R E C Y C L I N G

All trash is not created equal here in Germany. Their recycling system is actually quite impressive- a way of living, not optional. While I understand the wisdom behind it, it's not easy for a girl who has {{never}} recycled in her life. I about freaked out when we saw the size of our garbage can. I think it's about 1/4 of the size of our old trash can and we had trouble fitting everything in it for our weekly pick up. I now realize that not much goes in there- it's all separated in different bags. It's crazy to have to actually think before throwing something away.

The bags were all delivered to our house with a little information note attached. Even including the English translation, it's still a little tricky to understand. The number of bags you get depends on your family size- you can't buy them at the store, they're delivered twice a year. We have clear, yellow and blue bags. Clear is for glass only which is only picked up every four weeks. Blue is for clean paper, cardboard, newspapers, magazines. But, no paper towel or anything dirty. This is picked up every two weeks. Yellow is for synthetic materials, metals and composite materials. Not to be confused with compost as I did... Only plastic containers, cartons, aluminum, foil, lids. Milk is sold in half gallon cartons which are easy to wash out and fold flat- using less space. Everything has to be washed out (or spoon clean). Our schedule says this gets picked up every two weeks, but we still haven't had ours collected- not sure when. Everything else goes in the black "regular" garbage can which is collected every two weeks as well. Right now, our trash sits out like this (along with another bag next to the sink for wet items) which drives me crazy... but, once we get our houshold goods (including our trash cans) I'll better be able to organize. All in time...

Landstuhl Hospital

I'm trying really hard to focus on what I'm grateful for especially with times being a little challenging right now. Lately, I've focused on how blessed I am to have my family healthy and to have my husband home. A couple weeks ago, we ended up in the ER at the hospital here- Landstuhl hospital. I had a UTI that I had been fighting for a couple weeks and needed to be seen. It was the weekend, so we had to go to the ER, the clinic was closed. Before arriving here, we heard this was one of the best hospitals in the world. I think it is the largest hospital outside of the US. You don't usually think of a military hospital as being one of the best in the world- this one is.

Landstuhl treats all patients, trauma and non-trauma, evacuated from both combat zones (Iraq and Afghanistan), to include coalition military members and civilian government employees and civilian contractors. We knew before coming over here that the soldiers from the war were transported to this hospital. Sitting in the waiting room brought the reality of the war to life. While waiting to be seen, they brought down four or five soldiers from the upper levels of the hospital to transport elsewhere- likely back to the US. Obvious they were injured in combat; seeing them, we felt closer to the war than ever before. Almost felt like being in the middle of the war zone. As the elevator doors opened and the stretchers were wheeled out, each soldier had different injuries- some more obvious than others. One image I will never forget was a soldier with stitches all the way around his head. I couldn't help but wonder what damage was done and what road he had ahead. Another looked as though he had an arm injury or possibly lost his arm in the war. It was bandaged from top to bottom. Each was lay still on the stretcher- most looked heavily sedated. There was almost a reverence in the waiting room- a quiet as each passed through. These soldiers and what they sacrificed made me feel as though my UTI was no longer of any significance. I also couldn't help but feel grateful to them for their service and also overwelmed with emotion as I sat there holding my husband's hand.

happy birthday J U S T I N

I can't believe my little boy is 17 years old today! Lucky for us, we have little Caden to remind us of exactly how Justin was as a little guy! No Texas Roadhouse for dinner, or even steaks on the grill. He's had a good attitude though, I think he requested Subway for dinner tonight! We'll get back to his favorite- steak and shrimp next year! Happy Birthday, Justin!!!

It just wasn't the same- he really missed his friends...

