Happy Halloween!

[If you haven't already figured it out, all the "cute baby" pictures are of my (first!) nephew, Mason, who is already one month old!!!]

I'd like to take the occasion of this most non-momentous of holidays to point out that I have now been here for four months! Time flies!!! [A statement with which my Mom will most certainly wholeheartedly disagree!]

A question: Can a bed catch a squeak? You know, like we catch a cold?? My bed has developed a squeak. Since Saturday. And not just the one-little-spot-squeak, the all-over-squeak. The "when I breathe, my bed squeaks" kind of squeak. (The more I write the word "squeak" the funnier it looks.) Seriously, though, I never noticed that my bed squeaked before. I changed my sheets on Saturday and ever since then, it squeaks.....maybe it hates these sheets? I don't know, but seriously, I am sleeping terribly, because every time I turn over, it squeaks. Every time a cat jumps on or off the bed, it squeaks. You get the idea. It is awful. And now the question is, what do I do??? I tried moving the mattress a little bit, thinking I had moved it when I changed the sheets and therefore caused the squeak, but that didn't help. I don't know.....

Saturday I participated in pumpkin carving. "Participated" meaning that I separated the pumpkin seeds from the pumpkin goo. (Joy!) It was an interesting mix of American expats and Germans. I don't think any of the Germans had actually carved a pumpkin before, so it was really fun for them. I have to say that being an expat creates interesting relationships. Not in a bad way at all, but it's definitely something unique. For example, the family who hosted the pumpkin carving - he's an engineering manager at my company. I knew him pre-Germany, but not well, there were certainly other managers that I knew better. But since moving here, I've been over to their house several times and am invited to Thanksgiving there. Which is really nice, in all sincerity. It's just interesting, because it's something that probably would have never happened in MI.

Late Saturday afternoon, I was driving home (from a different house than the pumpkin carving house....) and I realized that I had left my purse behind. Seriously, I only have to keep track of myself and somehow I can't even do that. But I was so close to home and where I left my purse was almost thirty minutes away, so I decided to hope that they would be online that night so that I could ask them to bring my purse to church. (I would have called them, but I couldn't. Because where was my cell phone? In my purse. And where was their phone number? In my cell phone.....) Eventually, D. was online, so I asked him to bring my purse to church, but they weren't going to be at church, so they would bring it to the birthday party that we were invited to yesterday afternoon. Let me just tell you that I drove very, very carefully Sunday.

Sunday was not my "smartest" day, definitely not an improvement from my forgetfulness on Saturday.....We "fell back" on Saturday night, just like in the States. Supposedly, I have a radio-controlled clock, which theoretically should set itself. So when the alarm went off, I got up and got ready for church. When I checked my email before leaving, I noticed that my computer clock was not in sync with my alarm clock. For some reason, it was an hour behind my alarm clock (yep, that should have been a clue to me, but it wasn't). I figured it missed the time change somehow and thought I would adjust it later (I should have noticed that to correct to what time I thought it was, it would have to spring forward an hour, but I didn't....) On my way to church, the low gas light went on. Here, I try not to procrastinate on filling my tank (unlike in Michigan), because you never know when you might run into a Stau (backup, but not like anything you Metro-Detroiters can imagine, seriously, but that can be for another time). But where was my money? In my purse. And where was my debit card? In my purse. And where was my purse? Not with me! Fortunately, I had 15 Euro that I had stuck in my jeans pocket on Saturday, when S. paid me for their half of the gift that I bought for us to take to the birthday party on Sunday. If I hadn't had that money, I either would not have been able to go to the birthday party on Sunday night or I would have had to have borrowed money from someone at church on Sunday morning (which would have been totally mortifying!). After the gas station, I looked at my clock in the car and thought "how cool, the clock in my car must be radio-controlled, too", as it had apparently "fallen back" all on it's own. (Yes, go ahead and start laughing now....) I pulled into the parking lot and church and ................................................... there were two cars in the parking lot. And the announcer on the radio said, "It's 10 minutes to 9." [A note here on time: here in Schwabenland, they don't say "It's eight fifty." Nope, they say, "it's 10 before nine." And they don't say it's 8:30 either. They say that it's "half nine" when it's 8:30. The best ever was when I heard someone say, "It's 5 after 10 before half nine." Now, you tell me what time that is??? Even the Germans who aren't from here have to think about that one twice.] Anyways, church starts at 10. So I went back home, because I was not going to sit in the parking lot for an hour. And somehow, after being an hour early for church, I still managed to be ten minutes late. Now that's talent!

On to more serious issues....my house in Michigan still has not sold. It seems that I need to consider truly dropping the price drastically in order to sell it. Imagine taking a whole bunch of money, throwing it in the toilet and flushing. That's about how I feel right now. Sometimes I don't understand. I believe that moving to Germany was the right decision. And I have seen His Hand in this move in more ways than I can tell you (someone told me I should write all the ways out, so that I never forget the immensity of all that I've experienced). So I struggle with why my house won't sell. But like almost everything else in my life, I can place this in perspective....Michigan's unemployment is the highest in the nation at more than 50% higher than the national average. Consider then how fortunate I am that I have a job, that my family members have jobs, that my friends have jobs. To be honest, I don't know anyone who's lost their job because of the economic situation in Michigan, which is pretty amazing, considering that I work for an automotive company! In that light, losing some (well, okay, a lot, from any perspective) money on the sale of my house is still upsetting, but seems less devastating.

On to happier topics...I'm headed into a 5-day weekend! Tomorrow is All-Saints Day and since I live in a Catholic state, it's a state holiday here. And then I have vacation on Thursday and Friday. Well, really this isn't so happy, because I need to really sit down and work on my paper. I hope I'll be disciplined to do that, because I've already made some plans for my long weekend and I can see the possibility of more being added. But the draft is due on the 15th of November if I want to have the opportunity to revise it for an improved final grade, which I do. So, enough said. One large dose of self-discipline, please. I also need to get my winter tires (yep, we have to switch between summer and winter tires, please don't ask me, I don't know....) and pick up my German driver's license, which I'm looking forward to getting - imagine, though, the office is only open from 8:30 to 13:30 Monday through Wednesday and Friday and from 13:30 to 17:00 on Thursday. If a government agency had hours like that in the States, there would be an all-out revolt, with demonstrations and picketing, I do believe.

There's a challenge going around right now to blog for every day of November. I haven't signed up, because I don't know if that's something that I can commit to. But I'm going to make an attempt and we'll see if I can make it....

To all my friends in Detroit....so sorry about the Tigers. But it's pretty impressive that they made it as far as they did, don't you think? Now it's time to focus on my boys - the Red Wings. Unfortunately, I don't see the games, but you know I'm watching those stats! And while the boys aren't looking too bad, Anaheim, Dallas, Atlanta, Buffalo and Minnesota are doing pretty well. All I have to say is "Go Wings!"

Okay, that's all from me for today. Happy Trick or Treating!