Ladies and gentlemen, I very proudly announce that yesterday, we found out that John has been re-admitted to the University effective next summer! We both screamed and yelled when we found out. It was not a for sure deal that he would get in, and in fact, it took quite a bit of work on John’s part. I am so proud of my husband and look forward to seeing him back on the 40 Acres.

Congratulations, honey! Texas, Texas, Yehaw!

Since we’ll be moving back to Austin instead of San Antonio, I had to refocus my job research. Optimally, I want to work in one of the following fields: urban development, public affairs, education, or hospitality. I know that sounds like a wide range of job fields, but they do have nice overlaps in places. Additionally, I will be able to have a wider job market to look at when I start applying for jobs. Does anyone have any employers they recommend? I know it sounds crazy to think that we’re planning all of this one year in advance, but moving around the world and transitioning to completely new jobs takes quite a bit of planning. Can you believe all our household goods and our car will be packed and shipped in just 7 short months? We can’t either!

Hook’ em!

I started my “Not Me!” Monday post, and then the internet went down at work. That’s what I get for trying to do personal stuff at work. (I really never have time to anyway.)

Since the few sentences I had already written got deleted, I’m going to forgo the Not Mes and post about a few random things instead.

1 – Embarrassingly, we finally unpacked the last of the moving boxes. We did so well that first weekend here, and then those last 5 boxes just sat around for 3 weeks. Oops. It feels much better to be moved in and have things on the wall finally.

2 – We sat down and created our budget for our time remaining in Germany. So much of our money has to go to repaying student loans (since we want to get over half repaid in the next 2 years). It gives me mixed feelings about how much income we have. I’m just glad our debt is going down month by month.

3 – We bought a huge wall clock today. The diameter is 30 inches. I’m hoping it helps fill the void on one of our walls and doesn’t look silly up there.

4 – Fourth of July photos:

- Sarah

For those of you who are unaware,”Not Me!” Monday is a chance for everyone to be brutally honest about what they have not been doing this week. Head over to MckMama‘s blog, My Charming Kids, to see what others have not been up to this week!

Saturday morning, I wanted a cup of coffee, but after I poured myself a cup from the pot I brewed, I realized I didn’t have a spoon unpacked to measure out sugar and stir into my coffee. I did not come up with the brilliant idea of “scooping” sugar out of the container with a spatula, nor did I stir my coffee with said spatula. Not me.

Also, I spent the weekend moving and writing length papers. I did not get tired of writing, and I did not resort to copy/pasting from some old papers while writing the new ones. Not me!

Finally, when we moved out on Friday, I was not embarrassed at how dusty our apartment was. There were no dust bunnies to be seen – certainly none the size of Texas that were hiding under bookcases. I vacuum regularly and there were no dust bunnies to be seen, so I was not ashamed in the least!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Thanks to my wonderful husband’s help, we got mostly unpacked this weekend. The only rooms that really need work now are the master and guest bedrooms. Over the weekend, I wrote about 25 pages for school, we unpacked the kitchen and living and dining rooms and ran several home-furnishing related errands. Oh, and we cleaned the old apartment.

Now I am le tired.

- Sarah

Without further ado, yesterday’s blog post:

You may recall a post about a month and a half ago where we announced our request for exception to policy for a move to a different housing area had been approved. I don’t believe we’ve mentioned it since then, but a lot has happened that has brought us to today – moving day!

• We have been putting 200 miles on our car each week JUST driving to and from work. That’s disgusting, a drain on our finances and extra pollution the Earth does not need. Our new place is a 5-minute walk from work.
• We won’t have to put up with rush hour traffic anymore, and if we want to go downtown, we can take the Strassenbahn (aka cable car/public transit) because we’re right by a stop. At our old place, there was no access to public transportation anywhere nearby.
• We have a washer and dryer in our unit!! Before, we were having to carry our laundry down 3.5 flights of stairs to the basement to a shared area of washers and dryers. Oh, and our monogramed towels and wash clothes have been stolen from down there before.
• We have about 200 sq ft of more living space.
• There’s a billion more windows, which means more natural light.
• Our windows face north and south. In our old place, it was east and west, so it was much hotter.
• We have SOME American outlets. That means we don’t have to use transformers as much, AND I can do my hair in the bathroom in the morning. In the old place, I had to use our American power strip that was hooked ot the transformer in the living room.
• Much more closet space in the living area. We actually have a linen closet now.
• A pantry. Seriously. So excited.

Photo from RealSimple.com

I decided to try it since it looked pretty simple, and wow! it was delicious! It was also extremely fast to fix. Once you have the almonds chopped, it takes less than 10 minutes to make. In my opinion, the red peppers act as a kind of tomato sauce, so I was liberal with those. Oh, and one tip: be careful not to overdo it on the lemon juice on your green bean salad. I made that mistake the first night, and they were a bit too tangy for our taste.

Bonus: there’s only 457 calories per serving, so I did not feel guilty whatsoever about having double chocolate fudge brownie ice cream for dessert.

If you try this recipe, let me know what you think of it. I’m definitely adding it to my regular recipe repertoire (oooh alliteration!).