It has to get EASIER

It was a nice weekend with plenty of down time. Sundays are family day in Germany- a concept that I do love. You're not allowed to work outdoors (no lawn mowing, etc...) and it's a quiet day. It actually was nice to have a family day to just chill together.
Today started out alright. I had a spouses orientation on base for 3 1/2 hours. Jim went in to work, left to pick me up and drop me off at my class. He kept Caden in his office for the morning. At 12:30, my class was over so he picked me up and drove us both home and dropped us off since he had to go back to work. We had to go around the table and say our name and how long we were stationed here. Out of no where, I fell apart. Tears didn't flow but my eyes welled up and I struggled to talk. I got my name out, it was the "t h r e e y e a r s" that I had a tough time saying. It's been a long three weeks, how am I going to make it three years? Of course, the AF Chaplin was in there waiting to brief us, and a family support person ready as well. I think they were both ready to take me in and give me therapy or religion since their comments were totally directed to me. I let the Chaplin know I really was ok, I haven't cried for 2 weeks now... doing better. Anyhow, I learned good information- lots of the German culture and got some help with RECYCLING... aah... so complicated!

Not long after Jim dropped us back off at home, I went outside with Lady and Caden followed... closing the door behind him. Another thing we can't figure out are these doors. They lock as you close them- they're awful. So after 3 years of yelling to keep the doors shut to keep the AC in, we're saying... make sure you don't close the door and get locked out. I always put a towel in front of the door because I've been so afraid this would happen to me. It did. I found a neighbor across the street home, thank goodness as I showed up with a dog and kid as I'm wearing slippers- nice. Then, I didn't know Jim's number at work or even what unit he's in. I know it's Headquarters something which means nothing since this base is Headquarters for everything in Europe. I finally called the school, asked for them to look up his office number (he wasn't in his office, of course), then got his supervisor's number which we happened to leave as an emergency number. He finally tracked Jim down and I got the call back that he was on the way. It has to get easier... I keep telling myself. I think we'll be getting extra keys made to keep outside.

Centigrade to Fahrenheit

We have this thing called the Find-It-Guide. Maybe, I should use it more. It's a pretty cool book aka the phone book here. In the middle of it there are all kinds of helpful things... how to get around, driving in Germany, Recycling (still trying to figure it out), restauraunts and a FULL page of just conversions. The first day we arrived, Jim's sponsor dropped us off at our hotel and showed us a few things. He showed us how to open, crack and shut the windows, and how to open the blinds. He's the one who helped Ty flush the toilet. And, he said... on the oven that 200C is 350 degrees. Easy enough until we went to cook for the first time- didn't work, we had to crank the stove up to about 250C before our food started to really heat up. So, moving in to our house, I didn't think it would be different- wrong. Tonight, we threw in some mini pizzas for dinner- personal pan size. I just cranked the oven on to what we had it at the hotel- somewhere around 275 degrees C thinking that would work. Of course, buying them at the commissary, the directions are all in F... Yep, they're toast. Jim went to check on them- the next thing I know he's throwing them outside to avoid smoking our house out. Heaven help us if the alarm goes off- we'd probably NEVER figure out how to turn it off and would end up with the German Fire Department at our house! Looking at our Find It Guide (after the fact) 260 C is about 500 degrees... yep, trying to broil our pizzas, not so good! Might have to rip this page out and keep it on the fridge! Have I mentioned how hard it is to adjust over here? We did have a nice chicken salad to go with our pizza. Without bowls, we had to mix it up in our pot. Oh, some day we'll look back on this time and laugh, right?

Just an example...
GROCERY EQUIVALENTS
If you want... ask for
1 oz.... 25 grams
1/4 lb... 113 grams
1/3 lb... 150 grams
1/2 lb... 227 grams
3/4 lb... 340 grams
1 lb... 454 grams
I'm not a numbers person to start with... how am I ever going to remember this? YIKES!

my new workout

Stairs... doesn't this look like a LOT?! I never ever remember even thinking before walking up or down our stairs in Kansas. We had a ranch-style home with a daylight basement. Oh, I miss it! Justin said we had 13 stairs- not sure how he remembered that! Don't know how I didn't remember after walking them how many thousand times? In our house now, I don't go up or down without thinking of how many stairs we have. With three floors of house, we have two full staircases- 15 stairs in each set. For some reason, it seems like a lot of stairs to me- especially as I go from the top floor with laundry down to the lower level laundry room, then back up to the top. Yes, I'm out of shape, and I know I sound crazy. I guess they had to build the houses up in order to make room for all the people in this small country. Our 4 1/2 acres in Kansas seems like heaven now being surrounded on all sides with neighbors!

