Tuesday, January 29, 2013

March 2018

It is official. Our extension got approved. We still have a year to finish up our first tour, then we've got four more years on top of that. Meaning we won't move from Germany until 2018. Gulp.

I got the "official" email from Josh when I was at work today. I did a happy dance. I am happy and excited since this is what we wanted. However, seeing in bold print "March 2018" is a bit daunting and overwhelming. Our time here so far has flown by, and I'm sure the next few years will continue to do so. I just hope I am still this happy and excited four years from now... This news does come with a bit of mixed emotions, nonetheless I am still excited.

Let's continue this German adventure!

Saturday, January 26, 2013

The Move Begins

This weekend marks the beginning of our move. We are fortunate to have landlords who are quite understanding and flexible. Although we don't "officially" move or live there until February 1st, we already have the keys to the new house. Last weekend (when we were signing papers and I was snapping pictures) we were able to take some things to the house to store in the garage. A few walls in the house were being painted to "freshen it up" a touch. However, the painting should be complete by now and we have the green light to start moving in "whenever." This weekend Josh and I are trying to move as much stuff as we can to the new place. It will mainly be things which are easy to move or are already set up for storage (such as extra luggage, plastic bins of Christmas decorations, ect). Next weekend will be the big move of furniture. Or, as I've been calling it, the "official" move. Fingers crossed and positive thoughts about getting this done quickly and without problems.

This has made me think a lot about moving. For someone my age I feel like I've moved a fair amount. A lot of my moves have been from one apartment to another or an apartment to my house... but practice makes perfect. When the military moves us we are fortunate enough to have a moving company which packs all of our stuff for us. However, since Josh and I are switching houses, we have to pack our stuff ourselves. We've both been taking time here and there to pack up some of our stuff into boxes. Again, not my first time doing this. Which leads me to my next point. Here are a few things I'll share with you.

First, have a method or some thoughts to your packing. Only put like items together in a box. For example, only put dishes together, or only kitchen items in a box. Don't mix kitchen with bedroom. It will make for an un-packing nightmare and it makes it harder to remember where you put things.

Second, clearly label your boxes. Say what room it is for, and then write the top three big items in the box (Example: Kitchen, kitchenaid, food processor, mixing bowls).

Here are the two biggest things to abide by, and this can apply to any move whether you are the person doing the packing or someone else is doing it for you. First, when  you get to the new house put the boxes is the room where they belong. For example, put all your kitchen boxes in or near the kitchen, bedroom furniture in the respective bedrooms, ect. I know it seems like a better idea to keep things out of the rooms so you have some space to work/it isn't as cluttered, but it will save you time because you won't have to reposition or move boxes later. Another reason to put the boxes in the room where they go  is my second point - if the box is sitting there staring you in the face, you will unpack it. Simple enough. If you put your boxes down in your basement or another "central area" it will take you years to unpack it or go through it. I speak from example. Currently all of my stuff is unpacked. But, in previous moves I have left certain things boxed up as a method of storage because I wasn't sure where to put something, or what I was going to do with it. Some things you do store (such as Christmas items, things you rarely use, ect). But. In all honesty, if it stays in that box for very long, it is obviously something you don't use very often. Do you really need it? On my last move (from Montana to Germany) I had a few boxes of things I had not unpacked when I moved from my apartment to my house. I had lived in my house for almost two years. If I hadn't felt the need to use anything in that box for two years... well, how important was it really? Those items didn't make the overseas move. Too often we hang onto items for the sentimental reasons. Getting rid of the item doesn't change your memories or how you feel about that item or the events surrounding it. But there really isn't a point to hanging on to certain things. Obviously, there are exceptions to this rule, but I find that thinking of things in this way helps me to get rid of clutter and generally have less "stuff." Just a thought and a tip to think about.

Cheers to our move - may it be as smooth as possible!

Sunday, January 20, 2013

New House


This afternoon we went to do some more paperwork for our new house. We met with the landlord, signed some papers, and of course spent far too much time afterwards hanging out drinking beer. I had promised multiple people to take some pictures to show the new house. This seemed to be the easiest way to show it off. Anywhere (except the stairs) where it looks like carpet is actually a covering while the inside is painted. Under it is hardwood floors. Now bare with me as I narrate our house... 
 The front of the new house. There is a little yard in front with a tree - we plan to put a bird feeder here for the kitties. 

