Category: Project 52

It’s time for Project 52, Week 34 – Part 3!

34 weeks ago, on my 52nd birthday, I began Project 52. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, each week I’m taking one year of my life and blogging about it. This week, I’m covering the year I was 34 — June 14, 1998, to June 14, 1999.

But now that I’m covering the years I lived in Germany, I don’t seem capable of keeping it to one blog post. This is now the third post about being 34, after talking about my new home and new job and our vacation in Spittal an der Drau.

On August 8, 1998, we got to do something I’d been wanting to do for awhile.

I think I mentioned that one of my first purchases in Germany was a hiking map. Well, I also bought a road atlas. And I loved to look at the atlas and plan these trips to castles.

Well, once when I was looking at the atlas, I was delighted to see a nearby town called Sonderhausen. Anyone who reads my blog knows that Sonder is a German prefix meaning “special,” which I picked up on right away. So Sonderhausen means “special houses.”

I figured there were probably more place names with Sonder- as a prefix. So I went to the index in the back of the atlas.

Imagine my delight when I discovered a town named SONDRA! Exactly my name! It was located in the former East Germany, about three hours away from us. I found a castle nearby as well, so that a trip would involve more than taking pictures of the sign. The closest castle is the Wartburg, which is where Martin Luther translated the Bible.

So, on Saturday, August 8, 1998, I dragged my family with me, and we visited Sondra!

I later made a t-shirt and a sweatshirt with the image. I still wear that sweatshirt when I feel like affirming who I am.

Here’s the sign that tells you you’re leaving Sondra:

And I just had to get lots of pictures taken. It took us 3 hours to get there, after all.

While we were taking these pictures, an old lady wearing a kerchief was working in a field. I wonder what she thought of us.

(I did think the villagers should take better care of their signs.)

Another Leaving Sondra sign:

The Wartburg was a fascinating and beautiful castle. Nicely preserved, and with a museum. We took a tour and learned about Martin Luther translating the Bible there.

I always like low ceilings that show how tall I am. Josh could reach this one!

Timmy? Not so much.

Cannon are always fun!

Back home, I’d forgotten to mention that Josh played baseball again that year. Their team even won the little league championship! (Believe it or not, there were enough American bases in the area to have a complete league.)

And our next outing was much more prosaic: A Corn Labyrinth! We hadn’t been surprised by these in Illinois. A little more so in Germany.

It felt a lot more appropriate to go to a Medieval Fest in Kaiserslautern that same night.

We did buy a Kinderhelmet.

This, predictably, resulted in some sparring later.

And that was the first couple weeks of August! Year 34 was full…. More to come!

It’s time for Project 52, Week 34 — Part Two!

34 weeks ago, on my 52nd birthday, I began Project 52. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, each week I’m taking one year of my life and blogging about it. This week, I’m covering the year I was 34 — June 14, 1998, to June 14, 1999.

However, it seems that now that I’ve gotten to the years when I lived in Germany, I’m just not capable of cutting it down to one blog post. I’m having so much fun looking at old pictures — I’m afraid I’m going to stretch these out over several posts.

Last time, I covered the beginning of the year I was 34. We did lots of exploring on top of the new hill we lived on in Gundersweiler. In fact, here are some pictures from another exploration of our hill. (So beautiful! I loved exploring the fields up there, with the world laid out around us.)

We discovered this marker up on top of the hill. These are the villages in that area, on various sides of the hill.

And this crazy seat? It was probably something for hunters to use, but it had the label “Pfalz-Thron.” (The Pfalz was the region of Germany where we lived.)

My sweeties:

Steve had a day off on Monday, July 20 — so naturally, we went to a castle. This time we went back to Schloß and Burg Rheingrafenstein, which we’d visited in November when Jody was visiting. This time, it was much warmer and sunnier.

