the tasks are M U L T I P L Y I N G

Two nights ago, my Grandpa Burgan died. He was 99. What a long life. What a tired body.
He used to read my blog and told me the last time I talked to him how much he liked it.
Can't help but think of him as I write...

It seems for every task we complete, two new tasks pop up. Or more. Jim is the structured, disciplined, focused one in our relationship. I know I probably don't even have to write that down- it's obvious. I can focus, but am easily distracted and usually {always} take on way too many projects.  I think bigger than I need to some times. I get excited.

I like to think we have accomplished one heck of a lot in the six weeks we have been home, but there is still so much to do. I know we have forever to do it, but it's starting to bother me more and more.
Sunday, Jim made a list of all the little things bugging him.

He had even assigned tasks to the days he was going to do them.
Sunday and Monday, he was going strong and knocking off things left and right.
SO much focus. Nothing new from my man. I do love it.

Yesterday, was back to frustrating. Our Internet has been super slow. Until they update the Haysville tower we were told it will remain slow. The next town over has a tower as well that the first installer said he could not reach.

Then, we noticed new neighbors across the street had their dish going to the faster tower. It would not be a big deal except we run our business from home- faster service would save us so much time.

We had another installer come out yesterday {only because cancelling service with this company would have cost $180 since we have been with them more than a month... 36 days to be exact} to see if he could move the dish to get a signal on Clearwater.

We let him know if a tree in our tree line was in the way- Jim would take it down. Sure enough the installer said he got a flicker and one tree was the problem blocking the signal.

Jim put a halt on going back to the DMV {for the third time... to register Whitey} and picked up the chainsaw to go to work.

As soon as it was down, the installed said that was actually not the reason for no signal.
He still couldn't get it.

It couldn't have been a dead tree, or even one of the smaller ones. We now have a healthy, big tree cut down for no reason waiting now to be cleaned up.

More work done and more work to do all for nothing. He did continue in close to 100 degrees and crazy winds to find a signal from the top of our shop. Now, Jim gets to dig a ditch to bury the cable that is running through our yard from the shop to the house. Frustrating, but we have Internet.
The wind could calm down any time now.

so much to S A Y

We are out of our house.
We are still working to get out of Germany.

It has been one rough week. Really rough week.
I am reminded of our tough days getting settled in Germany. It has not been much easier wrapping things up.

The only difference is the prize of our home, friends and family on the other end.

My plan was to be blogging all week but, our Internet is horrible. We can't get on our laptop at all. Luckily, Ty's Mac works. The problem is I'm struggling using it- change is hard and I feel the need to let my brain rest.

We are excited but tired.
Tired of thinking.
Tired of working.

Ready for this transition to be over and the next stage of our lives to start.

Right now, working to get out of our phone(s) is proving to be a nightmare. Our house phone said they will be charging us through July even though we are no longer in our house. Even worse, the new renters move in May 1st.

Isn't that double dipping? Shouldn't it be against the law?

I got my hair cut the other day and the German girls in the salon told me the phone company can not do that to us. She tried to call for me. The system was down and they were told it's the law, we have to pay. They said to just close our bank account- they can not take the money.

Our landlord called for us to get it stopped- she was told the same thing.

Jim went to the bank to close our account. Our bank told us {on base, by the way} that if we close it and any company attempts to take money out- they will open it back up, GIVE them the money, then charge us the $ plus LATE fees.

Unbelievable.

It's no wonder Americans leave here with lawsuits and in limbo with German companies.

So, I went to the local office downtown this morning to finish out this phone account and return the router so we don't get charged even more.

After a 40-minute wait, the man told me I have to mail the router through the German PO, he can not take it. 

Strike one. 

Then, he said he can not do any customer service but he would help write a letter to see if they would consider canceling our account before July. He wrote the letter, then faxed it to the company for me. With the company logo on his building, I was still confused as to why he could not address my issues.

Then, let me know he usually charges 10 Euro {$14} for this service. But, since we do not know if this will help, he waived the charge just for today.

