Wrap Your Head Around It

B and I leave on Wednesday to go back to Michigan for Christmas. I am nervously checking the weather every hour or so because I’m terrified of anything that will keep us from making it back. It also gives me something to focus on besides the neon elephant hiding in the corner. I’m actually grateful for the drama that Thing One’s fiancee is causing because that’s more distraction from what’s really on my mind.

Y’all, I last saw my family on September 15. It was my Dad’s 65th birthday and I saw them for a couple of hours before launching into my MoH duties for a wedding. We’ve always been a close family. I mean, my family drove 6+ hours round trip in order to have a 2 hour dinner with us. My sister and I would go home every weekend during college and all because we loved spending time with our family. When I went to grad school I hated that I was the only one who was too far away for Sunday afternoon dinners. When I got to pick where to live, I chose to live within an hour of my folks so that I could see them regularly. My Mom and I were big shopping partners and family dinners were a regular occurrence. I never wanted to live far from my family.

Until I met B. He is the game changer in my life. He turned this small town Texas girl into a world traveler. He took this girl who wanted to put down roots and showed her how to thrive without them. He changed everything.

September 15, 2011 was the last time I saw them. I may not see them again until 2014. We move to Turkey in a month. We’ll make one trip to the States for Thing One’s wedding. And that’s probably it. Tickets are too expensive, leave too hard to come by, and we’re just too far away.

Two years.

And we chose it.

That’s the fluorescent elephant sitting next to me on the couch. I would make the choice again. Because, you see, this choice is selfish. But our two years there are two years that B should not be deployed. Two years away from them so that I don’t have to live without him for six months.

It’s hard to wrap my head around it. Hard to think about not seeing them for so long. Hard to think about all the changes that two years will bring.

But that’s still easier than thinking about B living in a war zone. B facing death without me there to hold him at night. He’s my game changer. He’s my smile. I will do anything and give up anything to stay with him. Even choose two more years at a geographically remote location. Even pick two years too far away from family.

I have to be with him. And that? I can wrap my head around.

~The Countess~

To Ourselves

Disclaimer: If I’m being honest, then I’ll admit that this post may come across as selfish; still, it’s been on my mind for a while now and I’m writing it anyway. Just remember, this is a reflection of what’s in my head, not necessarily reality.

There are so many reasons that people elope these days. Financial concerns, oops we’re having a baby concerns, just want to keep it private concerns, decided to do it on a whim concerns, or just don’t want the big production concerns. I would like to think we’re past the days of looking down on people for eloping, but it often seems to me that we aren’t.

I still have a hard time admitting to myself that we eloped. Yet, there’s no other word for what we did. Quick marriage at the last minute under a courthouse tree, in order to get me on his orders so we could move to Germany.

yep, that's definitely an elopement

When we made the decision to elope, even though it was always in our plans to still have a ceremony, we knew we were giving up a lot of things. Things like, having a time where our families happily focused just on us and our relationship or having the showers, parties, and other fun associated with a wedding. But we also gave up being forced to live on opposite continents for an undetermined amount of time.

We knew that going into the future that our ceremony would always take back seat to other concerns. Last summer it was my sister’s wedding and his brothers’ graduations. This year it will be his brother’s wedding. We will never get the chance to go back and have that occasion to ourselves.

When I took B home to meet my family, we gathered with a few of the relatives he hadn’t met for a dinner. That’s where my sister announced her engagement. Besides the perfunctory hellos, no one really talked to B and I after that. I’m not (as surprising as this may be) upset with my sister about it. When else was she going to see these relatives in person? And I can attest first hand that if they don’t get told the news when/the way they want to be told it that they’ll get mad at you. But I was sad that my relatives, who’d met my sister’s fiancee many times, couldn’t focus just a bit on being introduced to my husband. I was sad that no one even asked about throwing us a little party or shower. I was sad that we were just over looked.

When B’s brother Thing One told him that he was proposing, B jokingly told him that we had all of 2012 reserved. The first half for a potential deployment and the second half for our own wedding. It was clearly a joke. They all (Thing Two was on the phone as well) laughed about it. Fast forward two months and my MIL tells me that Thing One and (mainly) his fiancee were scared to tell us their wedding date for fear we’d be mad at them. She still hasn’t responded to the message I sent her about the issue.