 This is right as you walk in the front door. Stairs to go upstairs - or head down the hallway. The door by the stairs leads to the basement. The tiny door Josh is blocking is to a little WC. If you round the corner you will see the living room/dining room.

 The living room. It is actually really big, but it was hard to try and it all into one photo.
 The living room is to the right. This is thedining room (which doesn't look so open right now) which is to the left. It is open between the two rooms. Where you see the gal in the white jacket is the door to the kitchen. The kitchen is smaller width wise than my current kitchen, but it has tons of cupboards and a dishwasher. I am excited.

 Now we have moved upstairs. This is the main bathroom with a shower, tub, and such.

 Right next to the bathroom is the master bedroom. It doesn't look like much now, but it is quite large.
 This is another bedroom. It is quite small, and I'm planning on making it into one giant closet. Seriously. A giant clothes room/closet since the shrunks we get (pictured above) take up a lot of room.
 Another bedroom. This will be the guest bedroom. So to recap - the second floor has a bathroom, master bedroom, guest bedroom, and small bedroom I will make a closet.
 This is the top floor of the house - it is one giant room. We aren't 100% what we are going to do with it - most likely have it be a multifunctional room... workout equipment, craft things...
 ...as well as an office (in the wood area - it's bigger than it looks).
 This is the basement. Not terribly pretty, but lots of storage space. In the room near this storage area is more storage and our washer/dryer. This area leads up to our "garage" - just like a normal garage only there isn't a door which a car could fit through.

 The backyard. I didn't feel like going out into the snow to take pictures.

 The view of the backyard through our patio door - this is in the dining room.
 This is the view of the front door entry-way.

There ya have it - the nickle tour. I am excited to re-post some pictures after we get our stuff moved inside and it looks like a "real" home.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Finn Bread

To start - no we haven't heard anything yet on our extension. Eh... par for the course. Told you will know one day and now just waiting. I am still doing pretty good at being patient.

Now onto Finn Bread. Finn bread is a bread my Grandma Betty always made. I discovered as an adult the reason it is called finn bread (by my family. I have no idea if it has an official name or not) is because my Grandma learned the recipe from her mother-in-law who was a Finnish immigrant. That's it. Finn bread which is the creation of a Finn. Okay.

My Grandma baked bread twice a week when my dad was growing up. My dad is the oldest of four, and this recipe makes four loaves of bread. I can only guess she had to make bread this often just to keep up with her growing kids. For my brother and I it was always a special treat to go to Grandma's house and have finn bread, as Grandma was the only one who made it. Finn bread is a dense cracked wheat bread which has a wonderful crust. We used to eat it with everything and used it for toast and sandwiches, but I do believe it is the perfect soup bread.

When I got older I asked my mom why she never made finn bread. She told me she had the recipe and had tried to make it, but it didn't turn out right. I accepted this answer for a few years... and then after my other Grandma passed away, I realized there were so many things I had wanted to know, to ask her, to learn... and I would never have the chance to. However, I still had the chance to learn about finn bread. If I didn't learn, the recipe would die when Grandma did. That year at Christmas I asked Grandma to go through step by step how she made her bread, and we wrote down a recipe. As you can imagine, my Grandma was one of those bakers who didn't really measure. Everything she did was by sight/feel, and she knew the steps by heart. So I had to slow her down a bit and make her measure things out, and we would have to add more of things here and there to make it "look right." It turns out the recipe my mom had gotten had all sorts of wrong measurements. No wonder her bread didn't turn out. After my lesson (and with the proper recipe) I was able to make finn bread many times after that. When my Grandma Betty passed away last year it made  me even more grateful that we had spent our time together in the kitchen.

