Fleamarket finds for our new old house :)

Since we decided to make this move with NO furniture at all, we saw ourselves faced with an empty new house and - since our boxes finally arrived today, 47 of them - lots of stuff that needs a place.
Luckily this tiny town has a second hand furniture warehouse with lots of goodies, at least for junk shoppers like me LOL.
This is my collection of the last few days, I love all of them, Peter does, too, except he called the little dresser thing the ugliest piece of furniture he's seen in a while. It was only 15 Dollars and I will try to paint it sometime soon and show him the hidden potential inside this piece, ha, ha. We'll see. In the meantime it can be used as a toolbench in the shed.

The two chairs and couch were 25 Euro alltogether, about $ 35. Perfect shape, just the fabric needs some cleaning. The sewing mashine table is a gift from our neighbors, we might use it as a little side table or for the phone.
The white high desk thing was $ 30, I have no idea yet what to use it for, but with some love and cleaning it could be a cute little something to put in our hall way, maybe to hang our keys from or to put our wallets in.

This one need a little TLC :)

nice little features though

new seats, at least temporary until we can afford IKEA, ha, ha

chair and high desk thing, otherwise the living room is EMPTY. Love it!

OK, I admit, this one has a big layer of grey on it, but some goop and carpet cleaner might do the trick.





god knows how old this thing is, but with some furniture polish it will make a great end table.

our stuff came today!!! 47 boxes, none missing, none broken !!!

space bagged stuffed animals! Good thing I labeled all of our boxes ...





 

Finally some toys to play with! The girls could only take two stuffed animals with them on the plane when we left.


On some of the pictures you can see that the painting of the rooms has come a long way, in the living room we chose to have the upper part painted in a light sand color and the bottom white, seperated by a white wooden chairrail, that isn't finished all around the room yet.

I also found some vintage fabrics in my moms house and at the flea market, will try to make something cottage style out of them, maybe some throw pillows or curtains or something easy like that. ....

might decorate the dining room in shades of blue and the living room in pinks, plaids, stripes, reds and florals....


Will post some more pictures soon. Maybe in before and after style .....



The girls and the house





Since the distance between the new house and my moms house is so small, we started to give the girls a little more freedom by letting them walk from one place to the other by themselves. Sometimes we tell them to get something to eat from Oma's house or their homework. This is their favorite spot for an afternoon snack: 

Oma painting some more in the new old house. 

instead of moving the grass with a mower: passing out two pairs of scissors and getting the girls involved



Killing time while Mommy and Daddy do more remodelling: watching movies on their portable DVD player and eating cookies :)


Just took some more pictures of the progess today, might try to post them tomorrow ...




Our arrival and first few days here

One whole month has already past. Time to look back how things have worked out for us since we got here.

 The flight was long and bumpy. We started around 4 pm at Peter's fathers house in Staten Island, drove to JFK, hung out over there for a few hours and ate our last meal of Burger King and departed around 9pm.

 By that time the girls were ready to go to sleep and missed dinner and the movie (too bad, it would have been a good one: The cronicles of Narnia: Voyages of the Dawn Treader), overall things went smooth, except for the fact that Laura vomitted on just about every plane and every airport (Dublin and London, except Stuttgart!).

The soft pretzel and coke we ate/drank at Heathrow airport in a make shift picknick at the gate, must have had some miraculous effect on her digestion :)

Well, once we got to Germany around 6.30 pm we still had about an hour and a half of driving through the country side ahead of us in order to get to my parents house. Needless to say, it took as a few days to get back on track with sleep cycles.