Even more recently, we finalized our plans to go to MI for Christmas. We’ll be flying into Chicago and stopping for me to meet B’s grandparents and hopefully some Aunts and Uncles. Yes, we’ve been married for over a year and I still haven’t met his extended family. Thing One and his fiancee are not doing Christmas with our family, yet were planning to fly in to Chicago just overnight to see the same extended family at the same time. Now, I’m pretty sure she’s already met some of them, but this would be her first trip to see them as the newest fiancee.

Is it okay to admit that this upset me?

Does that make me a terrible person?

That just, for once, I’d like an event planned to focus on B and I to actually be able to be that?

They live stateside. Her wedding won’t be that far away. His family could travel to it if they wanted to. Even more, she’ll be able to go back to that area quite easily between now and the wedding. We won’t. Besides their wedding, we have no intention of coming back to the US while we’re living in Turkey. It’s too damnably expensive and too far away. It’s too hard for B to get leave and we’ll actually have to use that from here on out whenever we travel.

I don’t even care about the expenses, or the practicality, or the excuses. I’m just having a selfish day where I want an event that’s supposed to be about B and I to stay about us. Not Thing One and his fiancee, who already won’t let him spend Christmas with his family and they’re not even married yet.

I told you at the beginning this was a selfish post. But there it is. I’m resigned to not getting any kind of ceremony until 2014 at the earliest. And even that will depend what are follow on base is and all kinds of other concerns.

I get it, I do. We’re already married. People don’t really want to travel to watch us renew our vows. There are other couples who take precedence because they’re having a legitimate ceremony.

I swing back and forth between gleefully looking at dresses, picking ceremony sites, and day dreaming to being bitter and wanting nothing to do with weddings ever again. I wish I could find a happy medium.

I am so glad to be married to B. I am so glad that we didn’t wait. The life we lead together more than makes up for everything that we gave up.

But still, there’s a small part of me, that just wishes that people would give our relationship, our news, our plans as much weight as those who are just engaged.

~The Countess~

Can We Talk About This?

B and I have a horrible habit. Truly, it’s scary and it’s unhealthy. It’s one of those things that subtly goes unmentioned when people are talking about happily ever after. But, it’s there, so I’m talking about it. It goes something like this:

B: So, what do want to do today?

Me: I don’t know what do you want to do?

B: I asked you first so you pick.

Me: But, I don’t know, you should at least give me options.

B: Fine, your options are play video games, just chill, or watch something.

Me: But that’s everything. Fine. I want to just chill.

Or like this:

Me: What do you want to do for lunch? (normally said while we’re out on base running errands)

B: I don’t know…

Me: Well, I don’t want to eat at Chili’s or Popeyes. But, I’m open to the BX or BK.

B: I don’t know…

B: *drives to BK*

This habit sadly started on our very first date. We met up at the zoo in SA and wandered around looking at all the cute animals. We held hands, hugged, and I dropped back to back Harry Potter and Douglas Adams references to guarantee a second date. We spent close to three hours at the zoo from 1400-1700…and then we talked until 2100 that night. We even got in his car once and drove around for 30 minutes. But we didn’t eat dinner. Neither one of us wanted to make such a simple suggestion as grabbing dinner together. So instead? We hung out in the parking lot just talking. (Okay, and maybe making out.)

Recently though, I’ve started to realize just how un-good this habit is. Namely, while I don’t want to state a preference between the BX and BK for lunch, it drives me nuts if he just decides without talking to me. Or that while he won’t say he cares between reading and playing a video game with me…he’s sort of hoping that I’ll pick the video game.

Hence, our newest phrase – Can we talk about this? Also manifested as – Can we have a conversation about this? Now we both state our preferences and work to a mutual agreement on things. It’s so healthy and grown up and almost makes me want to gag. I kid. Mostly.

Last night’s dinner conversation went like this:

Me: So…what are you thinking about dinner. (note: we were supposed to cook Chinese food last night)

B: I don’t really want Chinese.

Me: Oh good, I didn’t really want to cook it now either.

B: What else is in the house?

Me: I’m not sure, not a lot.

B: So what do you want to do for dinner?

Me: I already asked you that, can we talk about it?

B: Sure, I don’t really have a preference to anything.

Me: I don’t want to cook, but I’d be happy eating at Quda, Chili’s, or Pizza Hut.

B: All of those sound good to me, but I don’t really want to drive to K-town tonight.

Me: Okay, so no Pizza Hut then.

B: Yeah, I think I’d like to grab a doner at Quda’s and just eat it here.

Me: Sweet, that sounds good to me.