Now, every year the USAFE Band took leave at the same time (or at least half the band would take at one time and half at the other) — so that they would always have all the instruments they needed to perform. Ours was in July, and we were going to be gone during Timmy’s birthday on the 29th, so we threw a birthday party for him at the Bowling Center on base. The kids from Miss Angie’s home day care came, and Angelika and Katharina from Leithöfe. I made him a train cake!

Remember in 1986, when we were engaged, I spent the summer in Austria? The first place I wanted to go, now that we lived in Europe, was to go back with my family to Spittal an der Drau. And I wanted to take the cable car to the top of the mountain, Goldeck, and hike down. Because what could be better than a hike on a hill when you never had to hike uphill? I mean, what could be easier? (Famous last words!)

Now, the previous year, we didn’t have a choice where to go on vacation, because Steve’s parents took us on an amazing trip to Sweden. But this, my first year living in Europe when I could go anywhere for vacation, I wanted to go to Spittal an der Drau. We didn’t have a lot of money to spend, but we got a hotel room for four nights, traveling from July 27 to July 31.

I wrote in my journal on the 30th, so happy to be there in Spittal. I felt that God brought me back to Spittal, and — Wow! — I wrote, “I think maybe I read something revolutionary today in George MacDonald’s writings, but I still have to think about it and process it.” (I hadn’t remembered that I read that from George MacDonald in Spittal an der Drau! More on that later. That was a life-changer.)

We drove through Bavaria, and our first full day in Spittal, we explored the town — so much as I remembered it. The kids played in the castle park, and we all touched Schloß Porcia, Castle #55, the palace in the middle of the park in the middle of town.

Josh and Timmy played with the giant chess set in the park.

The 29th was Timmy’s 4th Birthday! The hotel folks brought in a cake with lighted candles at breakfast and sang to him! (I say in my journal, “Too bad I was the only one who liked the cake!”) We did bring his presents with us, and he was thrilled.

Have I mentioned yet how much little Timmy loved everything Dilbert? We had “Dilbert’s Desktop Games” on our computer, which he played often. And that led to the comics. I had the only three-year-old who pretended to be “Techno-Bill.” Anyway, we gave him a stuffed Dogbert.

Quoting from my journal, “After that, we did what I dreamed of doing for twelve years. We took the cable car up Goldeck (2142 m) and hiked ALL the way down.

“When I first glimpsed Goldeck Tuesday, I had a sinking feeling that it was bigger than I remembered. But we did the WHOLE thing. We exhausted ourselves, but we really did it. My boys and husband were wonderful troopers and didn’t complain and let me fulfill my dream.”

First, the cable car.

From the top, we had to find the right path back to town.

But we did stay on top and enjoy it for awhile.

We started hiking down.

There was a halfway point where we could have caught the cable car the rest of the way down. I’m still thankful Steve let me keep going.

Oh, and all the way down, I was singing, “It’s Timmy’s Birthday today! It’s Timmy’s Birthday today! Hooray, Hooray, Hooray, Hooray! It’s Timmy’s Birthday today!” (And most of the way down, Steve was carrying Timmy.)

At the halfway stop, there were treats! (We’d already had lunch at an earlier mountain hut.)

Reader, I’m afraid it took us six hours to get down that mountain! We crossed this river, and there was a restaurant right next to it where we stopped to eat.

I was completely exhausted when we stopped for dinner. I knew I needed some caffeine to perk me up. Well, I ordered fresh-caught trout, and the waiter would not let me drink coke with it! No, for such a fine dish I had to have white wine! He bullied me into it, and I had a glass of wine with the trout.

It was one of the best meals I’ve ever had in my life, but after six hours of hiking — I was so tipsy, I almost couldn’t walk straight to the hotel! Since we were walking to the hotel, and since it really was one of the best meals of my life, it was probably worth it!

Back at the hotel, we lit candles on some cupcakes we’d brought for Timmy, and then all fell asleep.

The next day was quieter. (We actually got our car keys stuck in the hotel room safe!) But we did enjoy the hotel pool and visited the castle museum in Schloß Porcia.