a couple COOL things

There is a lot that we just don't get over here. I'm sure it's part of any culture- simply differences we have to adjust to since we're in a foreign country. I don't get why there is NO storage over here. Maybe the reason IKEA is so big. Not even a cupboard under the bathroom sink and NO built-in closets. I don't get it. There is a big problem with mold in bathrooms since they don't have fans. I guess you're supposed to keep the window cracked, but I don't get why they don't just put in a simple fan. The hotel we stayed at was nice, but the mold in the bathroom was awful. So gross to me. On the flip side, we've already discovered a few cool things they do over here.
** Blinds are on the outside of the houses. What a cool idea especially since I HATE dusting blinds. Jim loves it because they make the room super dark when you close them- better chances of Coleman & Caden sleeping past the crack of dawn. Of course, it's already super dark right now being winter, but I'm sure we'll love it even more once we have a little daylight again.
** The windows are pretty cool. It's a litle hard to see from this photo but, if you turn the handle upward- it cracks the window open from the top. (handy in the moisture-trapped bathrooms) It seems almost as if it's going to fall out of the frame. Turn the handle to the side and the window opens all the way, just like a door opens on the hinges. Super nice to clean them- especially the 2nd and 3rd stories of most houses. Handle straight down locks the window shut. I still have to think before opening a window... every single time... but think they're pretty cool.
** Toilets are mounted to the wall, not the floor. Why? So you can clean under them. I love this idea- especially with a house of boys who sometimes miss the toilet. I especially love this idea with four toilets to keep clean in this house. No more nasty screws to clean on the floor or the stupid plastic screw covers that NEVER seem to stay on to hide them. Oh, I LOVE clean bathrooms.
** Continuing with the bathroom, we have super cool towel-drying racks in our bathrooms. You adjust the heat with the twist of the knob. Turn it on a little when you get in the shower and you have a warm towel to dry off with. Hang your towel up after use and it drys quickly. Cool idea.
** They use duvets rather than heavy quilts. At least at the hotel they did. Makes sense especially when you consider washing the lightweight cover would be much quicker and use less electricity. Again, that conservative lifestyle Germans live. On the down side- NO sheets - just a bottom sheet and the duvet. This drove me crazy at the hotel since I ended up in the crack every night. For our bed, we had two singles squished together, then each our own duvet. Since clean, crisp sheets are on my top 5 FAVORITE things in LIFE, I don't see giving them up any time soon. Also, I love my blankets... but, the duvet thing is a cool idea. I'm sure I'll be adding to this list...

1, 2, 3, 4, 5... ready or not

The boys had a great game of hide-and-go-seek over the weekend. I'm pretty sure the big guys had more fun than the little guys. Kept all four of them entertained for a solid two hours, which isn't always so easy to do! When it was Coleman & Caden's turn to hide, Justin and Ty would count then yell "Ready?" Without fail, the little guys would give away their hiding places yelling back with a huge, "READY." Ahhh... so much fun! Caden fit well in this cupboard (Justin's idea), then Ty decided to squeeze in. The door actually closed- Justin didn't fit quite as well! With no TV, they're definitely coming up with other things to occupy the time.

Ty's German S N O W M A N

Oh, my sweet Ty has so missed the snow! He's my one kid who misses Alaska weather. The rest of us- not so much! It's still snowing- the wet snowball kind of snow. We took the scary drive in to town last night for Coleman's music program; Ty stayed home- outside the entire time working on his snowman. He made the snowballs in back and carried them up our steep side to be able to set his snowman up in front. He was tired! He also had time (with Caden as his partner) to have a snowball fight with our new (German side) neighbors. I'm sure they're happy to see us move in, haha! Ty's bloody noses have returned along with winter, but he wouldn't let that stop construction on his mega-man. Today is a snow day, so I'm sure he's going to put the finishing touches on him. Plus, I hear there may be a SnowTay in the making... I think we shoveled maybe a couple times (total) in the three years we spent in Kansas. Oh, not the case here. We have read it's the law to keep your sidewalk clean. After meeting new neighbors (across the street) last night, we learned these Germans are no joke. They had the police show up at their door to let them know they better shovel or they'd be given a ticket. Guess we won't wait for our household goods (including 3 shovels from Alaska) to show up... we'll be buying one ASAP. As expensive as it is here, we definitely can't afford a ticket!