The very next morning I already had a job interview about 30 miles from here lined up. Feeling like a zombie and not having had time to prepare or research I felt like my chances were extremely slim to make it halfway decent through the interview. Well, to make the story short, the place called me about 2 weeks later that I got the job.
One last word about the job situation: The other day I had another job interview, at the county hall,  that I had applied for months ago. Knowing that I had already secured the other job, I almost didn't go to this interview, but ended up going just out of curiosity and after all, the more interview experience I get in the long run the better. Sure enough, 4 people ended up asking me questions, all super professional yet friendly. It's about an administrative job, 50 % postition, helping people with disabilities of any kind to apply for government or private assistance. Probably lots of paperwork, yet nice team and great benefits. Besides having a secure job. I got an offer for this job as well and will check it out tomorrow morning.
I haven't decided on either one yet, both are with people with disablities, the first one in helping them finding independent living arrangements and helping organizing their lives, the other applying for money and services from the government. The first job is in walking distance from our new old house, the other can be reached by public transportation (first train, then bus) in about half and hour total.
The first job is 25.5 hours, the second 20.
Lots to think about.
I also have to figure out how to do everything with the kids once Peter finds a job, too. Of course my parents are close by but I don't want to overuse them as baby sitters. They have a new thing in my daughters elementary school called "reliable school", which means that the kids can stay an extra hour or two if they are already dismissed at  11 or 12 am, if the parents are working.
This is the school schedules of Laura and Natalie:

Their day starts either at 7.35 or 8.25, they get out either at 11 (which is way too early to get anything done in the morning!!!), 11.50 or 12.40 the latest. Most days my girls don't have the same schedule, so I end up walking one of them to school at 7.35, the other 45 minutes later, then I have about three hours and have to go back to get the first one and then go back 45 minutes later to get the second one.
Well, lots of exercise, that's for sure, ha, ha.
Tuesdays both of them have after noon school for another hour and a half.
And that's it!!!

Now just a few pictures óf our first few days here:
The first celebration was my birthday the day after we got here:




Prosecco :)



Then we had Easter:

Then the girls got the new old house all cleaned up before Peter came. Mostly sweeping and clipping the weeds :)

Waiting for Daddy's train to come in:

At Oma's house:

 On the steps of our new old house:

Finally here!!!

To be continued!!!!

Looking back at the last 3 weeks

Things have been very busy the last 3 weeks and as I am typing this new post we are already rather comfy in Germany. But I still want to take a moment, catch my breath emotionally and look back at what has happened so very fast the last 3 weeks:
Well, first of all I have to say a word about Chris, from UPACKWESHIP, I don't think we could have pulled this off without his customer service. If any of you ever move overseas, google his company and you won't regret it! I must have called him tons of times about the most ridiculous questions that popped up in my head. But enough advertising, ha, ha. (I still want to mention the warm good-bye from all my friends, but will do that another day)
Getting rid of the furniture and big items wasn't the biggest problem. Sorting through years and years of belongings, papers, school mementos of the girls, photos, birthday cards, etc. took us ten times longer than we had anticipated. At some point we just had to speed sort and if we had any doubts about keeping something, we decided to junk it. We really ended up with the bare minimum of stuff: 47 BOXES!!!!

Ha, ha!!!!
Bare minimum you might think..... well, I have to admit some things I just couldn't part from, like the cast handprint of my preemie daughter Laura, just too incredible was the size of her little hand. Or the oval dinner plates I bought in St. George (Staten Island) together with my father in law. At a restaurant consigment store for about a buck a piece!! Or the box full of original documents from Ellis Island, from turn of the past century, when most of Peter's ancestors immigrated from Italy. Have to frame a few of them!!!!
Or the quilt I sewed over ten years ago but never finished up. It already made its way back and forth over the Atlantic Ocean twice.

Yes, Laura's shoulders are kind of slumping, the thought of leaving her best friend and everything she has ever known behind was hard to take for her at times. She has handled the change very well though and makes me very, very proud because of her gentle and caring nature.

Once we had everything picked up by a giant 40 foot container trailer, we spend the last few days in our house living and sleeping in empty rooms:

The girls sleeping their last night in our house.

The very next morning we had to be at closing at 10 am and only with the help of our dear neighbor Robert were we able to pull this off and clean out the house in time. Thanks!

This is us trying to look relaxed and confident, even though we worked the night through, totally exhausted and feeling emotionally drained, only kind of ready to sign our house over to new owners.

Oh, now here is the really hard part: Saying good-bye to my daughters best friends. Just looking at these pictures makes me choke up and wish there would have been another way. Chancey is Laura and Natalie's oldest/longest friend and the brother they've never had, loyal and kind, funny and smart, just a great kid to see my girls spend time with. Kelli and Paige are the two sweetest friends anybody could hope for and I can't even think of words to describe how much we miss them.