And enjoyed this little car on Main Street:

In the evening, we drove to Millstättersee and rented an Elektro-boat!

And then we drove back through Spittal and up a winding little road partway up Goldeck and visited Ruine Ortenberg, the first ruined castle I ever saw, 12 years earlier.

We headed home the next day, but on the way we saw a castle where we had to stop, Festung Hohenwerfen, Castle #57.

The view from the castle:

Looking down at the lower castle from the upper castle:

I don’t think we caught a Raptor show there, but they did have raptors.

So that was our Austrian vacation, 1998!

As if that weren’t enough, the following Sunday, we wandered over the border into France and visited Thillombois and Lac de Madine. We didn’t find any castles, though!

And I believe I took these pictures because I got my pictures up! Only 3 months after moving in — not bad! This was the living/dining room of our beautiful house.

So — two posts, and I’ve only gotten through two months! I think it’s going to speed up, as we didn’t take vacation all year! But you’ll still be hearing more about Year 34….

It’s time for Project 52, Week 34!

34 weeks ago, on my 52nd birthday, I began Project 52. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, each week I’m taking one year of my life and blogging about it. This week, I’m covering the year I was 34 — June 14, 1998, to June 14, 1999.

Now, this week I’ve decided to give up on the idea of posting about the whole year in one night. I’m going to spend about an hour and a half, and probably won’t get very far…. But being 34 was a good year to think about.

I had just begun working at Sembach Base Library in May. Last time, I talked about how I almost didn’t take the job. When I did, it felt like such a gift from God. It felt like the job was made for me. Surrounded by books! Half-time, so I still had time with my kids! Jade (then called Josh) could walk to the library after school! It was a job share, so I actually got Holiday time and Sick Leave! I did story times! I even found a way to do some programming!

The first reason I got to program was that they were hand-writing overdue notices. I made an Access data base to print them and put the overdue books in order so we could check the shelves without having to use the cards. Believe it or not, at Sembach Library, they were still filling out cards with your name and address on each card and the title, author and call number of each book you were checking out. At first, they wouldn’t let me make a data base for check-out — since they’d bought a computer system and it was supposedly coming. But there was no way I was going to take the time to hand write overdue letters when I could invest a little time in making a program to do it for me. So that was the first thing. I loved having a small chance to program again.

When I started, my job was shared with a woman named Sonja. (How’s that for confusing? Sonja and Sondra started at the same time. At least no one ever called me Sandy!) I’m afraid that Sonja did not really like the job and complained a lot about it. Which was a drag, since I was so completely thrilled to have it. Staffing at Sembach was always an issue. When we were fully staffed with a librarian, our German library assistant Elfriede, and two half-time library technicians, we got by okay. But when we were in between librarians or technicians — it was really hard to cover the hours. I went through 5 librarians in 8 years, and 5 job-shares. Jeff Conner was the librarian who hired me, and I really liked working with him.

But my dear Elfriede! The treasure of Sembach Library! She’d been working there 26 years. She is an exuberant, delightful single lady who drives a little red convertible (very very fast) and has never grown up. She loved to feed me, going to the “coffee place” (bakery) for lunch and would always bring me back a pastry. It made her genuinely happy to feed me, so I didn’t want to hurt her feelings and refuse.

As the years went by, Elfriede became my biggest fan. And you know what? it’s good to have a fan! In turn, I am a fan of Elfriede, one of the most delightful people I have ever known. She was the constant over my eight years of working at Sembach Base Library.

But we also had a new home! We’d gotten kicked out of our apartment in Leithöfe, but found this wonderful house in Gundersweiler to rent, just when I got a job so we could afford it.

The Gundersweiler house was incredible inside and out. Take a look at this incredible bathroom!

Yes, that’s a heated towel rack.