half a S I N K

I woke up this morning feeling ready for the new week. Snow is once again falling, and I'm working to appreciate its beauty. This is the view out my bedroom window. I decided to try really, really hard to change my outlook and be a little more positive. Then, I did the dishes. We rarely leave dirty dishes overnight, but last night was one of those nights. I just don't know how Germans do it! We have a dishwasher, but don't really want our SOLO dishes to melt so we've done them by hand. Plus, we only have 1 pan and 1 pot right now, so what you see on the counter is it! The boys have been drinking out of Gatorade bottles, Jim's actually been using a cleaned out Smucker's jelly jar. We all know it's temporary. Doesn't seem like it would be that hard to wash, right? Wrong. Feels like I'm camping with NO space. We do know we have to get an island or table or something to extend the work space and move the microwave. That will free up the 2nd half of our "counter" and help a little. But, on top of this limited counter space, I only have one side of the sink. What the heck? Thankfully, my parents taught me really well to hand wash dishes (thanks, m & d) but... how am I supposed to do it with only half a sink? There's no place to rinse without making a mess! I've tried filling the sink with water and the dishes, then set them up on the 2nd (useless) side to rinse. Problem is you can only fit about 2-3 things up there at a time to dry on my laid- out towel. By the time I'm finished, I'm soaked as the water goes everywhere... It was really fun trying to rinse the pot with the sink still full of water. Guess I should have done it last?! Who knows? The dishes are clean, but I know there has to be an easier way!

caden & coleman

I love finding random photos on my camera. Looks like Coleman took this one of Caden, and Caden took the one of Coleman playing in their new bedroom. They must have since I didn't take either of them! Crazy kids... they're excited to have their own space again, if it's not obvious!

Our PINK wall

I can't believe I forgot to add a photo of the pink wall in our house on here! It's quite bright, on all three levels. I guess it's our landlord's idea of an accent wall. Maybe, it's a Russian thing... who knows! I won't be paining anything in this house, so we'll have to learn to live with it! After just two days here, I think I might be able to lose weight after all... with three stinkin flights of stairs. Especially since the laundry is on the bottom level, our bedroom is on the middle level and the boys rooms are on top. That's a lot of running... Plus, I think it might help kick my "midnight waking up to snack habit..." I'd have to go too far. Plus, this house seems super tall for some reason-Jim thinks the ceilings are 9' tall at least. Not sure why, but it's tall!

This is one of our toilets. There are two buttons on the wall behind to flush it. The large one is for big flushes, the smaller one for little flushes. It's that conservative thing again. Very smart, reminds us of how wasteful we are.