The differences are subtle. I left off the part where I nixed all the fast food options on base because I’m just tired of them. But, instead of one of us trying to force the other into making the decision about what we eat or do…we’re working as a team to come up with it. Maybe this isn’t a big problem for most couples, but it’s definitely something we run into on a regular basis. Neither one of us wants to rock the boat and we both have a strong dislike of changing plans…even when we don’t want to do what is planned.

I’m very hopeful that this new conversation tactic will start making it easier for us to decide what to do with our time. I’m also on a personal mission to actually state my preferences and not force my husband to try and guess them.

~The Countess~

Lifted

Last night as we were climbing into bed, B asked if I wanted to read our devotional. We did and it was about letting go of grudges and forgiving people. This led to a long conversation between us about forgiveness and holding grudges. I mentioned being worried about holding onto grudges with people. What B said in response surprised me.

He told me that I wasn’t holding onto grudges, because I was treating those who’d wronged me with kindness, but that I was holding on to my wounds. I was holding on to the pain and hurt. I won’t lie, I cried and cried. And I let go.

There was a weight that was holding me down. It was chaining my soul and chafing my spirit. It was shadowing all the good and lovely things and tinging them with bitterness and hurt.

It’s gone now. No, not gone. It’s healed over, the scab will probably itch and I know I’ll be tempted to pick it off. But it’s closed over now. There will always be that scar on my soul from the things that have been done, but I will not rub salt in my own wound. I will let it heal and move on – even if on is also away.

There’s this strange peace hanging about me right now. It’s suggesting that my sadness is behind me. Maybe it will return, but for now I am embracing the emptiness where the pain used to be and smiling. The weight has lifted.

~The Countess~

It’s good to be home

Vacations are always nice. Every time I leave, I can’t help thinking that there’s nothing quite nicer than going away for a break. And then I come home again. And I realize that there truly is nothing better than coming home.

Our vacation was full of ups and downs. There were family issues with both events that we went to. There were long days in the car. And then there were get togethers with old friends that lasted hours. B and I had dinner with VJ (his ex). We went to Melting Pot for my birthday. My actual birthday was spent on a plane.

Overall it was a great trip. One that I really don’t want to repeat any time soon. I will be going back to TX for a friend’s wedding in September, but it’s looking like it will be a solo trip for me. By the end I was so sick of hotels and spare beds that I kind of wanted to cry. I wanted my own space. I didn’t sleep well over the entire second half of the trip. I was essentially on the floor in my sister’s room and she kept it really warm in there for sleeping. Not to mention her cat. I was so exhausted by the time we got home.

B’s family had a major meltdown during graduation. It was not particularly fun to get caught up in. We got blamed for some of it due to our having lived together before being married (his parents are very catholic). At that point we just made a quiet exit, sent some silent support to the person ‘in trouble’ and promptly ignored it all. By bedtime that night everyone was acting like mature adults again instead of tired and cranky children.

My family situation is always…interesting. The basic solution seemed to be that my dad’s side of the family just ignored me during the wedding. Other than perfunctory hellos they said nothing to me. At all. I found out from a friend that is also friends with my cousins that there was a get-together post wedding at one cousin’s house. The friend told me because she wanted to know why I hadn’t come. She was shocked that I wasn’t invited. I wasn’t remotely surprised. I did have one cousin tell me that she was “angry” that B wasn’t there so she could meet him. The same cousin who “couldn’t get time off” to visit with us at Christmas, even though she took the time off at the exact same time to go visit her sister. I’m pretty much writing off that side of the family.

On the up-side, my oldest sister, whom I haven’t seen since 2003 came to the wedding and we had a fabulous time together. We spent a lot of time laughing and getting things done. I’m so, so glad that she was there. And, I think I’ve found where I want to have my wedding ceremony, that one may get it’s own post though, so I’m sitting on the info for awhile.

Probably the biggest highlight of the trip is that Team USA won their competition! B and his teammates tied Uruguay and stomped Guatemala to advance to the Pan-American games in October in Guadelajara. So we have 6 more months of reprieve from real life. Maybe we can actually take our honeymoon before he goes back to work…

The two things I missed the most while we were gone were our friends over here and the gym. We see our friends 3-5 times a week between midweek dinners and weekend events. As to the gym, besides two days of swimming laps in a hotel pool, I did not work out at all while we were gone. I felt so gross. We were too tired yesterday to work out, so we hit the gym up in a major way today. 45 minutes of weight lifting, 300 crunches, and 30 minutes of cardio. I feel so amazing right now, tired, but healthy. And we’re meeting up with friends tonight for dinner, so it’s a win all around.

