Birthday weekend for one to turn two

As many loyal readers know, I have a toddler. A toddler who recites whole books and speaks full paragraphs. A toddler who only grudgingly wears pig tails. A toddler who loves the water, a good game of chase, songs, coloring, play dough...in short a happy healthy girl. Tomorrow, as in the blink of an eye (not literally, though, sometimes I feel like I could use two full years of sleep), she turns 2. We are celebrating by holding her close. Letting her open a couple of gifts. Perhaps sharing a cup of coffee with the neighbors. In short: no American style party...but probably a nice cuddly day!

A weekend that reminded me...

I was once asked how I could possibly live in a small town (in this case, not the small town of Volkel). What could there possibly be to do there?

The answer is that even in small towns, you can have friends. If there is no place you want to eat out, you have your friends join you. You come up with unusual parties or themes or dinners. This is also true when you are poor and therefore can't afford to pay someone else to entertain you. Anyway, this weekend was a reminder of that.

Since Eric and I often go out on Saturday night (date night), it was a welcome change to have our home filled with friends for both Saturday night and Sunday. I have been lucky enough to have friends stop by for book club or play group -- but it is a rare pleasure to get to do that with Eric.

We had Thanksgiving in January at our house for some Dutch friends...followed by the 'oops -- wish we had baked these for Christmas' baking marathon with Eindhoven friends today -- though we opted for heart and flower cookie cutters, rather than Santa Claus.

I wouldn't have want to be so busy every weekend...and Eileen was kind of miffed that I was doing so much that really wasn't 2 year old related (she helped bake bread by glazing it and putting on sesame seeds -- and enjoyed the products of the baking day)....but it was a pleasure for a couple of days!! I do love seeing my friends. And, I really like entertaining with Eric.

The Recycling Mobile: aka the car

So, just like I used to do in Colorado Springs, I seem to load the car with recycling on a regular basis. But, unlike C. Springs -- which had a centralized facility that was free and run by Waste Management (not that I am plugging for them, but it was a kind service they provided), here we have to go to several places: diapers go to behind the assisted living facility in Volkel; cans and electronics and car oil go to the Uden municipal recycling facility; glass comes in several varieties: some goes to the grocery for a redemption of a deposit (some wine bottles, but mostly beer bottles), the rest gets separated into its color group and dropped into bins outside the grocery store (this leads to back and forth as I was adjusting to the system); plastic: some goes back to the grocery for large deposit redemption and most just gets bagged and dragged curbside once a month (this is really new, we are in our 4th month of that); paper gets gathered and dragged curbside once a month; medicines go in the medicine recycling bin located at some grocery entrances; batteries go in the battery recycling bin located at many places that sell batteries (including grocery stores); clothing and shoes gets separated and bagged and dropped at clothes recycling locations; light bulbs and chemical waste (think that can of EZ-off oven cleaner) go to the municipal facility; cooking oil goes to a container outside the grocery. There is a charge for using some options, but not all, at the municipal facility. There is a similar facility down on the Army base at Schinnen that doesn't charge at all, but has funky opening hours.

So, slightly complex, no?

End result, my car often has a couple of bags in it destined for different locations. Often, it is because I was thwarted on my last attempt (e.g. the computers were down at the grocery last time I tried to drop the redemption from deposit stuff and the facility at the Army base was closed for their 3 hour lunch break while I was there yesterday).

Cold and Car

Please, if you are reading this as a friend in the Western mountain region of the US, put down your drink to prevent damaging your computer. I am not responsible!!!! We have a major snow warning for two inches of snow today. I know what you are thinking. All I can say is that we already have a layer of ice on top of snow on top of ice. So, while the major roads are clear and not a problem, we are grateful for the Subaru on our completely flat driveway. Eileen can handle polysyllabic words now, but we have yet to teach her sublimation, as that is not a problem where we have 100% humidity all the time. Meaning, that if it is cold enough for the snow to stick, there is an icy build up under it by definition. So, stop smirking! (and you can pick your beverages back up now that you have stopped laughing so hard).

I went to get some work done on our car yesterday. Literally the first work other than an oil change since we arrived 1.5 years ago. Anyway, it needed a CV boot replaced. Happily, we caught it just as it failed, so nothing else needed to be done on it. So, oil changed here are about 200 euro (or about 350 dollars  -- needless to say we do that ourselves), but all other work seems to be much much cheaper than in the US. Our CV boot was about 72 euro (or about 110 dollars). I am going to see if painting and body work is cheaper here, as that needs to be done at some point. Anyway, point is that changing oil, buying motor oil, disposing of it (unless it is back into the little oil bottles, in which case our recycling center takes it for free), even the filters, are unspeakably expensive, but apparently, one shouldn't take that as a metric for how much anything else would cost here.

Happy New Year!

Here we are at one of the many Christmas festivities. This photo was taken by one of the people at Spangdahlem. We drove there to see Santa and some of Eric's coworkers on the American side.

We have had a busy holiday season with friends and parties and lots and lots of home baked stuff. I am, as is usual for this time of year, feeling over stuffed. I keep vowing to make up for it, but tonight will be roast duck. This after a breakfast of Cherry Vanilla Scones will probably not reduce my size any...

Ah well, at least we avoided the traditional Ollie Bollie (Dutch deep fried donuts -- spherical in shape and amazingly yummy served hot and drenched in powdered sugar).