We Like Stuff

It's true. We may be materialistic. But we like stuff. Especially our own stuff. Our own furniture (especially our own bed and couch). Our own movies (a pretty impressive collection). Our own photographs and boxes of memories. Our own dishes (yay, Fiestaware!). Our stuff. But right now, we don't have most of our stuff. We have stuff that the Army has lent us until our stuff gets here. Our stuff was moved from the states on April 15. All of our paperwork indicated it would take about 90 days to get here, arriving in the middle of July. When I first arrived in Germany, the transportation office gave us an estimated arrival date of June 23, which made us happy. We'd have our stuff sooner! Yesterday, we received an e-mail message letting us know that our stuff was here!! Well, sort of. It's at their shipping agent's warehouse. They won't be able to deliver our stuff until June 12. But we're pretty happy! Only two weeks until we're reunited with our stuff! So it seems a good time to start showing some 'before' pictures of our apartment so you can get an idea of what it looks like without our stuff. Generally, it's kinda messy because we don't have what we need to properly store the stuff that we do have.


Here are a few pictures of the kitchen. It probably won't look that different when we do get our stuff, since most of the stuff will end up in cabinets. We've made a little progress in making it homey around the window: cute lace curtain, glasses from the Volksfest (along with our plant that's still alive) and some wedding present spice containers decorating the sill.

This is the second bedroom. As you can see, it's currently being used to store all of Jerry's army gear. We plan to get all of the army stuff into the closets and use the rest of the room as a work space for both of us.

I'm finding the built-in storage throughout the apartment to be both an asset and a challenge. It's great because there's a lot of storage space. But it's a challenge because it takes up a great deal of wall space (especially in the master bedroom) and it's storage space that doesn't always quite meet our storage needs. For instance, I have a lot of shoes. I have shoe racks for my lots of shoes that would normally sit on the floor of a normal closet. But our closets have shorter hanging spaces with drawers built into the bottom. So, little things like that are proving to be a bit of a challenge as we plan for the arrival of all our stuf.

We don't like it when our stuff breaks. Like our new car. Last night, Jerry was driving home from work when he realized he left his ID at work. The military ID is pretty important as you have to show it almost everywhere you go. It's scanned everytime you enter a post, and then is often required to be shown at many locations on post. So he turned around to go back to work to retrieve the ID and mid-turning around the car just stopped. He was able to get it to the side of the road, but that was it. He had to walk home in his full army uniform. And let me tell you, our soldiers have it rough. They wear long sleeve (heavy) jackets that they're required to keep on. So even though it was superhot and Jerry was sweating like nobody's business, he kept that jacket on for the 20 minute walk home. When he got home we made arrangements to have the car towed, which required us both walking back to the car (Okay, I didn't have to go. But I did.),which wasn't a big problem except when we got to the gate closest to where the car had broken down, it was closed for the evening. So we had to walk around to another gate, exit the Askren area and basically backtrack around the perimeter of Askren just to get started on our walk. It was a little silly! The tow lady was super nice and we're supposed to hear back from her today about what it will take to fix the car. After we gave her everything she needed, we walked at a more leisurely pace back home, stopping at the Volksfest for ice cream, which was, as always, a delicious treat!