I *loved* the German toilets that came out of the wall. You could mop under them so easily. No ridiculous screws that catch dirt. All simple as can be. Sometimes I’d wonder what would happen if one clogged, since the mechanism was in the wall. Well, ten years in Germany, and we never once had a toilet clog! (German bathroom technology is wonderful!) (After I moved to Virginia, a toilet clogged when I wasn’t home, and Tim didn’t have a clue what to do. He’d grown up in Germany, so that was his first clogged toilet.)

Yes, it takes three photos to show the whole spacious and luxurious bathroom!

And on my birthday, June 14, there was a Balloon Fest going on! It was across the valley from our house. I took this picture sticking my head out the bathroom window.

And then we decided to go for a walk up our hill. This was a longer walk than the one up our hill in Leithöfe. But incredibly spacious once we got up there. In the first few pictures, there are dots in the sky that are the balloons still taking off.

We tried to re-create the previous year’s picture.

Like in Leithöfe, walking up there felt like being all alone on top of the world.

I love this one of Josh! I’m afraid we did find a tick on Josh’s back that evening.

And that night, they made me a birthday cake. I love the beautiful windowed nook where we kept our table.

And that July 4th was noteworthy. While we were moving our stuff from Leithöfe to Gundersweiler, we kept passing a sign that said “Bungee Jumping in Gehrweiler July 4!” (The sign may have been in German, but that was the gist.) Steve knew that he always worked on July 4, so he said that if he wasn’t working, he’d go bungee jumping.

Well, that year July 4 was on a Saturday. The official U. S. holiday got moved to Friday so people could have a day off. Steve and the Brass Quintet played a party at the Paris Embassy on Friday — and was home on July 4! So we went to Gehrweiler, and Steve really did go bungee jumping!

A couple other band people were there, and that was the day I met Jeanine Krause! Jeanine was married to Nick Althouse, a trumpet player in the band. It quickly became apparent that Jeanine was a kindred spirit. You’ll be hearing more about Jeanine! She was my first best friend in Germany.

And after bungee jumping, it was a Saturday in July, so we went to the Rhein to see The Rhein Aflame!

On a lot of Saturdays during the summer, Germans shoot off fireworks from castles! It’s dramatic and exciting — and they ended up being the most amazing fireworks I’ve ever seen on the 4th of July. We didn’t take a cruise to see them, since that ended up being expensive and would go late. Instead, we went to a Fest taking place by the river in Bingen. From there, we could see fireworks going off from four different castles. It was amazing.

Here are the kids messing around in the afternoon when we were still figuring out what we were going to do.

And we were still enjoying our home. The first time there were horses in the pasture next to our house, I had to take a picture!

And there was a soccer field down the road where we flew kites.

Another thing that happened about this time was I found out what was causing my joint pain. I’d been having joint pain and malaise since just before we left Illinois. I thought I was getting either rheumatoid arthritis or lupus, and the symptoms seemed to fit lupus best. Well, I got in with a German rheumatologist in Mannheim, and he ran a bunch of tests. I see by my journal that I also finally asked a lot of people to pray.

The rheumatologist told me that although some things were elevated, they were not at the level they would be if I had lupus. He sent me away and said, “Check your medication.”

Well, I was now working in a library! We had a Physicians Desk Reference. I looked up Inderal, the migraine preventative I’d started taking six months before I had any joint pain symptoms. It said that in “very rare cases”, it may cause drug-induced lupus! So — I stopped taking Inderal. It took a couple months, but my symptoms completely disappeared, never to return. Yep. That was it.

I wrote in my journal, “I went from thinking I had an incurable disease to one with a simple cure: Stop the Inderal. What’s more, my headaches had gotten so much better during my time not working, it looks like I’ll get along fine without the Inderal. So a shadow that’s been hanging over me for the last two years has been suddenly removed. And I feel so thankful.” (Alas! I was naïve about the headaches. But so thankful about the drug-induced lupus.)

I haven’t gotten very far tonight. But let’s see if I can get through the year if I post a little bit each night….

Tonight was about just how happy I was to start my wonderful made-for-me job and to move into my dream home. I barely got through a month….