I missed blogging too, I had to steal time to read any blogs so it will be nice to get back to commenting as well as writing my own posts.

~The Countess~

Not Quite How I Was Going To Tell Them

So, a friend of mine just recently ventured to a foreign land. When she got together with some of our mutual friends (and quite a bit of my family) she was telling them about the experience. Namely, wandering around the nicer parts of this country’s version of the Red Light District. The group was teasing her on types of girls, prices, and the like before asking if she took one back to the hotel with her. She said, “Yes, most definitely yes. We brought a syphilus-ridden Thai whore with us back to the hotel…by the way, Kendra says hi.”

Cue immense amounts of laughter from my friends and family. Though evidently there was one party-pooper there who didn’t find that hilarious.

Yes folks, I have to confess, I’m not who you thought I was. Luckily my family has taken the news quite well. It seems that no immeadiate disowning will be happening. Rather, they’re embracing the new me with full hilarity. I’m so relieved that my new status isn’t upsetting to them. Rather, they seem quite content to just laugh it away. It’s a healthy stage of acceptance.

How would you break such strange news to your family? Via a friend? Or face to face?

~The Countess~

I found this exchange to be quite hilarious. I am not Thai, nor a whore, nor syphilus ridden. If you are any of these things, please understand that I’m not making fun of you, I’m laughing with a friend who tried to tell my family hi for me and just timed it hilariously well…or poorly, it depends on your sense of humor. Mine is quite intact, ergo, I had to share the story with you.

Release

Some of my earliest memories are of Christmas with you there. You were always smiling, always handing out gifts, always laughing and joking with us all. You’re strength and bright spirit encouraged and warmed me, even as a child. Holidays, Birthday parties, family gatherings – there wasn’t anything that you missed if you could help it and we wouldn’t have been complete without you.

I never knew that you weren’t actually a blood relative until I was old enough to never care. Family that is chosen is the best and strongest kind. I’ve folded that lesson into my life so tightly, that I surround myself with sister-friends and other family by choice. You taught me that being true to yourself is so important that you have to do it – even if you have to find a new family to do it around.

I wouldn’t be the voracious reader that I am today without you. All of the books – every event was celebrated with new books – that you gave me, that I still have, that I still read. I don’t believe in growing too old for books and of course, that’s because you would borrow any of my books to read whether they were adult or ya fiction.

Seven and a half years since that fateful diagnosis. The summer I graduated highschool was rife with turmoil. Losing my Big Mama suddenly was hard, losing you slowly was harder. You always fought it bravely – and in that you taught me more about true living than anyone else ever can – you would make light of it, you would let it be the dark, heavy, and scary reality that it was. You never tried to minimize what was happening to you. You never hid that you wished you could end it all, but still you fought on.

This last year has been one of the hardest as you moved from home to assisted living to a nursing home. We watched your condition worsen – drastically – all throughout the year. Yet you were always you. You never got separated from yourself like so many dementia patients – that’s the cruelty of your diagnosis – full awareness of what was happening to you and nothing to do about it.

You slowly couldn’t drive, couldn’t tie your shoes, couldn’t get dressed by yourself, couldn’t open doors, couldn’t feed yourself. Yet you were not your limitations. Inside of all of that, I always knew that I could sing an old hymn and you’d start humming along; I could play some music and you’d settle into the sounds.

You fought so bravely for the last several years. You were brave enough to let us see you struggle and brave enough to let us know that you didn’t want to fight anymore. Your best friend’s last plea came at Thanksgiving and she asked you to make it through the Holidays – she didn’t want to face a Christmas without you. And you didn’t let her down. My last plea was to be able to come home and see you, and you didn’t let me down. And finally, our last wish was for you to go home and find release. You didn’t let us down.

 We love you, we miss you, we’re so proud to have been your family.

~The Countess~

Relinquish

Let go. Two small little words that have the impact of a sucker punch. I am so bad at letting go. I cling to friendships, places, memories, because deep in my heart I use them to define who I am. If they let me down, then I just blame that on myself and not them. I deserved it and that’s the only reason they failed me. This is probably where you expect me to say that I let go of this attitude this year. But I’m not going to. While I am working on not allowing someone else’s mistakes to be my fault, I embrace the fact that I am a people person who is shaped by those around her. Now, I don’t blow around like chaff in the wind, but there are many people in my life who have had a strong impact on who I am, and that will never change.

