The October Surprise

Somehow the month of October zoomed by. Soldier spent most of the month at work and I spent it hunkered down at home. Our household goods arrived on the 17th, right when they were expected.  Except for one thing, this could have been the Best Move Ever.  We had nothing broken or lost but our wood furniture wasn't wrapped properly so most of our wood items have serious rubs on the edges.  It looks like someone sat around with sandpaper and tried to give all my furniture a "Shabby Chic" makeover.   I was miffed initially, but I know it can all be repaired or replaced.  Plus, I've had all the furniture long enough that the newness has worn off and I wasn't entirely disappointed that I might have to replace it!

The kids were thrilled to see their stuff.  Forget Santa Claus, our movers were BETTER than Christmas!   The two bigger kids spent the day playing at the CDC, so they were totally dazzled by the transformation when they arrived home.  Soldier and I spent the evening tag-teaming kids and boxes.  I managed to unpack both of the girls' rooms that evening and do a little bit of work in Monster Boy's room.  They were so happy to re-discover all of their toys!  The upstairs was a trainwreck but we did manage to get everything put away in time for bed.  Since Soldier was in one of his "Busy Times" at work, I was basically on my own after that.  He was able to take delivery day off, but spent the next three weeks at work, except for a couple of nights where he came home to catch up on sleep.

With the election coming up, the talking heads have been mentioned the October Surprise and what it might be.  I don't know about the politicians, but for the Herbek Family, we got our October Surprise the same day our household goods arrived.  Soldier was notified that his OCONUS Tour was being shortened and that we were PCSing in the summer!  He has to be at Ft. Leavenworth by July to attend a 9 month course. So, we figure this means all the stuff we were unpacking will need to be re-packed sometime in May, or about 7 months from now.   We're laughing about it, because sometimes laughter is the only acceptable response but we definitely have some mixed feelings about it.  We're disappointed that our three year European Adventure and smorgasbord of travel has been reduced.  On the other had, we recognize how competitive it was to get a slot in the course and are very, very thankful he gets the opportunity.  We're also excited to go to Leavenworth since my Grandparents and some other relatives still live in the area. I was born there but moved away when I was three or four years old.  In the mean time, we're going to try re-vamping our travel plans and shoot for a "European Sampler."  Time and budget will be seriously limiting factors, since we had hoped to do our big travels in a year, after DeeDee was a little older and we'd saved up a little from our last PCS adventure.  I'm sort of cringing at all the things we sold before we left because we didn't think it made sense to store them for three years: our washer and dryer, the deep freeze, Soldiers Truck, and more!  

Unpacking Entertainment

I grew up moving, so I have some first hand knowledge of the packing/unpacking process from a child's perspective.  Though I've done several moves with kids, this was our first move where I didn't have extra family on hand during the unpacking process and I also have two more kids hanging around while unpacking!  So, here are some of my favorite ways to entertain tots while you unpack the house.

1. Sticker Hunt:  I can't take credit for this one. My parents did this with my brother and I when we were little.  It's a great activity for delivery day.  We were each given a hunk of cardboard ripped off of whatever box was handy and sent on a hunt to collect furniture tags.  It was a big competition to see who could collect more and to sweet the deal a bit, my parents use to pay us for each tag we pulled.  I think it was like a penny or nickel per tag or something.  But, when you're little the value doesn't matter much, does it?  The rules were that we had to wait until the furniture had been placed inside the house, so we weren't underfoot while they were bringing it inside and the tags could come from furniture pieces ONLY, not boxes.  (Now that I'm older, I understand why...my parents needed the box tags until the unpacked and made sure the inventory/damages were accurate, haha)

2.  Ration the Toys!   My little friends like to help, but I don't want them unpacking my wedding china.  So, I dig around and find those treasured boxes that say "Toys - Girl's Room" or the like. It's tempting to open all the toys at once to find their favorites, but you must resist!  Any toy will be their favorite when they have none!!!  Try to keep them to opening one box of toys in the morning and one in the afternoon.  You can drag out the "new toy" effect for at least two days that way. It's like Christmas when they start pulling toys out of that box.  You'll be able to power through 4 to 6 boxes in the time it takes them to unpack and play with all the "new again" toys.