It’s time for Project 52, Week 33!

33 weeks ago, on my 52nd birthday, I began Project 52. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, each week I’m taking one year of my life and blogging about it. This week, I’m covering the year I was 33 — June 14, 1997, to June 14, 1998.

Last week, I covered moving to Germany when I was 32. But alas! It took me three posts to cover the whole year. I don’t want to actually spend three nights writing each blog post, so I learned I’m going to have to cut down the number of pictures I post. Somehow. This is hard, because my heart lifts every time I look at the pictures from our time in Germany. The only thing that saved me last week and allowed me to finally finish was that I never did scan a whole chunk of pictures from 1997.

So I’ll see if I can summarize. (Ha! I have my doubts.)

The setting: We were living in Leithöfe, in a 3-bedroom apartment on the first floor of a house where our landlord and landlady lived above us. We had large windows in every room, and were perched halfway up a hill, with a gorgeous view out the windows. We could even see the Air Force Base across the valley — but had to go around the hill to get to it.

I got to quit teaching when we moved to Germany, and it was lovely to be home with 2-year-old Timmy, and home in the evenings with 3rd-grader Jade (then called Josh). We had a wonderful evening routine of often going for a walk up our hill after dinner, or maybe playing Monopoly Jr. together.

There were some negatives. I still got waves of mysterious pain in my joints. I thought I was getting lupus. (It turned out to be drug-induced lupus, but I didn’t know that yet.) I had days when I just felt sick. A draggy malaise. (It gave me permanent sympathy for people with rheumatoid arthritis or lupus or fibromyalgia.) Kind of too bad that the whole time I got to be at home with my kids, I had drug-induced lupus. But overall, it was a wonderful time.

And despite all his traveling with the USAFE Band, Steve was willing to go castling with us on his days off. Which I appreciated very much. A lot of the other spouses would go traveling together — but I liked that we could do it as a family. We’d already touched 21 castles before my birthday in 1997.

My 33rd birthday fell on a Saturday, and Steve had to work in the evening. But before he left, we went for a walk on our hill, and the weather was simply glorious! (I remember as a child living in Kent, Washington, the weather was always wonderful on my birthday. Well, Germany has a similar climate, and it seemed to work that way in Germany, too.)

Here are some pictures from our walk that day. (I got just some of those pictures scanned.) And look at me, I can’t resist posting the pictures I have from that glorious day. I think they begin to express how lovely it felt to climb that hill and be on top of the world.

Our house is the one in the center with the dark wood under the peaked roof.

The next day was Father’s Day, and we had a picnic lunch to celebrate. More enjoying the lovely weather from our beautiful new home.

Now, this is still the time period where I don’t have many rolls of film scanned, so I’m just going to list the castles we visited.

Castle #22, Burg Frankenstein (really!), June 28.
Castles #23-25, Burg Altdahn, Burg Grafendahn, and Burg Tanstein, July 8. These three castles are all right next to each other, near the town of Dahn, and I do have some pictures from that visit.

One of my scariest moments ever when castling happened when I’d taken Timmy to the top of the tower, and I was trying to navigate these ancient, terribly worn stairs — and Timmy had a meltdown. I was afraid I’d drop him. I finally stepped back and cooled down — and took his picture.

A lovely castle on a lovely day.

On July 15, we picked up Steve’s parents at the Düsseldorf airport, and they took us on vacation! In fact, we stopped for lunch at Castle #26, Burgturm Davert.

But we spent that evening in Bremen!

The cool thing about Bremen was that when we told Josh we were going to move to Germany, Josh’s teacher told them about the statue in Bremen of the Bremen town musicians. So we made sure to visit it.

The next day, we drove into Denmark, and visited LEGOLAND!

(That’s the only picture scanned so far from LEGOLAND, but a cute one!) The funny thing about LEGOLAND was it made me notice that from living in southern California, I’m used to lots of people at an amusement park speaking a different language from me. (At Disneyland, it’s Spanish.) What I wasn’t used to was lots and lots of blond children who looked just like my kids! Both Steve’s parents are of Swedish descent, so my kids are half Swedish, and fit right in with all the Scandinavian children.