Enough of that, as this is about what I did let go of. I let go of one thing and one person this year. I released them, freed myself from them and have soared farther than I thought possible because of letting go of them. I would never be where I am today or who I am becoming tomorrow if I hadn’t relinquished their hold on my life.

The first place that I let go of was home. It’s funny because I’ve always been a goer and a doer over being a homebody on Friday night. Yet, up until this year, I never lived more than three hours from my childhood home. I centered my job searches to the cities near my parent’s home and stayed as close as I could. Trips home were a weekly occurence – my mom is a fabulous cook and one of my closest friends. I had allowed it to tether me to South Texas. Keep me close enough that I could call daily and visit regularly. And I let go of that to move to North Dakota to be with B. I was going to be 1500 miles away. I cried driving away from my family, I cried crossing the Texas border, I cried when “God Bless Texas” came on the radio in the middle of South Dakota. Yet, they were only a 5 hour plane trip away. A short phone call away. Still close. Then we moved to Germany. I now live in a time zone 7 hours ahead of my parents. It’s roughly a 13 hour flight to get back home. Phone calls are impossible and Skype calls are rare. I had to let go of my childhood home in order to make a new home. My new home isn’t a place though, it’s a person. With B’s job in the military now we move too much for a place to be home. He is my home now and it couldn’t have been this way without letting go of my childhood home.

The person I let go of has fought much harder to stay in my life. She doesn’t want to go quietly. She still rants and raves at me every now and then that I should let her back into my life. I won’t. I let go of the career woman I could have been. I had two jobs in SA that were career path jobs. I could close my eyes and see myself working in the higher up positions of the non-profit I worked for or the one we partnered with. I could picture myself as the director of the Fine Arts program where I taught. I had it in me. So much so that the Exectutive Director of one of the non-profits told me she saw me as one of “her” type of people and that she could see me going far in the non-profit world. That career woman is gone now. I said goodbye to those two amazing, career path jobs, and drove to North Dakota hoping to land a retail position at the local mall. I had just been offered a manager position when we took the orders to Germany. I certainly know as a military wife that my job will be secondary to his for the rest of our lives. And I’m just fine with that. A job doesn’t come home with you after a long day and cuddle with you. It doesn’t give you a back rub or just hold you when you’re sad. I’m perfectly happy teaching piano or working retail as we move around, in fact, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

For 2011, there’s only one thing that I really want to let go of. And that’s my resentment of B’s ex. She’s still a good friend of his. I would love for her to magically disappear from our lives. We reached a breaking point earlier over this, with me contemplating demanding that he cut her out of his life. But I can’t do that to him. Or her. But I can work on not feeling hurt every time her name pops up in his email inbox (no, I don’t snoop through his emails, his computer screen faces me and is some 30 inches across). I can work on not wanting to write mean things on the Christmas card as I address the envelope to her (this year I was just proud that I didn’t carry out the action). I want to let go of this, because, as it stands now, she has power over me and I’m not cool with that.

Letting go, it has such a strange connotation in our world. People who relinquish are often considered weak. And yet, we cup so much more in gently open hands than in tightly squeezed fists. We never know quite what we will be able to take hold of and run with until we let go of what has been holding us back.

~The Countess~

Struggle

The ups and downs of being over here are really starting to get me down. The lack of communication with back home, no friends, no Whataburger, and limited retail therapy is all piling up like the straw that broke the camel’s back. And yet, I feel horrible complaining.

I’m living in Germany, it’s cool, exciting awesome, and fun. My husband is in a support position with the USAF and as a WCAP member I don’t have to worry about him deploying until this program ends. We have an awesome apartment that is completely paid for by the USAF, in addition, we get to keep whatever we don’t use on our utility payments. I have a job teaching piano for a ballet studio. B and I’s schedules are awesome. We work afternoons and early evenings. Which means we always get to stay up late and sleep in.

But I miss home. I miss being able to go to the mall and shop for clothes. The BX is like a crappy Walmart with worse size selection. (Seriously, they had one style of sports bras that weren’t available in XXL and up only) I miss being able to go to Whataburger, Dairy Queen, Quiznos, Arby’s, Red Lobster, Cheddar’s, etc. I miss being able to get together with my girls one night a week just to sit and talk. I miss seeing movies with friends. I miss game nights, bowling, shooting, and pool with friends. I miss my church.

It’s hard, because I hate complaining. Again, see above. But I feel so isolated. So alone. Life is a struggle. But it’s worth it.