3.  Hide and Seek: This classic game is great for packing and delivery days because there are piles of things clumped together all over the house creating all kinds of new nooks and crannies for hiding places. 

4.  Mural Art:  Packing paper is great for making GIANT artwork.  This is a better activity for unpacking days rather than delivery day since there may not be a ton of space to lay out paper and crayons unless you can use the back patio.  Sometimes, the moving crews won't care if you "borrow" a little packing paper to draw on during the packing days, but it really varies with the crews and how carefully they track their supplies. Anyway, if you can, it's a great time to create some Welcome Home signs. 

5.  Fun with Boxes:  You know the drill...kids usually have more fun with the boxes than with what's inside.  And during a move we have soooo many different sizes of boxes!  Great for all kinds of fun.  It's also one of the few times that I have a utility knife handy so I don't mind quickly cutting a door or window or wings into the cardboard for the kids.  Tape is also usually plentiful so you can piece together boxes for tunnels, spaceships, trains, doll beds, etc.

6. Paper Patrol:  When I unpack, I make a mess, particularly in the kitchen and dining room.  I like to get the items out, see what I have and cram it into a cabinet as fast as possible.  The paper ends up getting tossed on the floor wherever.  When the first box is empty, I start cramming the discarded paper in there for easy stacking as it awaits recycle pick-up.  My kids love jumping in my paper piles (think piles of leaves in the fall!).  They have also learned how much fun grape stomping is, so when they are done jumping in the paper, they enjoy stuffing it the box if they get turns stomping.

What are your favorite ways to keep kids occupied while you unpack?

Trash!

I never thought that I would be preparing to write an entire post about trash, but here I am. And when I say “trash,”  I mean the refuse, stinky, garbage kind not the fun, guilty pleasure television programming or smutty novel kind. 

Trash is a big deal in Germany and it’s taken me every bit of the last month or so to really absorb this new attitude.  Germany takes recycling and their refuse very seriously.  In fact, as I was learning about all of this, I was really taken with the thought that I was a lazy American.  I’ve “recycled” before.  I like the environment and I want to do good things for the Earth, right?  Of course, I do.  But, to be perfectly honest, my willingness to do good was inversely proportionate to how much work I had to do to accomplish that.  So, I did good things for the world if it was easy.  If not, my reluctance to inconvenience myself overruled my desire to be Earth-Friendly. 

First and foremost,  the availability of recycling is drastically different here.  In the US, I’ve lived in some areas that don’t recycle recently.  These areas does not provide door-to-door recycle service. There was probably a recycling center somewhere within a 30 minute drive, but that was too much effort.  Some areas recycled only paper, some paper and plastics 1/2, aluminum and glass was hit or miss.  Some areas required that you separate everything, some areas provided bit bins for single-stream recycling.  I preferred the big single stream bins where drop my recycling in the bin and forget about it.  No work, fuss or though required beyond remembering to put it out to the curb. 

That does not cut it here in Germany.  Recycling is compulsory according to national law.  Really, you are REQUIRED to recycle and yes, there will be people checking.  (It’s a little creepy, right?  Someone inspecting your trash?)  If the inspector finds that more than 10 percent of your trash is recyclables, you will face some hefty fines. Further, if more than 10 percent of your recyclables are sorted incorrectly, you will be fined. Americans living on the economy are subject to these laws. (Though, not on post apparently. More on that later!) 