two LONG weeks

It's been just over two weeks since we arrived in Germany. We slept in our new house last night for the first time on borrowed furniture from the base since our household goods have yet to arrive. We feel one step closer to becoming a little more settled. Here are just a few things we've learned in this foreign land...
* NOTHING is for convenience. It seems to be a practical country and everything seems to be done for a reason. No drive throughs is a small example.
* Recycling is not an option- it's a way of life. The garbage company dropped off our bags with specific instructions of what goes in to each bag. I'm still trying to figure out how to throw the trash away... I'll have a full blog post about this in the very near future.
* Hotels (at least ours) charge for use of their room phone. We made LOCAL calls and 800 calls that we thought were free. Not so, as we learned upon checking out. Our bill was 122 Euro, over $150 USD. Yes, we're still in shock- that was just two weeks, thank goodness we didn't stay longer.
* Building on the phone bill. Everything is expensive, nothing is free. We've heard utilities are super expensive- we're quite afraid to see our first bills as they trickle in next month. We're back to paying for water after enjoying well water in our KS home with no bill. Yes, Tyler is going to have to learn to take quick showers!
* All bottled water is not the same. Justin learned this day one as he tried out the mineral water. We now know that we prefer "tap" water.
* Rental car companies expect to be full of gas (no paying for them to fill it when you return it) and vacuumed out upon return. There was a little (we only had the stupid car 24 hrs) dog hair in ours and the lady couldn't believe we allowed our dog in it. Out of exhaustion and absolute desperation, Jim lied {a little} and told the lady our dog was sick and we had to take Lady to the vet. No sympathy- she smacked him with a $50 late fee & said, "Guess you've learned your lesson."
* Everything is super slow except Germans are crazy fast drivers. Yes, they zoom past on the Autobahn- we expected that. But, through these villages that twist and wind up and down hills- that's a different story. There's no slowing down- even when you come to a blind corner with a mirror posted on the road so you can see what's coming. Yikes! Plus,these roads are super narrow. In addition, they have no problem getting right on your tail- no car length in between you and the car in front of you over here!
* Lateless is not acceptable. On time is late. Jim might be a little happy he doesn't have to kick me in to gear to get places on time... I'm learning.
* We didn't have a problem being late to school not one but TWO days this week as it was a 2-hour delay that we didn't know about. At first, we thought we were doing great getting there before everyone else, then felt stupid as we realized we really were the only ones to show up early. Yes, the boys were really happy. We now have the Web site to check it out before hand.
* Germans honk their horns generously. I feel some times like we have a "honk" if you're... on written on our window.
* Germans like to take their walks- I hope to to enjoy this as soon as it warms up a tad. Weather doesn't seem to stop them, but this chick doesn't do cold too well!
* Phone numbers don't all have the same number of digits. We just got a home phone number, and I think it's like 10 or 11 digits. That's calling locally- even with an area code in the US, it's 10 digits max. Don't think I'll be memorizing anyone's number... actually, we might have to cancel our phone service after paying to use a hotel phone. Not sure we want to see a bill- I can live without it.
* No paying at the pump for gas- again, nothing is for convenience.

* Feels a lot like Alaska. It snowed last week and it's still on the ground. It's bitter cold and gets super dark early. Also, the water comes out of the tap icy, frosty cold- one thing I do love!
* The language is definitely a barrier, which make me even more determined to start studying German again. I've always felt somewhat competent and able... not here! Even Google and Explorer are in German on our compter. I haven't figured out how to permanently change it to English, so I can't even spell check here... it all comes up flagged as misspelled... of course, it's in English! Please excuse the spelling errors... I'm on my own here!
* Change is hard. Growing pains hurt! As our neighbor said tonight, "It's painful- you just get numb to it after a while." We heard so many times how wonderful it is over here... trying to stay optimistic and hope to start enjoying it soon!

Laundry... our Downy addiction

We go through SO much LAUNDRY! My washer/dryer is one thing I've definitely missed since experiencing hotel life in this foreign country. In our hotel, they hang everything up to dry since utilities are so expensive. They said if they used the dryer for everything, they'd be bankrupt. In a way, it feels like they're a bit behind the times- in so many other ways smart and conservative. I sure hope to embrace this way of living with less waste. To do laundry, I have to ask for help from the owner as you can see from the machine, it's a little hard to read. The washers are much smaller and take an hour for a normal cycle. The dryers (just as small) and take TWO hours to dry. Even then, clothes are still not crisp and dry as I'm used to. In addition- here at the hotel they charge 6 Euro to wash/dry a load. Today, that's about $8 - $9 USD. I've been making the boys (all of us) wear jeans 2-3days, but they have to change underwear & socks daily...
Luckily, the base is loaning us appliances for our house and we requested an American washer/dryer. Once we get our first bill (electric), I think we'll seriously consider putting up a drying line in the laundry room. My boys (especially the little ones) are addicted to Downy in their laundry- don't think we can give that up any time soon!