Now Josh has been bugging asking me to make finn bread since I got to Germany. He's heard about it, but never had it. It has taken me awhile to agree to it. First, to make finn bread does take a bit of time devotion (let the bread raise, punch it down, let it raise, knead it, form loaves, let them raise...) and I basically have to get started in the morning on a day off to do it. Second, I was a bit intimidated by my small German oven. In the states I could bake two loaves at once, and I knew how my oven worked (it's quirks). Over here I'm still adjusting to the small oven, and I'm still learning the quirks. I just wasn't sure if it would make a difference if the last loaf had to sit out and "raise" for a considerably longer time than the other loaves, and I didn't want to try freezing the dough. The other obstacle I kept facing was finding the ingredients I needed. This recipe uses molasses, and I thought it would be easy to find on base, but it wasn't. It took me months of looking to find molasses on base. Or rather for the base to get it in stock. My mom was about to ship me some from the states when I found it. The other ingredient I struggled to find was cracked wheat. Not cracked wheat flour, the actual wheat. After searching and searching on base, I figured my last hope was to try and find it at a German grocery store. Josh and I were grocery shopping at our local German store last week when he remembered to look for cracked wheat. Low and behold, we found it. I finally had everything I needed.

Yesterday we woke up to about four inches of new snow. Not much by Montana standards, but it is the most snow we've had since we've been here. The base will rate the road conditions (a color system - green, amber, red, black. You can figure it out I'm sure) and based upon these road conditions determines if there is a "snow day." Yesterday was a snow day - schools were closed, and Josh didn't have to go into work. It was kind of weird having him home, and it sort of threw off my daily game plan. Instead of being productive and doing things I would normally do during the day, I sat around with him. It was nice, and relaxing... I just didn't get anything done. Except making finn bread. We were up early, we had nothing to do, and the house was cold. I had everything I needed so... what the hell. Let's make some bread.
 Here is my tiny oven - a friend of mine refers to it as the "Barbie oven." Hopefully my stock pot on top could give you a bit of a size frame of reference.
 The best thing I bought at a Christmas market this year - kitty cat coffee cup. AND in Germany they already had my name - spelled correctly and everything! No special request needed.
 Welcome to my life. The giant box next to my beautiful mixer is a transformer - which changes the electrical current so I can use my US 110 volt appliances. Many people offered to "watch" my Kitchenaid for me when I moved overseas. HA! In your dreams. Look at me now.
 Done raising - ready to go in the oven.
I was surprised to discover I could fit both loaves in there. Please do not judge my dirty oven door. 

All in all it was a success, and it took less time than I thought it would. I did not take any pictures of the after products (because I was busy sampling, and keeping Josh from eating an entire loaf of bread), but I promise they turned out beautiful. Success!!

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Failing resolutions

I was going to start this post by saying that I am keeping up with my goal (resolution) to try not to stress and to take things as they come on the topic of us staying in Germany. Instead this morning I had a mild panic attack. It is January 10th and I've pretty much already botched my resolution. Hmm. Pretty typical for me. I made it a whole ten days.

Surprisingly it wasn't me getting impatient and freaking out because I want to know what exactly is going to happen at this exact moment in time. I have been too busy thinking about moving, attempting to make plans for our move, and starting back to school to really focus on waiting for an answer. Instead what triggered my anxiety was a revelation I had in the middle of a video lecture this morning. I will be done with classes (barring any catastrophes or major problems) this summer. I thought I would be done this coming winter. Although it's not that much sooner, I really wasn't prepared mentally for the idea of being done sooner. I had thought (hoped) I would have made contact with people on base in health education-esk fields by now. It made me start to think about what I want to do next (all while still "watching" a video lecture)... and I realized I really can't make any decisions about the future until we know if we are staying or leaving. If we are leaving I can't make any decisions until I know where we are headed.

If we stay here, I would ultimately like to try to find a job on base to utilize my new degree. I am hoping I can find something in the public health department of the hospital, or the health education component of the gym. I would like to gain experience once I have the fancy new piece of paper in hand, and honestly I'd like to be done commuting an hour to work. But... in a way it is hard to face the idea of saying goodbye (temporarily? I don't know) to hygiene. And to say goodbye to my fabulous paycheck. But. Then again, having my Masters degree could open the door to a great contractor position on base which would be an equally wonderful paycheck. Money isn't really such a big deal, but it is hard to adjust to a smaller income.

But what if we stay and (yet again) I can't find a job in the field? Or they don't think I have enough experience? I thought a lot about these possibilities... and came to the conclusion that I am just crazy enough to consider the idea of going on for more fancy pieces of paper and initials behind my name. Now don't ask me anything beyond that, because I wasted a good half hour today trying to answer questions for myself and couldn't.

And then there is the what if we can't stay... then what? I guess I haven't really even gotten that far yet. I guess I'll think about that one when I have a direction. Oh. Well hey there. Maybe my resolution is still in place? Eh? Letting things go and trying not to stress over what I can't control.