I now have five trashcans in my kitchen.  It’s really been an adjustment since even my recent American kitchens wouldn’t have been large enough for five trashcans, much less our tiny [efficient] German kitchen!  I mentioned that I’ve been struck many times by how lazy I am and this was the first demonstration. My trash bins are literally six feet outside my front door, but that was too far to walk whenever I had a piece of paper of plastic to sort. We decided to relocate our cleaning supplies and cleared out under our sink for trash bins.  After lots of measuring, shuffling and shoving, we fit all the bins underneath.  Here’s the break down:

1. Paper:  Pretty straight forward. If it’s clean, plain paper or cardboard…this is where it belongs. Anything soiled or contaminated (like a pizza box or a used napkin) can’t go here. We have a big wheeled bin outside to for paper and it is picked up once a month.

2. Plastics:  All plastics go in here. Really, ALL plastics.  Plastic bottles, plastic food packages, plastic baggies, grocery sacks, bubble wrap, plastic packaging from kids toys, plastic plates, cups, and the like.  Also included in this category are the “mixed” materials – aluminum cans, metal lids, foil, chip bags, etc.  Basically, if it feels plastic-y or metallic, it goes here. Some towns will separate this even further, but we're lucky that our town will take it all and do the pick-ups. We are issued giant yellow bags to bundle the plastics up and they are picked up once a month.  I did not realize how much plastic I threw away.  Those yellow bags really pile up in our garage during the month since we amass two or three each week.  Plastic pick-up day is very obvious around town, because residents, businesses and restaurants all create HUGE heaps of yellow bags at the curb that morning.  I suspect that in the US, this wouldn’t work because we wouldn’t want to stockpile a dozen yellow bags in our garages for a month and would demand more frequent pick-ups.  In Germany, however, they have simply reduced the amount of plastic they use. (Imagine that!)  They are very particular about how their items are packaged.  Fruits and meats are packaged cleanly but with much less plastic and Styrofoam that we’re used to.  Stores do not offer bags for purchases; you must bring your own.  Plastic bottles are not common in German stores and individual serving beverages and snacks are not common.  Glass is used instead.

3. Glass:  All glass, colored or clear, is recycled.  In fact, you pay a hefty pfand (a deposit) on glass bottles when you purchase bottled beverages like beer, wine or soda.  Glass is the only thing not picked up at home, but I suspect it’s a matter of practicality – since most glass has the pfand, it generally gets returned to the store it was purchased at for a refund.  What little bit is left over is just easier to collect it in one location in each town.

4. Compost:   Yes, food scraps are considered recyclable.  We were issued a little, green covered bin and special biodegradable bags to collect all food scraps. Every Friday, the bins and bags go out to the curb for pick up. Generally, we only use one bag per week, unless I have some seriously stinky fish or something in there and tie it up early.  I don’t know the details of where the composting is done and what they do with it, but I’m sure they make good use of it. (Side Note: Since food scraps are collected, guess what is NOT in my kitchen sink?  A garbage disposal! That’s taken some getting used to since we scrape the plates in the sink out of habit.)

5. Refuse:  This is anything that isn’t covered in the above category…soiled paper, used napkins, used paper plates, paper food containers that aren’t “clean”, used tissues, broken toys that aren’t recyclable, and diapers.  When we finally got the hang of the sorting process, we were really shocked how little refuse we generated.  I use one 13 gallon trash bag per week and even then it’s only about half full.  I was also struck by the realization that our reused consisted primarily of  used paper towels and diapers.  I never realized how much waste I generated by using paper towels, but it really adds up when you consider all the quick hand drying, counter wipes, sticky hands and messy faces I deal with each day.  We are working on reducing this and switching to using washcloths, hand towels and cleaning rags.  Diapers are the other biggest “offender” in my refuse bag. I’d love to say that I was motivated to switch to cloth diapers, but I’m not.  I’m on my last baby and we’re only got a year of diapering left.  I’m not switching.  

I hope that these habits stick with me when we head back to the states...I love how much we can reduce the refuse we produce.  However, I can't wait to have a garbage disposal again.  That compost bin is yucky and emptying it and sanitizing the darn thing has become my LEAST favorite chore.