~The Countess~

How are you doing?

It’s a question I hear quite often. Variants are as follows. How do you like Germany? Isn’t it fun being in a new country? How’s life going for you? Do you know how lucky you are? What have you and B done so far?

My answers to the respective questions: good, I like it, sure, it’s going, absolutely, and so far we have secured an apartment in less than a week, arranged to have furniture delivered to said apartment, passed the German driving test with minimal studying, gone to lots of meetings on base, and searched for a job for me.

Doesn’t that all sound fun?

Don’t get me wrong, I am thrilled with where I am in life. I’m married to a wonderful guy. But, we’re still newlyweds. There are ups and downs. I’m still a girl. There’s PMS. Luckily, I’m pretty good at catching my PMS moments and not actually getting bent too far out of shape by them. We’re learning to get used to each other’s quirks. We’ve known each other for just over 10 months. We’ve been married six weeks. Now, we haven’t learned anything we don’t like, but, living with another person requires a pretty big adjustment.

I’m even happy to be in Germany. But I have some caveats with the place.

We don’t have a car. That means we walk or bike everywhere. That means that I never feel cute anymore. I can’t wear skirts or dresses (my fave thing to wear), I can’t wear cute shoes unless they’re comfy enough for the walks, my hair is always messed up from the bike helmet, I get sweaty, the list goes on. I’m sure these seem minor and admittedly they are. But, we can also only get so far on bikes (especially me). In the 2.5 weeks that I’ve been here I’ve seen Ramstein and Ramstein Air Base. I’ve seen way too much of our hotel room, it’s not that big and there’s not much to do.

I don’t have a job. I haven’t worked since July 23rd. It’s starting to take a toll on me. I don’t do well with just sitting around. I’m borderline depressed (self diagnosis) because I feel like I have no purpose and am not contributing to our financial situation. It’s something I just have to wait out too.

I don’t have my friends. I’m a people person. I like going and doing things. I hate sitting around all day. B is good at it because he likes playing video games. I find myself just killing time until he wants to go do something. I know that I’ll make friends, but my main resources – job and church – haven’t come together yet. Church shopping is hard in Germany seeing as I need it to be in English. And I can’t find anything out about the base services online.

So yes, I’m doing fine. I have good days and down days. Sometimes I cry. A lot. B is gone 4 evenings a week from 7-11 ish. Strange how we went from him working 15 hour days to this and I have a harder time with this. During the day we’re busy with chores, meetings, errands, etc and now we don’t have evenings. Plus, I have nothing to do during this time so I’m very much at loose ends. I’m adjusting. I’ve decided to go to the gym while he’s at practice. It’ll give me something to do and help my endorphins and body image. That will start next week seeing as the gym hours were restricted today due to a stand down day.

Don’t feel bad if you’ve asked me any of these questions. I do know how lucky I am, but this is still a huge adjustment for me. I’ll get there. We’ll be able to get out and start actually going places. I’ll find a job and make friends. We’ll get into our apartment and eventually get all of our belongings. I’m excited to set up home. I miss cooking. I miss having a place that is mine. Soon. So me? I’m doing good, just adjusting to a new country, a new husband, and a new life.

~The Countess~

Wilkommen nach Deutschland

We have an apartment! It’s in an adorable house on Balthasar Strasse in Ramstein, Germany.

We’re in the lighter colored building, the top row of windows. It’s 1300 square feet with two bedrooms. The bathroom is two separate rooms. One for the toilet:

And one for the shower and tub, which are separate:

There are two spacious bedrooms:

The master (above) is actually bigger than it looks. I cut half of it out of the picture. It has more than enough room for our bed and dressers. Not to mention the wardrobes that are necessary since there are no closets in Germany. The guest bedroom (below) is where we’ll put our books, instruments, my crafts, and of course, our guests when they come.

A cute little kitchen contains a mini fridge that evidently passes for a standard fridge in Germany. Luckily the base will loan us a full size fridge for the duration of our stay here. I don’t have a ton of counter space, but that’s okay because I have great views. Plus, I have to use a transformer for my appliances anyway, so I can only use two at a time at max. Which means I actually have plenty of counter space.

Since I ‘m pretty sure that I’ll get questions about it – the door is mostly coverd in a dark metal material – these are rolladens. They’re a nifty built in shade that cover all of the windows and glass doors in houses in Germany. They’re built into the wall and can be lowered to full or partial blackout. They use them to regulate temperature as well as light. B is thrilled because we can get the living room theater dark for the tv. The next pic is of my German style fridge. And yes, that tiny little top portion is a freezer. No wonder German’s shop in amounts typically less than 1/4 pound for food. Crazy.

