Ch ch ch ch ch ch changes...

I was biking back from the market this morning when it occurred to me just how much life has changed for us in the 16 months that we've lived in Germany. We’re living greener, less privately, and a whole lot slower. It's all good.

Take shopping, for instance. Back in Colorado I drove my big SUV (well, it was an Aztek, more of a big ugly half-breed between an SUV and a minivan that my uncle called “a Birkenstock on wheels”) five or ten miles to a grocery store, loaded up my cart while drinking a Starbucks coffee, checked out with credit card and let a bagger stuff my items into plastic bags. Now I grab my canvas shopping bags, my backpack or my bike basket and I cycle or walk a few blocks to the local farmer’s market or grocery store, where I pay cash and bag my own groceries in reusable bags and go on my merry way.

Back home I used to drive my kids to school. Now they walk.

There if the kids wanted to ride bikes, we had to load them up in the car and drive them to a safe, flat area that wasn’t on the side of a mountain. Here, the first thing the kids do after school is jump on their bikes or scooters and go riding on the bike path by our house. Oh, and Dave and I bike nearly every day too. We hadn’t done that in years.

We can’t be so loud living in a Doppelhaus (duplex). That's hard for us.

In the mountains we had tons of storage space, so I squirreled away tons of craft supplies, gift wrap, clothes and junk in our many closets. Here, in a house with no closets, we live cleaner, more simply, with less stuff. But it is still more cluttered than any German house I have been in.

Walking around half-dressed was not a big deal in a country house with huge trees and wide spaces between me and the neighbors. Now I have to wear a robe and pull down the shades so the neighbors can’t see in.

I used to have a cat and a dog to cuddle, feed, play with and clean up after. Now I just have the kids and Dave for that.

My calendar was filled with volunteer obligations. I was always at MOPS, at the church, or at the schools. Now my calendar is filled with errands, kids’ school activities and travel plans.

Dave hated stumbling over coils of pipe and tape when I owned Hoopdydoo. Although I made a lot of hoops when we first got here, I haven’t in a long while. I don’t even get out to hoop much anymore, which is evident by the jiggle in my middle.

I always used to have a deep freezer full of local bison meat and roasted chilies from the Chili Festival in Pueblo. Now I have a tiny freezer and I barely have room for ice cubes (which we don’t really use anymore either).

I’m not taking nearly as much medicine for my blood pressure.

If I kept my workout clothes on all day back home, nobody thought anything of it. People don’t do that here. If I am still in my tennis shoes or yoga pants late in the day, my friends always ask me if I’m just going to work out.

Colorado had two seasons: blue skies with snow on the ground or blue skies with grass. Here we have four distinct seasons: a brilliant, bursting spring; a green, often rainy summer; a colorful fall; and a cold, gray winter. I don’t miss the surprise June snowfalls, but I love the variety.

And that’s just scratching the surface. The biggest changes are in us. Now Claire is completely fluent in German, and Luke and I are getting there. Dave is trailing, but studies when he can.

We get to travel to fun places like Malta, London, Spain, and France. As a family we get to experience new foods, traditions and cultures together.

Best of all, our marriage is as strong as ever. Dave and I have much more time for each other now that he doesn’t travel nearly as much. We play, laugh, connect and have fun together. I think part of that is living in a rented new house instead of an antique one that needed lots of constant TLC. Our free time is ours, and we spend it without a hammer and paintbrush in our hands.

But I think it’s also getting to neutral ground where we had to start over and reinvent ourselves in a new place. For two years after he returned from Iraq, we couldn’t seem to shake that weird dynamic that our friends, home, and life were mine and that he had to somehow figure out how to reintegrate back into all of it. It’s a common post-deployment problem that we somehow thought we’d be immune to. But that's gone now. We make friends together, make choices side by side, and hold equal parenting authority. That is huge, and it makes life sweeter for all of us.

So yes, I’m homesick sometimes. I miss my family and feel really bummed when I miss out on weddings, funerals, birthday parties and reunions. I miss my friends. I miss my gourmet kitchen. I miss using credit cards, shopping on Sundays, and being allowed to volunteer in the kids’ schools. I miss saying, “Hello, pretty mountain” every day when we passed Pikes Peak. Sometimes I wish I could run errands without having to lug my German-English dictionary around. I would give my left pinkie toe for some decent Tex Mex.

But all in all, we’re having the time of our lives. I don’t want to blink and miss a second of it.

Back on the Wagon

For the past few months I’ve had some sort of weird mental block when it comes to blogging. Maybe it’s partly because a girlfriend showed me a semi-nude photo of herself that she had framed as a gift and said, “You aren’t going to mention this in your blog, are you?” (which I guess I just did, but I didn’t use her name and I won’t tell you who she is, so don’t ask). I started to worry that I was talking too much about people’s personal lives and I didn’t want to be a space invader. Or maybe it was that winter depression thing. My brain mimics the sun. When the sun shines, so do I. When clouds cover the sun, then my mind fogs up too. It was a cold, gray winter and we have had a lot of gray summer days too. But no, that’s not really it. I think that my mother really nailed it when we talked the other day. I was whining about “needing to blog but not having time” and she said, “It’s Facebook. Now you tell your stories on Facebook so you don’t have to blog.” By George, I think she’s on to something.

Nearly every day I catch up with friends, update my profile, or upload pictures to Facebook. Because I have told my stories in snippets to various people, I feel like I have told them to everyone. But each person I speak to only gets a facet of the tale. I need to sit down and write a narrative of these special years so we can look back later on. I’m just too busy living this life to write about it. Or so I tell myself.

So let’s see...highlights...

Well, we went to Malta in November, which was fabulous. We spent nine days and just barely saw everything we wanted. My only recommendation would be to go at a warmer time of year. We did enjoy two good beach days, but the rest of the time was gray and windy. More on Malta another time.

We got to the States over Christmas, which was great but exhausting. We crammed five states and seeing both sides of the family into a three-week trip. Add that to the fact that we had to lug half of Santa's sleigh in our suitcases, we had to pack for two climates (Wisconsin and Alabama) and the fact that Claire had to go back to school with jet lag the day after our return, and you have one tired family. We decided that this year we’ll stay here in Germany for Christmas and visit the States in the summer next time (sadly, not until 2010).

We spent a week in Italy, including Venice. That was a dream come true. And we loved our week in Malaga, Spain this May. We spent time on the beach, in the mountains, and at Alhambra and other amazing historical sites. That was exactly the "chillaxing" kind of vacation we wanted.

The exciting news is that many of our loved ones have been able to visit us this past year.
In March enjoyed a visit from Dave’s brother Chris and his family. They stayed for nearly two weeks and we took them on excursions to Bavaria and Switzerland. Luke and Claire loved playing with their cousins. They were sad to see them go. Then my folks came out for three weeks in April. We also took them to Bavaria and to Strasbourg, France, and I planned a train trip for them to Vienna and Venice. They had a ball. I cried like a baby when they left, knowing it would be a year and a half until I'd see them again.

Then our niece Alice (Dave’s brother’s daughter) is coming for the month of August. She has offered to be a live-in babysitter in exchange for travel opportunities. I’m not sure yet what adventures we’ll take her to experience, but we are looking forward to seeing her.

My sister says she is trying to plan a trip here, and my cousin Patrick is coming here next year too for a sporting event. The Newberry Inn may not be five-star, but it’s clean (mostly) and comfortable. The food is pretty good (if I say so myself), and you can’t beat the price (helping with dishes). So y’all come. We’re still keeping the steins cold.

Okay now, I'm gonna post this before I lose my nerve. It's like dieting or exercise: You just have to start somewhere. So here I go.