Seriously?

I told him at this point- I did not care. I would like to pay the three months service {we would NOT be receiving @$55/mo} and be DONE with Kabel Deutschland. He let me know, unfortunately he could not help with that either.

He could/would not accept my payment for my account.

Strike two.

It was all I could do to stay calm.

Until I got in the car and realized he mis-typed our e-mail address. E-mail is the only way for them to contact us. I should have checked it, but I WROTE it out for him. Think I'm back to square one.

Strike three.

Our cell phone company is even worse.
This is only part of why we are so exhausted.

Seven nights to go...

so many C A N S

A week after moving in {after she returned from a trip to their vacation home in Italy}, I had the chance to spend some time with Alexandra, our new landlord. The more I am around her, the more I like her.

Everytime I walk away from her I say to myself and anyone around me, "She is just so nice. I can't believe how nice she is." Yes, I say the same thing every single time. Over and over.

Getting our utilities set up was one of the most stressful things related to our relocation. I now understand why my friend didn't quite understand what I was talking about or why I was so frustrated for weeks on end.
Alexandra did it all for us. She set up the Electric/Gas appointment and let me know what day they were coming to sign the contract. It's the same company for both utilities- how easy is that? We're paying our estimated water straight to her with our rent so no worries or another direct deposit to set up.

Garbage. It's been one of the most difficult things until this last month. Look at all these garbage cans. and they're all ours.

Five cans total and three of them are gigantic.

I almost can't believe it. After moving in, we had more than we ever had in our other house. I was happy with that. They have a BIO collection in this village which is wonderful.
The glass recycle bins are at the end of our street as well which is super convenient. This experience has made me understand that it's not that difficult- with a little help from a German-speaking landlord kind enough to take care of you.

Last week, Alexandra let me know she called the garbage company and they would be bringing larger cans for us. I was in shock. She made the call for us. Over garbage- so silly. They not only brought a new larger black can {for our yucky garbage}, we now have two. The smaller is the size of our old one.

They also brought a new small BIO can to go with our super large BIO can we already have. Check out this super huge blue paper can as well.

One day after working on some house stuff with her she said, "I really hope you enjoy living here." She has no idea. Not a clue.

nice T A P

I can admit it now. I'm one of those people who never turn{ed} off the water when I brushed my teeth. I'd let the shower run {and run and run and run} until it was toasty warm and then some before jumping in. I never had a problem filling my whirlpool tub to the brim to enjoy the jacuzzi. Now, I can barely fit into our one tub, so that's one area solved.
I've been guilty of keeping the sprinklers on until flooding the yard/garden routinely. In addition to never recycling, I've always wasted water because... who knows? It was easy to? I never worried about running out. More embarrassing, I never made a conscious effort not to. 

Horrible, I know, but the first step to change is admitting it, right? As a whole, I believe our society is very wasteful. Living in this very green country, I'm more aware of it than I have ever been. I fall smack dab in the middle of wastefulness especially when it comes to water- until now.

Previously, being on a well we didn't pay a dime for water. Oh my how things have changed here. Water is SUPER expensive- enough to get my attention. We have yet to get our first bill and are very, very afraid. Our friends {family of five} figured out they paid an average of maybe $260 USD per month- just for water. Yikes, that's a lot!

With our neighbors on holiday last week, I told her I'd watch her yard and water her flowers if she needed. Grateful, she let me know she had water in the back. I had seen these buckets, but until we had a rain, I didn't realize how awesome their set up is. They have a tap right in their guttering, so all of the rain is collected from the house for watering plants and their garden. So smart.

They also save the water from boiling pasta or veges and use it for their plants. Why dump it down the drain- it's good water? They don't waste anything over here. I really want to be more like them in this way.

Free well water or not, I want this tap on our house guttering when we move back and are settled. I think it is the coolest thing.The water was gushing in to it filling the bucket to overflowing. I filled her watering pots up and moved some to the other bucket. It was SO much water- just from a quick rain.