May the future be bright and exciting for all of you and may the friendship you've shared with each other strengthen you for the life ahead. I so hope that we will see everyone again soon.

At Cracker-Barrell we had our last batch of pancakes with my niece Morgan and nephew Michael before we headed north on April 16th, to leave the last 10 years behind and head into the once known and fanilier but now rather uncertain destination Germany. Wohoo, what a stormy good-bye roadtrip it was!!!

I will never forget the funnels, hail and devastation :( 

One thing is for sure, the United States sure know how to leave a lasting impression!

Once we made it to NewYork alive the few plane rides didn't seem that much of a deal anymore. Even Laura said after airport hopping of 20 some hours "this was actually not that long of a trip". She even said that she enjoyed the trip, even though she trew up in every plane and on every airport! I was close to run out of items of clothing and wipes....

dinner at JFK, last Burger King Fries in the US

Laura was wiped out from all that vomiting and had to rest in London.

What some Coke and Pretzels can do for an upset stomach :)

To be continued ....

  

Update on our move

Things have been happening so fast the last three weeks that I have not had a chance to journal or blog about everything. After getting our plane tickets last night I feel like a big to-do-item is off my list and I am a lot more calm and able to give up a few minutes to let everyone know what's going on.
Well, the day after I cancelled a good-bye party due to the prospect of hanging around possibly longer than we had hoped and because I felt like it was simply too early, we got a surprise offer on our house. The offer - on March 15th - came with the condition to sell within 30 days!!! After some serious three part breaths (to avoid a serious panic attack/hyperventilation/black out) and talking to Sue (my friend and realtor) and Peter we slept over it and counteroffered after much deliberation. For a day or two the situation was hanging in the air, mainly because of some minor details like what furniture would be staying or leaving. The fear of the potential buyers walking away from it was robbing me of my good nights sleep for a few days, ha, ha.
But after several reassuring phonecalls and negotiations (thanks Sue) we had a deal!!!!
Of course we had to go lower on the price than we had hoped for but the timing was so ideal that we couldn't let it go. But with that said, we also got ourselves a logistic nightmare of moving ourselves (physically and emotionally), the cat and the few belongings to the other side of the earth.
You would think that nowadays with the internet, that all you have to do is google "how to move a family of four with all their stuff overseas" but things didn't turn out that easy. There is so much information out there and nothing seemed to fit our situation, as we are not in the military, didn't want to move furniture, didn't have a job related transfer where the company takes care of everything and not the least we have to do it on a tight budget.
Pretty soon it dawned on me that this is the time to let go of clutter, unnecessary belongings and all those things that I hold on to, even though they have neither value nor meaning. This sorting our and clearing of the house has been a true revelation for me. With every piece of clothing or shoes, that doesn't make it to the "happy pile", being gone, I feel liberated and to see that my girls are eagerly parting from favorite toys from years ago, makes me realize on one size how much they have grown in their interests but also in their ability to handle change. No temper tantrums or drama, just matter of fact comments on "how they don't need this or that anymore". Of course the fact that they made over $ 10 each on last weeks yardsale selling Dora and Barbie stuff didn't hurt :)
To finish up my timeline that I started earlier, by March 18th we had a preliminary contract together with the buyers, and all the details of closing costs etc. was figured out the week after that, around March 23rd. The next thing that had to be done was get a house and termite inspection, which we just successfully got done. Yipppie!! Honestly the termite inspection got me a little worried, considering that we lived here 10 years and never spent a penny on any termite protection, well not including Peters fire ant treatments.
I don't even want to know how much hassle it would have been if we had and infestation.....
So now that all that is done we can focus on getting our plans together, as we still wanted to keep the option open, of changing our mind, in case there was some serious repairs on the house that would have been to expensive for us to fix and the deal might have not went through. 
Last Saturday was a first attempt of selling all those things that somehow accumulated over the last ten years. I still can't believe that we came to this country with nothing but  a suitcase a big army duffle bug stuffed with clothing. Wouldn't it be cool if we could just leave with the same amount!!!
Well, that is not going to happen, we had to give the girls a promise, that they would be able to take most if not all of their favorite things. The way it looks right now, their most favorite things consist of about 100 stuffed animals and a bunch of ziplock bags with little plastic animals and things. Not too bad to move!!!
Most of our big furniture is already sold but our dear friends let us keep them till the time comes. Thanks!
Last night we finally ordered our planetickets, at least the ones for Laura, Natalie and me, as Peter (and Smokey) wants to stick around just a few more days, to visit family and long lost friends in Long Island.
Originally we had planned to leave from Myrtle Beach a few days before closing, but plane tickets out here are way above our price range so why not take a last road trip up north to see grandpa "Popo" in New York and then fly much cheaper from JFK?
This way I can stay for closing and sign all the papers with Peter on Friday April 15th while the kids are in school (or that afternoon, if anyone is willing to watch the girls that afternoon?), we will sleep at my brother in laws a night, then head up north and leave from there on April 18th!
The plane ride leaving that Monday evening will take us to Dublin/Ireland first and then after another short stop over in London around lunchtime on the 19th will bring us to Stuttgart around late afternoon.
It will be the Monday before Easter, which means that the kids will have two weeks Easter/Spring vacation ahead of them and hopefully some time to adjust a little to timechange, language and the whole culture and location shock.
Knowing all that now, I can tackle the planning of shipping of our belonging over the course of the next few days. Right now we are considering renting/buying a big moving crate, which is practically a huge wooden box that we can fill any way we want and that will be delivered curbside right at our new house at
Reiserstrasse 28, 88512 Mengen, Germany!!!
Haven't had too much peace and quiet to listen to my heart and my emotions, but I can't deny that I have shed an occational tear just thinking about how much I will miss people that have grown so dear to me.
I am extremely grateful for having had the best of times the last ten years and to leave with a feeling of accomplishment and fullfillment. In the years to come I will always look back with a smile on my face!