Anyways. The silver lining to all this is two things: at the end of summer I should have my Masters and should *hopefully* have taken/passed my Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES) exam, and by Friday/Monday we should have an answer about our extension. So. I suppose I really only have to be patient and wait a few more days. Which, in a way, makes me even more nervous.

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Into the New Year

Happy New Year!! I hope everyone had wonderful holidays. We certainly did. We left Baden Baden on Christmas Eve morning and got home in the early afternoon. We went to a friends house to have a wonderful evening full of food and games. In the morning we opened up our presents. Thank you to all the people who took the time to send us packages - it definitely adds to what is under the tree, and it is so fun to have more to open. We felt your love. After opening our presents we sat around being lazy for the morning. In the afternoon went went to Melissa's house. Melissa hosted an early Christmas dinner for her husband's shop earlier in the week. We had agreed to just do something low key and laid back for Christmas. Our dinner included leftovers from the early Christmas dinner and skewers Josh BBQed. We sat around and watched movies. It was another wonderful, lazy evening full of food.

Josh was blessed this year - he had about 10 days off in a row (he only had to go "check in" at work twice), which he says has never happened in his whole career. I also had that time off. At first we were trying to think of something we could do between Christmas and New Years travel wise. As always, I wasn't lacking in ideas. However, right before Christmas we finally found a new house to rent. The house is in the same village as one of Josh's co-workers and friends. The house itself is much newer and bigger than our house now. We went the day after Christmas to meet with the landlords who live next door to the rental. They were wonderful! Everyone had told us how German landlords are wonderful and will take you in to be a part of their family. We haven't experienced that. Maybe it is because our land lady is elderly and her health is failing. Or, maybe Josh and I haven't been as open and friendly as we needed to be. Either way, we generally have been annoyed with our land lady, and she seems to spend most of her time spying on us. The new landlords invited us inside, and then proceeded to be wonderful hosts. Five hours and three bottles of champagne later, we had signed our lease. I'm going to take this as a sign of good things.

Since we officially had found a place to move, and we get to start moving some things into the storage areas in two weeks, we decided to stay home and focus on packing. And by focus on packing, I mean be as lazy as humanly possible. We enjoyed our time off by watching movies (especially the new ones we got for Christmas), reading (well, I read. Josh didn't), and just generally hanging out. It was glorious. We continued in this lazy trend for New Years Eve and were in bed asleep before midnight. We lead an exciting life. However, Josh is back to work today, and this morning was the definition of a rude awakening. Back to reality.

I have been reading a lot about people's goals and resolutions for the new year. I've never been a resolution person - mainly because I lose interest quickly and usually forget what my resolution even was. However, I do have some extremely generalized goals for the coming year. Josh and I really try to take advantage of our current location by getting out and doing things (as you have read). I want us to keep on with our trend of traveling, from large trips to little day trips. However, this year I also want us to really get into the day-to-day German life. The new village we are moving into is a tight knit community (who welcomes Americans) which does a lot of celebrations. I want us to be a part of this and experience it. I have (with the help of Kristy) finally discovered and overcome my initial hesitation and irrational fear of shopping in Europe. Shopping over here is glorious. I do, however, have a hard time finding certain things (such as pants). European women tend to be shorter and slender. Two things I am not. I guess there aren't very many people over here with long legs and a booty. I suppose I will have to save my jeans shopping for the states. But, I want to continue to be brave and to seek things off base at German stores. Since we are moving soon... a goal I have is to get our new house unpacked/organized/situated as soon as possible.

A final note - it isn't a goal, but more a hope. Josh and I have enjoyed Germany (for the most part) from the first moment we got here. From the beginning we have talked about the idea of trying to stay over here longer. We enjoy it, I have a job which pays well, and there is so much we still want to see and do. Now our talking is turning into actuality. Josh got his paperwork during his "break" to put in to extend his time in Germany. To do this he has to re-enlist (something he has to do/was going to do anyways). So he completed and turned in his paperwork. Now we just need to wait... I am nervous about this. When it comes to the military and where we go, we have no control. However, I really want this to work out. But... there is plenty of possibility that it won't. So a final goal for myself is to try my best to just take things as they come to us. A lofty goal indeed.

Here is to a great 2013.