I feel a little crazy, but I've started putting my little bucket in the shower to fill up {for my flowers} while waiting for the water to warm up for my shower. The other day- just in warming up I had almost four gallons. What a waste that would normally go down the drain.

I've also started turning the water off while brushing my teeth. Now, if we could get Ty to take a shorter shower... We're working on it.

26 E U R O per month

Just when I think I'm starting to get the hang of things here, I have these little reminders that I'm not in Kansas anymore. Garbage. I never imagined garbage could take up so much of my time thinking. It's ridiculous- just ridiculous. Mondays are our garbage day- easy enough? As I've mentioned before, one week is recycled bags {gelb and blau} then the rotating weeks is our mini-black can.

No matter what, Monday's the day. If we forget which trash to put out- we simply look at the Germans to help us out.

This Monday, I stuck out the trash {our nasty wet black can with all trash that can't fit in any of our other three recycle bags} and they  n e v e r  came to pick it up. Normally, this wouldn't be too stressful except where am I supposed to throw out the trash for the next T W O weeks? It's difficult enough that they only come twice a month. Now, I have to figure out what to do with a whole month's worth of the worst kind of trash.

It wouldn't be quite so bad if it was paper or even our plastics. We pay 26 Euro per month for garbage- that's between $38 and $40 per month which makes me most frustrated. That's a lot of money to miss our collection and cause so much stress. More than anything, I really don't think garbage is supposed to stress a person out. Aren't there more important things in life to have to worry about? Ugh.

They have trash bins on base and a big recycling center as well. After waiting six weeks or so, when we realized no one was {ever} going to pick up our glass, Jim took it on base to recycle it there. They turned him away. Honest, I couldn't believe it. The "trash police" or whoever was working there that day said in order to recycle on base, you have to show a house key as proof of residence on base. The fact that we want to live on base and can't doesn't matter. One bag of glass and they seriously would not take it. That's when we found the glass bin in the next village over.

As Tuesday afternoon rolled around this week and I came to the realization that no one was going to pick up our garbage, I asked our German neighbor why they didn't come. She let me know that because of the Easter holiday this week, they did their collection last Saturday. Of course, why didn't I know they'd pick it up early? Who does that? Easter is on a Sunday. It's not like Christmas or any other major holiday falling on a weekday to mess up their schedule.  Oh, these Germans do love their holidays.

She asked if we missed it, and I let her know yes... but, one of these days, we'll learn. She then let me know that they will be on holiday for the next week, so if we needed to put our garbage in their can- that is ok. Wow- how nice is that? She's coming around, or maybe it's me that's coming around. Why is taking that first step sometimes just so difficult? Another life lesson.

33 cents per M I N U T E

The whole phone thing over here is insane. We miss our family plan- no such thing here. We bought a used pay-as-you-go cell phone within a day of arriving here just for essential calling. It's about 25 cents a minute to use- not cheap.

In January when we had our Internet hooked up, we were also assigned a landline. Took us another month to get an actual phone plugged in {thanks, Laura} since US cordless phones are of no use here.

Hearing how expensive it is to use the phone here, I've been completely afraid to use it. After receiving our first bill, we realized they assigned us a long-distance telephone phone number. In our village, everyone has the same five numbers at the beginning- not us. I was just told that the phone company is now required to assign these new numbers and only gives a local number if the other {long distance} ones are taken. Sounds like a scam to me. Whatever.

Here, you never pay for incoming calls, but for us to call even our neighbors, it is a long-distance call. Ridiculous. Also in Germany, land lines and cell phones are two different things. For us to call another land line from our home phone, it is about 4 cents per minute. Using our same home phone to call a cell phone- a whopping 33 cents per minute.

Re-evaluating our phone contract, we did find a couple options we didn't know existed. I'm sure we were caught up in the shock of everything being new and different when we started the process, we never went back to read the small print. We were able to add unlimited calling to Germany for an additional $7 per month. At least I think it's unlimited- it says "it applies to calls for fixed network" whatever that means, I'm sure we'll quickly find out.