Master Bedroom, Master Bathroom, Kitchen and Dining room pictures



I thought it was time to post some more interior pictures of our fixer upper house, in this case of the master bedroom, which does have a seperate bathroom (unlike most houses in Germany). The master bathroom is the only newer part of the whole house, new white tiles, rather new white tub, sink, toilet etc. The master bathroom is to the right in this picture, you can spot the dryer vent, as this rather large bathroom will house the washer and dryer.

 

bathroom with wood paneling, bathroom to the right, and access door to the oilheated oven in the living room on the opposite side of the wall.




after wood paneling had been removed, new windows already installed





if you look towards the other side of the room, your back facing the bathroom door/bedroom window, in this picture you can still see the warm water pipes running along the bottom of the room; all the plumbing, heating and electrical systems had to be removed and be replaced.

 

still with paneling and copper water pipes



shower (was built handicapped accessible)





bathroom is large and handicapped accessible

 













this is the layout of the first floor, upper left is dining room, then kitchen upper right (there is a door in between dining room and kitchen, which is not on this plan), then hallway and staircase further down,
then even lower a kind of foyer to the left of the plan, that foyer leads to the right into the master bedroom.
Bottom left of this plan is the living room and bottom right is the master bathroom, these two rooms are housed in the later addition to the house (probably from the 1960's) which has a roof top terrace on the second floor.
On the very bottom of the plan you can see and odd shaped small balcony.




Here just a few pictures of the dining room:

 with its wood burning stove and remnants of previous layers of wallpaper.

Well, this is the kitchen, very 80's German style, not much to it, but everything is working

 view from dining room through arch into kitchen

 

We are still very excited about moving and very thankful for all the work my parents have been doing on the house. We wouldn't be able to do this big step without their help and commitment. I know this is going to be a huge adventure for all of us involved and it will not happen without tears and feelings of loss on many sides. The girls are coping considerably well so far. Natalie suggested to turn our house into some sort of "little America", a place where they can speak English as much and as often as they want to, watch English movies , do all the stuff they are used to, eat American food (luckily we found Kraft Mac and Cheese in the local supermarket last summer!), celebrate American holidays and just create a new home away from home. :)