We visited Roskilde, Denmark, and the Viking Museum there. We rode a ferry and went to Sweden. In Sweden, we got to take part in a family reunion and meet many of Steve’s Dad’s cousins. (There are ten cousins in a picture, which I don’t have scanned.) We saw the little red house called Lövudden where Steve’s grandfather was born. We stayed and talked and talked until very late — but the sun didn’t set!

On the way back, we visited Castle #27 — Kronborg in Helsingör, Denmark — the setting for Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Castle #28 was Burg Nohfelden, and Castle #29 was Burg Rheinstein.

Then on August 16, we took a train to Koblenz and visited Castle #30, Kurfürstliches Schloß, and Castle #31, Festung Ehrenbreitenstein. We also visited the Deutsches Eck, where the Rhein and Mosel Rivers meet, and the Schängelbrunnen.

But we decided after that day’s outing that it was much simpler to drive our own car. We didn’t have to worry about missing the evening train, and we didn’t have to pay for 4 tickets, and we didn’t have to walk around the city once we got there. So we didn’t do much train travel after that, except when I made journeys by myself to Paris later.

The Moore family — the pastor who married us — visited Germany at this time. I met the family at the Frankfurt Bahnhof, where Connie and Krissy caught a train to Brussels, and then took Doug with us sight-seeing, and he spent the night at our house. Steve was in Italy at the time, but got back that night. We took Doug to the airport in the morning. For the sight-seeing, the kids and I took Doug to our favorite castle on the Rhein, Burg Rheinfels, and we had dinner in Otterberg next to the beautiful Cistercian church.

I do remember that Doug asked how Steve was doing spiritually, and I couldn’t really answer him. We usually attended the Baptist church out by Ramstein, and I was singing in the choir. But Steve had told me at one point that he wasn’t even sure he was a Christian any more. I hadn’t pressed him, but remembering that conversation reminds me that I took a lot for granted. But we were both still very happy about being in Europe, and so far he didn’t begrudge me all the sight-seeing and castling I wanted to do.

Castle #32 was Burg Wildenburg, a castle fairly close by that we visited on a Saturday, September 13.

Then Steve had a long weekend September 27-29, and we went into France! (Josh’s school was super understanding about letting kids off for “educational family trips.” They understood those were way more meaningful to the kids than classes, at least in elementary and middle school. I appreciated that attitude so much!)

I wish I had scanned the pictures from that trip! We went into Alsace, and besides fall color in the trees, all the windows were decorated with flower boxes. It was so beautiful!

I took 2 years of high school French, but Steve had taken 4 years, so he was pretty good at communicating. On the way to Alsace, we first visited the Black Forest and the waterfall at Triberg in Germany. Then we crossed into Alsace.

Alsace is a tourist destination — for Europeans, not Americans. We followed signs and saw a couple of very cool things: The first was Montaigne des Singes, Monkey Mountain, where they give you a handful of popcorn and you go walk among a bunch of gibbons (I think it was) and feed them the popcorn. They lift it right out of your hand. Well, except for one mean monkey who’d pat at your hand and make you drop all the popcorn so he could have it.

The other tourist event was an eagle show, Volerie des Aigles, at a castle, Castle #35, Chateau du Kintzheim. This all happened on September 28, along with visits to Castle #33, Haut Koenigsbourg, and Castle #34, Oedinbourg.

On the 29th I finally have some pictures. We followed signs to a Cascade.

And then we had a picnic next to a small ruin, Castle #36, Chateau de Hell. (Really!)

In between, we did more hikes around our hill. If you didn’t go straight up, there were actually hiking trails all over the hill. Remember that hiking map I bought when we first moved to Germany? It helped.

I was impressed by these mushrooms!

We took a trip to the Mosel River on October 6.