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Today is also “Hi/Lo Thursday,” which is a blog carnival from the Riggs Family Blog. Don’t skip this week’s – I have some pretty big announcements listed below!! Check out their blog to read everyone else’s highs and lows for the week. I’m going to end with our highs this week, because I want to end on a happy note

Our Lows:

• Yesterday, I was so overwhelemed by driving back and forth to John’s work 4 times (yes, 4 and it’s 30-40 minutes round trip), plus taking care of Béni who has seemed to hit a “terrible 2′s” sort of stage, and dealing with “post clean up” that I started crying around 6 PM when John called me to come pick him up from work. I was just so frustrated that I had been trying to make the bed, do the dishes, and get some homework done all day but everything else had to come first.
• My left arm has been hurting a lot for the past few weeks. I think it’s from carrying Béni up and down 2.5 flights of stairs several times a day. (He now weighs about 26 lbs.) Yesterday, my arm gave out twice while carrying him and I dropped him, which upset me even more. John thinks it’s tendonitis.
• This one is kind of a mixed high and low: several of my friends have recently gotten engaged (yay, high!), but I am really bummed that I cannot be there for them during the planning process. I’m also sad that we have already had to miss so many weddings of our good friends.

Our Highs:

• We have made plans for our one year anniversary!! We are going to Paris for a 4-day weekend the week before our anniversary. I’m really excited to be able to see Paris in the spring since last time we were there it was December/January (2007-2008). We have already made reservations to have dessert late one night on the patio of a restaurant near the Eiffel Tower with a great view as well as dinner reservations at a restaurant we LOVED last time we were there.
• We put in a request for an exception to policy so we could move to the other housing area, which is actually in town. It got approved!!! (We weren’t optimistic about it going through.) The move will allow John walk to work and I can have the car to run errands and also drive myself to work should I ever get a job offer (that’s a whole other deal…). Additionally, that housing area is right near the metro system (the Straßenbahn), so we’ll be able to utilize public transportation to get downtown now instead of navigating the narrow streets and parking garages in our big Xterra. We don’t know when we will get to move because we’re at the bottom of the list, but it will happen eventually. Yay!
• Béni is dreaming and just started barking in his sleep. It’s the cutest little “woof” ever. I love him.
• In light of my frustrations yesterday, I had John take the car so I didn’t have to drive back and forth this morning and to bring him lunch. So far today I have done the following (and it’s only 12:22 PM):

1. showered, blow dried and straightened my hair and put on make up
2. made the bed
3. taken my graduation gown and hood out of the bag and put them on a hanger (yay for getting these!!)
4. put away some dirty clothes
5. dusted the bookshelves, tv, entertainment area, coffee table and one side table
6. walked Béni
7. gone to the store and gotten lunch and dinner
8. started baking chocolate chip cookies for John’s office
9. got the air conditioner working again
10. read a couple blogs
11. updated this blog

and I still want to:

1. schoolwork for tomorrow
2. work on a friend’s website
3. reply to emails
4. clean the bathtub
5. address my graduation announcements
6. prepare Mother’s Day cards for mailing
7. get my mom’s Mother’s Day gift ready to go
8. get oil changed

So…that’s it for me. I know it’s quite a list. Hopefully, I’ll get it done! What are your highs and lows for the week?

- Sarah

Two days ago, when we moved in our mattress, we discovered John’s car key had snapped in half, which left us sans car. (No, the car didn’t come with a spare key, but in retrospect, we should have had one made. Lesson learned.) Although I would say most times would be labeled “inopportune” to have your car rendered useless, this is a particularly bad time. We are still trying to get everything moved into our new apartment, and there is a lot of stuff still at the barracks. Not to mention, John works at a kaserne right by his old barracks, and our apartment is a good 15 minutes away. This morning, we were waiting on the sidewalk just before 6 am so his NCO (non-commissioned officer) could pick us up at 6 and bring us to the barracks. John had to be here for formation at 6:30, and then we had breakfast. He didn’t have PT today, because he has some work stuff to get done and then a color guard rehearsal at 9:30. After that, he will be back here to wait with me for the movers who are going to get most of the rest of his stuff moved out of here and over to our apartment.

Speaking of moving into our apartment, I suppose I should give everyone the run down on that as well! We spent our first night in our apartment two nights ago, but we only had our mattress and box spring on the floor and a couple suitcases there. Yesterday, we had the delivery of my household goods. We were up at 6:10 am and I was ready to sleep by 9:15 pm, but I still had things to do, so it was awhile before I actually got to bed.

I have a lot more to write about, as we have said before, but I must get to what prompted today’s update. (Then, I must get back to schoolwork. I have a class that runs the week of July 15th, and I still have 3 books to read and two 4-6 page papers to write.)

This morning, we checked our wedding photographer’s blog (Lisa Woods: Now and Then Photography) and she had posted photos of us from our wedding! We are so excited to see some images, and cannot wait to see the rest. To see the photos, click this link.

In her blog, she also linked to her assistant’s blog (Bonnie Berry). She also posted a number of superb images from our wedding. To see those, click this link.

We were so lucky to have these two fantastic photographers work with us on our wedding day. If you have been keeping up with our blog, you know we had some issues with the photographer we initially booked. We are so glad we ended up working with Lisa and Bonnie. Their work is amazing, and we are so thankful to have the photos we wanted!