I love Silent Sundays

Mark and I try at least once a month to observe silent Sundays at our house. What that means is no tv, iPod or radio....just amazing what you can hear when there is no background noise. Today I'm sitting in the tv room just surfing the net and stitching while mark is sitting here reading and clarice is quietly snoring behind his chair. We can hear the birds chirping and even heard a woodpecker in the tree behind the house. So relaxing and I hope everyone of my friends in blog land is enjoying their Sunday as well. We still don't have a contract, move date or place to live but hey, life is good! We're happy, healthy and in love so what more could you want out of life? Well I'm off to stitch a little more and start thinking about what we're going to have for dinner.....can anyone else say reservations as quickly as I can? Lol

A week later and still no apartment

I swear I have typed this message like 3 or 4 times now.  Can I just say that I now hate the new blogger?  It's driving me crazy and I do mean crazy.

Well after a week in Germany we still don't have a place to live.  I knew things would be handled differently over there but had no idea just how different.  For instance to view an apartment for rent, your "realtor" must be there, yourself (of course) the listing realtor, the landlord and if currently rented the occupant....can you see just how hard it can be to get all these schedules to line up correctly?  And my realtor is in her 70's and doesn't believe in GPS, Google directions or I swear even using a map....every wrong turn is just a "new way" or adventure...OMG!  I thought I would strangle her by the end of day 4 when I had only seen 4 apartments all week long.  We were so late to a couple of the appointments that we couldn't see them!  I'm going bonkers and we still don't have a place to live.  At this poiint, we're thinking just set a move date and go over, stay in a hotel while I find us a suitable apartment.  That may truly be the only way because apartments are gone within a day of being listed in the areas that we liked so that means there is no way to rent stateside because you can't ask them to hold it until you can fly back to Germany. 

I'll post more about my adventuress later tonight hopefully when blogger is working better for me.  Besides I'm on my lunch hour and need to get back to work now.  Yes we flew back yesterday about 4PM and went to work today.  We're crazy!

Greetings from Germany

Well guys and dolls, I'm sitting here in our hotel room in Heidelberg Germany getting ready to met the real estate ladies to look at housing. I'm really scared and excited at the same time. We left Sunday afternoon and arrived here Monday morning. After we arrived at our hotel 3 hours before checkin time, we weren't expecting much but they welcomed us quite graciously. Mark had conference calls scheduled so them allowing us into the room early was a lot less stress for us. I laid around reading while he conducted business then we went exploring. We're staying downtown so we lacked, walked and walked some more but we had a lot of fun. We had a wonderful meal because it's white asparagus season here which I love! I had basically a simple meal of boiled potatoes, ham and asparagus with hollandiase sauce smothering everything...yummo! And some German white wine which was a perfect addition to my meal. Then we went back to the hotel by 8:00 we were in bed. Jet lag! But I woke this morning to share breakfast with mark then sent him off on his way so I could catch up on blog land before I started my day. Wish me luck with the house hunting adventure and I'll be sure to post thru out the week so y'all can keep up with this exciting adventure with us.

Anyone speak German?

Me either but starting to look like that will be changing very soon! I'm so excited about embarking on this adventure with Mark but not foolish enough to think it's gonna be an easy change. We're headed over next Saturday for me to look around and find us somewhere to live. As mark told the realty lady, this is my chance to live in a old home! Yippee! Things are very different over there and when they list a place as "unfurnished" they mean without even kitchen cabinets, sink, ect.... Omg! Things have started moving quickly now and I've even been packing stuff up already. I have been doing a lot of online research aka scoping out people's blogs and there are a lot of ExPats in the area that we're targeting to live. I've started a notebook of things to pack, things to find out before we move and things to do at the last minute. This is the only way I can sleep at night because once I write it down in the notebook, I can stop obsessing about it. This notebook is never far away from me because I'm constantly thinking of stuff to add. Anyone else have a method that works for them? And of course, clarice will be moving with us but we are struggling with how we are going to move the boys. Hubert and Gizmo are 10 year old, have lived in 3 states in their lifetime but are very much independent outside kitties. Giz just goes bonkers if you try to bring him in the house without leaving an outside door open for him to escape thru. That probably stems from being cooped up in temporary housing and boarded for 6 weeks when we moved to Atlanta but I really worry about him adapting to another move. We've decided to leave our home as is for now because let's face it, we're seriously upside down like 99% of everyone living in the Atlanta area. We may have to ask Donna and Morgan look after Giz and Hubert until we make a trip home in the fall. That's such a huge favor to ask our neighbors but I know they will take care of my babies as well as I would. We are so lucky to have such amazing friends living right next door to us. I will miss them so much but they swear they will come visit us and I know they will. I have been doing some major stash building to get prepared for the move. A gal must have everything she could possibly imagine stitching and any excuse to build stash is a good excuse. LOL! I made a trip to Terri's store, The Stitch Store today and got the newest Blackbird Design's Loose Feathers release Mary Ann Blackburn along with a few more must have patterns. I just get lost wandering around her store but was sorry I missed Joey today ' cause he didn't go to work with her today. I have never been without a job since I got my very first job at Long John Silvers when I was 16 and let's just say that was a long, long time ago. I plan on stitching a lot, not to mention taking German lessons and exploring my new surroundings. Also Mark's company is going to give me a decorating budget so I will be buying everything from dishes, linens, furniture, ect and when we move back to the states they will keep everything to furnish a company apartment. How fun is this going to be? We're not moving anything wih us except a few boxes so I'll have free rein to make this apartment anything I want. We're already planning that whatever antiques I purchase will be "ours" to ship home when we head back to the states in 24 to 36 months. Wahoo! See why I'm excited now? Well Happy Easter everyone and I'll let you know how things are progressing again after next week. Donna