little sense now...... but it will soon.

Keep checking for the most current and up-to-date blog (keep your fingers crossed, maybe tomorrow)!

Love you all,

Amy

You might have noticed...

the lack of bloggage. Actually, I've been avoiding it like the plague. You see, I knew that if I blogged I would have to include the fact that I should be unpacking the 100+ boxes that are sitting idle in every room of this house. I take that back, I'm down to like 40 boxes now, which is definite progress considering the size of this type of task. What makes it an even more astronomical task is the fact that it was never designed as a one person job. Unfortunately, as many military spouses will tell you at one time or another.... unpacking a household of belongings is included in the job description (I must have skipped that part) and so I un-pack a little each day.

Today, I unpacked two picture frames, a chopper, and six scarves. Oh and I put away some underwear. A handyman is coming over today and I figured it might be awkward for him and for me if he saw my undies just laying around like they have been for 4 days. But now I'm tired and taking a break via blogging.

In addition to suffering from asphyxiation via cardboard, I am also waiting patiently to hear how Chad's competition went this week. He's been in Northern Germany competing in the Europe wide NCO of the year. He didn't call last night (he might have had night navigation) so I am clueless as to how it's all going. He'll be home tonight. He has tomorrow off, but on Friday he leaves for Switzerland (again, me and the boxes are stuck at home) for a ruck march, male-bonding, ego-boosting trip. We have made a promise to each other to do something "really fun" when I finish school (hello, can't wait.)

Well, I think this break really helped because I feel a second wind coming on. Maybe I'll try to fight off the "overwhelmed" feelings and stick to un-packing... or maybe I'll just go take a nap.

[I purposefully did not post any pictures for two reasons. 1) You might be terrified at the sight of our current living conditions, 2) I have a GREAT vision for a before and after blog. Coming soon.]

I'm back...

in more ways than one. We returned from D.C. last Wednesday only to find out that our internet would be shut off the next day and "moved" to the new house. Ha, ya right. Anyways, even though some of our belongings moved, our internet did not. Days passed until they realized there was something wrong and they would have to send some techy out to fix it. Unfortunately, they told us someone would be here between two and four in the afternoon. Now in Germany, that apparently means ten o'clock in the morning when no one is there. We tried again the next day and they could not find the "telephone" line. Today, the technician returned, which just so happened to be the same day the electrician would be here and together they solved the issues of telephone and internet. Hence, the new blog.

Anyways, we are partially moved in... when I say partially I mean about 1/8 of belongings here, while the others wait patiently for pick-up at the temp. apartment. I spend the days in the new house (where my computer is) and then the family heads back to RB for bed. It's a little chaotic right now but hell, this girl thrives on chaos (or so it seems because I cannot escape it). Anyways, pictures of the home will follow soon but until then, please enjoy these photos of our trip to D.C.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

*I know the pictures are a little small but I'll try to upload others later, thank you!*