We also found out that we get free unlimited calls to the United States. How crazy is that? Long distance to call my neighbor, but free to anyone any time in the US? Don't get me wrong, we're excited- very excited. This has especially simplified making arrangements to get things done on our house in Kansas. Hearing a normal dial tone is more comforting and exciting than I anticipated. Hearing friends and family {especially those we haven't been able to talk to on Skype} is even better. 

Just another example of how different it is in the world we now live in.

Gasversorgungsvertrag

I've been in a little low-energy slump this week... not sure if it's the darkness {and coldness} of winter, the drop of adreneline {after unpacking our household goods} or still adjusting to our new life over here. Maybe a combination? Whatever it is, I'd like it to go away and give me some energy {and zip} back.

Yes, that is duck tape holding the foam on top of the pipes...

I think I finally figured out our propane bill. Translated, Gasversorgungsvertrag means Gas Supply Contract. Why they have to scrunch so many words together, I just don't understand. All nouns in German are capitalized, so I knew it meant "a gas something {noun}..." This is the Gas Supply Contract that I still have not turned in. The cultural adaptation liason officer was out of the office last week when I stopped in desperate for help. No one else in the office could speak German or help me out. I found an email address {on the contract} so I sent a very nice email to the company in my most basic English. I truly thought there would be someone in the office who would understand English and respond. It's been almost a week- no response.They probably think I'm an idiot, I'm sure. So, I've picked apart the three letters we've received and finally found where we are supposed to enter our bank payment information. I filled it in, and tasked Jim to figure out how to mail a letter to someone in Germany. Isn't that crazy? How do I mail a letter? We have a house address and also an APO {Armed Forces Europe post office box}. I figured the base post office just dealt with APO mail. Come to find out, they do it all. They'll figure out the postage and take it. Nice- I thought for a minute I was going to have to make a trip to the Deutsche Post. Should about have this one taken care of.

When we were signing for our house back in November, we noticed there was a charge for chimney sweep on the contract. It was somewhere around 15 Euro per month, maybe $21 USD per month. All other utilities are averaged and on a contract except the garbage. After raising our rent, the lady at housing {while on the phone with our landlord Rosa} got her to agree to including the chimney sweep instead of another additional charge. We went along with it, but were pretty confused since we didn't think we had a chimney. Don't you have to have a chimney to have it swept? Whatever- we let it go.


this is what the "chimney sweep" inspected... go figure?



This afternoon, a little man showed up at the door and {after some German I didn't catch} said, "I'm here for chimney sweep." He acted like he knew what he was doing- I just let him in. He went to the utilities room. I went to my room and looked up chimney sweep in my Webster's dictionary. Seriously, it says, "a person whose work is cleaning the soot from chimneys." Exactly what I thought, but apparently not the case over here since we don't have a fireplace or a chimney. As he was leaving, I asked him if he'd be back next month. Since were going to have a monthly charge for it, I figured he'd be back to routinely do whatever he did. He opened his book and showed me a paper that said, "emissions testing" and told me it was all clear. I asked again when he'd be back and he {finally understanding my German, haha} said be back in two years- February 2013. Wow- and to think we were about to paying $20 per month for service once every two years? Unbelievable. Thank goodness it's included not only for the price but also sparing me the headache of trying to figure out another utilities bill.

looking for a B I L L to pay

I really hate rudeness. I don't think there's any place for it- ever. Might just be one of my biggest pet peeves- why can't everyone just be nice? I'm a fan of direct communication and have no problem with directness... but, rude and condescending- no way. I've already complained about the Internet jerk we had to deal with earlier this month. Today, it was the English-speaking American at the VAT office here on base. I feel STRONGLY that anyone working in these offices dealing with people like us {who have just moved to this foreign country} should have to pass a customer-friendly test before ever being hired. Seriously, I'm sure they can see the shock and confusion in our faces all the way down the hallway- help us out. All we need is a little understanding. She would have failed my test.