We visited Castle #37, Schloß Schöneck and Castle #38, Ehrenburg:

And finished the day at Castle #39, Burg Eltz:

Two days later, on October 8, Steve had the day off, and we went to Castle #40, Burg Stauf:

I hope by this time you get the idea why I SO LOVED living in Germany! We were doing awesome vacation after awesome vacation! To this day, I think castles are awesome. And we could just pick a spot on the map, and go see a castle! It was a huge adjustment when I moved back to the States to realize that a 3-day weekend no longer meant I could take a little trip to France.

November 1, we visited Castle #41, Burg Neuleiningen — the first castle we’d seen after moving to Germany, visible from the Autobahn.

And by now Jerry had moved in! Jerry was Steve’s friend from the band at Scott AFB. Steve talked him into coming to Germany, and he moved in to the 1-bedroom apartment next door to ours in the same house. Here’s Jerry on a hike with us through the Leithöfe woods.

I was still knitting:

And then our friend Jody came to visit! Jody the Band Spouse from our first assignment in New Jersey!

We met her in Luxembourg and then took her home. (It was a rainy day, so I didn’t take many pictures, but was charmed with Luxembourg.)

Luxembourg City is a walled city, so we counted it as Castle #42. (A beautiful city, too.)

Castle #43 was another walled city with Jody, Rothenburg ob der Tauber.

On Monday, November 17, we took Jody to the Rhein River.

And visited Castle #44, Marksburg.

On the 19th, we visited Castles #45 and #46, Schloß Rheingrafenstein and Burg Rheingrafenstein, but by the time we got there, it was already getting too dark for good pictures.

We took a break from castling during December. That was the Christmas when Timmy was 3 and full-on into pretending. Like Josh, I brainwashed him into having his first person he pretended to be was Piglet from Winnie-the-Pooh. By Christmastime, he was consistently Pooh, and could even spell his own name, P-O-O-H. I was Piglet. (Which sometimes really bothered me when he’d call me from his room. “Piiiiglet!”) Josh was Christopher Robin, and Steve was Tigger. We actually put those names on our Christmas presents.

That Christmas was the first year I put a Top Ten list on my Christmas Letter. Here are the Top Ten Ways You Know You’ve Lived in Germany for a Year:

10. You no longer even think about asking about the Band’s schedule for the day after next.
9. You don’t pronounce “Burg” and “Berg” the same way.
8. You stop gawking at the scenery on your way to work or school.
7. You no longer say, “Let’s stop at a German restaurant for a quick bite to eat.”
6. Someone asks you how far away something is, and you answer in kilometers.
5. You can pronounce “Gewerbegebiet” correctly on the first try.
4. You lose interest in a building when you find out it’s only 100 years old.
3. Your idea of a kid’s meal is Pommes Frites (French fries) with ketchup.
2. You don’t hesitate to drive your car through narrow openings, as long as you have a few inches to spare on either side.
1. You cross into Luxembourg, see the speed limit is 120 kph (75 mph) and say, “Uh oh. I’d better watch my speed.”

In January, we got to castles again. On January 10, we visited Castle #47, Burgruine Hohenecken, right there in Vogelweh village, near the BX.

Steve had a band trip to Luxembourg at the end of the month, and on January 28, we met him there. After all, I’d driven myself to Luxembourg twice before to pick up Jody and take her back to the airport. (It was about two hours away, on empty Autobahns, which you could take at high speeds.)

I heard the Louvre is free the first Sunday of the month — so I had the brilliant idea to drive to Paris! It’s “only” 6 hours away. We got off to an early start and Steve and I each drove 3 hours, with him navigating the Paris traffic. We even found a good place to park ahead of time on a map.

This time Josh really did get their head between the pyramids!