They living/dining room is huge. Like, we’re fairly sure we could have fit our entire Minot apartment into that area. The hutch belongs to the owners, but, we’ll be using it for dish storage to help supplement the kitchen cabinets. We don’t have a ton of things, but, I will never turn down storage. We are going to slide it down though so that it is all the way in the dining room.

About the only thing that doesn’t thrill me about this is the carpet in the dining room. And yes, since you asked, those are double doors leading onto a balcony.

I’m thinking it’s big enough for a small grill, but, we’ll see what our landlady has to say about that. It does’ run the full width of the kitchen and dining room with entries into both. We also have some great views off of it.

So out the back we have a view of the German country side. And come mid-month we should have some pretty changing leaves. Out the front we get the view of the cute German street we live on.

So, a beautiful apartment that is quite the steal. We were lucky to get it. We viewed it last Saturday and then called and asked them to hold it for us until Thursday when B would be back to sign the contract. They did and boy am I glad. She said they received a lot of calls about the place, so, I know it would have been gone if we had waited. I’m excited for our loaner furniture to come in two weeks and hopefully our own belongings within a month after that so that I can make this place home.

This is where B and I will get to learn to be newlyweds. A lot of our firsts will happen in this apartment. I cannot wait to fill it with our memories!

~The Countess~

The Art of Invisibility

B and I went downtown today to meet his Dad for lunch and go find some of the ArtPrize installations around Grand Rapids. ArtPrize is a really cool art competition in GR that awards ten monetary prizes to the top art pieces as voted on by the public. The pieces are installed all over downtown GR. The voting starts next week, so, most of the stuff was still a work in progress, but, what we saw was really cool.

The pieces were installed all around GR and the really cool ones just popped from their environment. You noticed them. At the Fish Ladder (a design to help the salmon get around the dam on their way upstream) there was an awesome mobile with orange sturgeon lazily spinning overhead. In one of the parks downtown there were Wooly Mammoth’s made from scrap metal and mirrors. Along the banks of the river was a carving of a face with animals coming out of the interwoven branches of a tree. You couldn’t help but notice the pieces. They were far from invisible.

Which is how I felt for part of today. While we were at his Dad’s office, we ran into several of his colleagues (all attorneys and the like). The standard introduction was, ‘This is my son, B and his new wife K and they are on their way to Germany.’ Following that would be a conversation from 5-10 minutes in length. During which I was never addressed or expected to speak. Even when goodbyes were said I was a non-entity. This was really strange to me.

I’m not good at being invisible. I’m 5’10. I’m cute. I’m noticeable. But to these guys I was just B’s wife, not important, not noticeable. There to be pretty and smile at hellos and goodbyes. Certainly not in possession of a brain of my own. Certainly not important in my own right. I’m just there to make B look good.

Now, B has warned me that important events with his work will be like that. They still have a good ole’ boy mentality and routine. But, I’ve seriously never experienced anything like it. Here are grown men in 2010 treating a well-educated woman like she doesn’t exist. I’ve never considered myself a feminist in the slightest, but, this kind of treatment would make me one.

B and I talked about it later. I got to tease him for not using the line (But, dear, you’re never invisible to me) because he didn’t tell me that. My biggest point to him was that even if I’m expected to act invisible, he’d better be holding my hand, keeping his arm around me, something to acknowledge that I’m actually there. Because otherwise I will walk off. He’s not allowed to pretend like I’m invisible just because these good ol’ boys are. Because, I had better never be invisible to him.

As far as the art of invisibility goes? I’m not very good at it. As far as the Art Prize around GR goes? I was very impressed.

~The Countess~

Just a joke

Last year when I was living with Sunny in SA a joke got started. It was born out of my being tired of family members asking me if there was anyone special in my life or when I was going to get married. My retaliation to my family members was to ask when they were having kids. (These family members were primarily my own age and married) I only did that to show them how annoying the question could be.

So Sunny and her twin Shiny and their husbands all started telling me that I’d be married by Christmas. Of course I returned their “blessing” with one of my own. That they’d all have another child (Shiny and her husband’s first) by Christmas too. The closer we got to Christmas without my being in a relationship the more the joke was tossed out there. Only now it was primarily between Shiny and I, seeing as we worked together. I would tell her she was having twins, triplets, quads, etc and she and her husband would ask why they hadn’t met the guy I was marrying in a month or so.