Because we are living off base, we get to deal with paying our own utilities- which means dealing with  German companies and receiving coorespondence all in German. Each landlord has it set up differently- written out once you have a contract. In ours, we pay an estimated amount each month for electricity, gas and water. Thankfully, we are in a newer house and don't have to pay for oil. They read the meters, then estimate our monthly usage based on what the previous renters used. At the end of the cycle, they let you know what you've gone over {and owe} or under and pay you back. I could only hope we'd be lucky enough to overestimate our monthly payments and get the difference refunded. Pretty sure- that's not going to happen. Easy enough, not much of a difference from utilitiy bills in the states. Here's where the difference comes in to play. Germans pay a tax on everything- about 19%. That's a lot of money in tax. Makes a 7% sales tax in Kansas seem like nothing and no sales tax in Alaska heavenly. {Oh no... did I just use Alaska and heavenly in the same sentence?} Here, being an American working on the base, we get a break and can use a VAT {Value Added Tax} relief form at places that accept it to waive the tax. There is a Utility Tax Avoidance program set up, but the rules vary among utillity companies. For our electric and water, the VAT office deals directly with the companies- we just have to take our first bills in and they process it- whatever it is that they do, I still haven't figured it out. 

In our house for two months now, we finally received what looked like an electric bill. We haven't paid a dime yet for any utilities and are a bit worried since we know it's adding up. Today, I went on base to figure out where the bills are so we can pay. Isn't that crazy... having to look for a bill? Jim's dealt with them twice already, I was trying to relieve some of the burden so we could cross this off our never-ending to-do list. We were told when we arrived that many here don't pay enough monthly, then end up with a huge bill {thousands of dollars} at the end of the year {or their time here} which causes huge problems.

Back to my rude encounter... I handed her the pile of papers we had received and told her I thought there was a bill in it. She waded through it, pulled out the bill, highlighted a few things then handed it back to me. She said something about August, then our money would be paid the 15th of each month. Done. What just happened? I asked, "Would you please repeat what you just said about August?" thinking maybe she would be reminded that I'm still new and haven't really figured it out. The end of the year {reconciliation} is in August- got it. I was ready to leave, but once again asked her if I was good to go... the payment would come out. "No," she said with quite flippantly "you still have to do that." I wanted to ask her what in the world she did to help me but, I held back as difficult as it was. Come to find out, I still had to go to the bank and set up the direct withdrawl myself. Right then and there, I should have known to be finished with her but... no, I had to ask another question. Did she think 170 Euro a month {about $231 USD} was low/high/average to pay for electric. After telling her there were six in our family, I volunteered that we keep the heat pretty low- somewhere between 1 & 2 on the dial. Oh, that was it. I was officially stupid now {along with taking up her time} and she let me know. We were talking electric not gas. Lights not heat. I know that and knew it- just got them confused for a split second as I have with just about everything here!

Oh well, now to figure our propane bill and wait for a water bill. The office on base doesn't have a contract with our propane company, so we're on our own. We have a contract that we even signed... not knowing what it all says. Probably not the smartest thing to have done. To us, it's pretty much all small print... no clue what's in it. They could be taking our first-born son for all we know. Now, we just have to figure out how to pay them. We knew our garbage was added to the top of our rent, but for some reason we were still waiting for that bill until Rosa showed up about a week ago to let us know we hadn't paid it yet. Oops... made that change to our monthly rent {set up on direct payment} adding in the garbage- an additional $40 USD per month just for collection. What a headache. I'm headed in tomorrow to see if the man who did the newcomer orientation will help me out. I'm sure he'll remember me- the one crying just having to state my name and how long we are stationed here. I just looked up his email address and see his title is: Cultural Adaptation Liaison Officer. He's German but speaks very clear English- I'm pretty sure he's exactly who I need to help me figure this out. {I'll try to hold back the tears this time.} Hopefully, this is another one of those areas that we'll laugh about later. This learning curve is about killing me.