When I met B right after Thanksgiving the joke kind of died away. And Christmas came and went. Then of course, as my relationship started progressing with B it started right back up again after work picked back up in January. We teased back in forth about my now getting married by this Christmas (note, this was a joke, none of us actually thought that would happen) and that they’d have their first kid by Christmas.

Here I am married and we’ve still got four months to Christmas. Funnily enough, Shiny has about that many months left in her pregnancy. They’re due Dec 19th. I guess the joke is on us, but, at least we’ll be laughing with our newly enlarged families when this Christmas rolls around.

~The Countess~

PS I have also solemnly sworn to never ask you when you are getting married. Or if there is “someone special” in your life. If you want me to know, you’ll tell me. But that question drove me insane when I was single and I will never inflict it on anyone.

Family

I love my family. We are quirky. We are strange. (Come on, Myobi, you know it’s true.) We defy conventions. Quite happily too. 

I’ve had friends say that I actually make sense after meeting my parents. My dad was a Sgt in the Marine Corps and my mom was a flower child. (See defied conventions) Mom always said she was going to raise us to be too conservative for the liberals and too liberal for the conservatives without letting us just be moderate. It worked. We all have our conservative sides and our liberal sides. Some of us are more so than others in certain ways. But we all get along (shockingly really) and we complement each other in our craziness.

Naturally, with such an awesome family, I’ve always been a bit leery over the family I would one day (hopefully) marry into. I’ll go ahead and confess that I sort of hoped that my Mr. Right would be an only child or that he wouldn’t be super close to his family (yeah, I know, it was horrid of me, but I was all of like 15 when I had these thoughts) so that we could be close to my family without any problems. Because I couldn’t imagine not being with my family for holidays.

Besides, everyone always says in-laws like they actually mean out-laws. All you ever hear about is the over-bearing mother-in-law. (Whether it’s his or hers I think depends on who is doing the telling, because all mother’s can be over-bearing. It’s only insupportable when it isn’t your own mother doing it.) And, I’ve witnessed my share of in-law disasters and nightmares with friends and family. Naturally, I was a bit afraid of what my in-laws might be like and often found it easier to just day dream them away. Even in my dreams I didn’t care to be a martyr. No family for him was easier than family that might not like me.

Of course, life rarely works out the way we want it to, and thank goodness for that. B is one of 4 just like I am. He’s the second child with an older sister and twin younger brothers. And I’m somewhat surprised to find that I like his family too. (Not just saying this, I actually do really get along with his family) I’m sure I’m not exactly what they were expecting the oldest son to bring home to marry, but, his mom has stated many times that she likes me and thinks I’m good for him. (If only she knew…)

Now, I’m so excited about the family that I’ll be gaining. I always did want more brothers. And I guess technically his big sister is younger than me…so I finally get to have a little sister after having been the youngest sister (I do have a younger brother too) my whole life. His family is also quirky and fun. They defy conventions too.

Of course, we’re kind of solving the whole “where to spend the holidays” issue (I’ve heard that this can actually cause real problems within families, thank God we’re military and won’t always have time to be off) by moving to Germany. We’ll be “stuck” over there.

Still, I’m excited about creating my own family from the two wonderful families that claim us both.

~The Countess~

Handwritten Letters

There is truly nothing more wonderful to me then to go to my mailbox and discover a letter inside of it. Not junk mail, not magazines, not bills, but an honest to God letter. It’s so exciting. To be able to curl up on a couch and delve into the treasure of someone else’s words directed only to you. The letter is devoured multiple times and a response is drafted and carefully labored over. Each missive is a gift of time and words. No value can be ascribed to a few sheets of paper and some ink.

I had pen pals as a child, one girl and I wrote back and forth for years until she got married at 17 and started having kids. She actually sent me a letter explaining that now that she was a married woman she had to limit contact with unmarried women. It was hard to lose that friend. To lose those letters.

A cousin of mine is now living in Emgland with her new husband. Our primary method of communication is letter writing. Everytime I open my mailbox and see the envelope signifying a letter from her I get incredibly excited. Contained within is news, stories, advice, comments and just generalities connecting us across the distance.

I adore writing. I have stationary. I have fancy pens, sealing wax, a stamp, and line guides. Truly nothing makes me happier than crafting a letter. Other than perhaps reading one.

~The Countess~