The first catch was that it ended up costing us $40 in tolls and $50 in French gas. (We could buy cheap American gas — about 10 times less expensive — on base in Germany, but not in other countries.) Then when we got to the Louvre, they had just opened a new exhibit, and all of France was there to see it! The line was two and a half hours long! But a helpful person at the Tourist Office directed us to walk through the Garden of the Tuileries to the L’Orangerie, an Impressionists Museum.

We had a lovely walk through the Tuileries, and the L’Orangerie was a lovely, peaceful museum. The most amazing thing was in the basement. Two large rooms have their walls filled with paintings of Water Lilies done by Monet. The walls are curved outward, and you feel like you’re in a capsule submerged in an aquarium. It’s astonishing and peaceful. I hadn’t realized the paintings are so enormous.

The other catch was that on the way home, Steve and I were having such a good time talking with each other, I missed a turn and didn’t figure it out until much later. So the cost and gas went up yet more. We didn’t get home until 1 am, so my bright idea didn’t seem so bright.

On February 10, we visited Trier, which was once a Roman capital. Castle #48, the Porta Nigra, was our oldest castle so far. We also counted Castle #49, Palais Kesselstatt, and Castle #50, the Amphitheatre, which was once part of the city fortifications. I got a weird feeling when I realized that Christians had actually died there.

Still some silly times at home in Leithöfe:

And we celebrated Josh’s 10th Birthday at the base bowling alley. Ryan Scott was already their best friend.

On April 6, we visited Castle #51, Burg Ruppertsecken.

And I need to post a few pictures showing how gloriously beautiful Leithöfe is in the Springtime.

Toward the end of March, a band spouse, Donna Crump, who worked full-time at the Sembach base library, was leaving Germany (with her husband). I thought about applying, but so liked being at home with my kids. Then they cut the job into two job shares, each half-time, and the job got more tempting.

Then our car broke down. It ended up being easy to fix, but I realized that if we had to buy another car, then I would need a job — that’s how tight we were cutting things. So why not apply for a job I was awfully sure I’d love?

The interview with Jeff Conner happened on April 10. I was already a regular library customer, and I had Spouse Preference and a Bachelor’s degree, which was a requirement. Donna had probably put in a word for me. The interview almost wasn’t even an interview — he told me how the job would work. I found out the same day I got the job!

What’s more, the first person I shared the job with wanted to work every weekend. So when I started at Sembach Library, I had a regular schedule, working Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, 6, 6, and 8 hours. And the very next week I found a home day care provider, Miss Angie, recommended by another Band wife, who would watch Tim 20 hours per week without charging me a full-time rate.

But then we got some bad news. On April 30, our landlady told me that we were going to have to move.

She cried when she told me. Silke’s father was getting married so her parents were getting divorced after years apart, and Silke’s mother had to sell her old place. She was moving in to our apartment.

Steve took it harder than I did. It helped that I saw Silke’s tears. I think Steve was upset that Jerry got to stay in the 1-bedroom apartment. I felt like getting that apartment was such a miracle in the first place, surely God would provide again. I began looking for a new place.

And on May 5, 1998, I began my first job in a library, as a library technician at Sembach Base Library. Here’s what I wrote in my journal:

“My first week of work at the Sembach Library is complete, and I love it! Today was the best day of all — I’m settling into the work and can enjoy it. And every day I’ve come home with a book or two — or many. I can’t seem to reshelve books without finding many that I want to take home with me.” (This problem has persisted.)

I say later in the journal, “I don’t feel like I ‘found’ this job. I feel like God found it for me and presented it to me as a special gift.”

May 10th was Mother’s Day — and of course I asked to go to a castle! We went to Castle #52, Burg Trifels.

After that, Steve was working 6 day weeks, and I was working three days a week, and Timmy was trying to adjust to daycare. And we needed to find a new place to live. We thought we found one — but none of us was happy about it, and it felt so depressing.

But meanwhile, we had company! My friend Karla from high school came to visit. We took her to the Rhein River for Castle #53, Burg Pfalzgrafenstein, the one on the island in the middle of the river.

And after that, we had dinner at Burg Liebenstein, Castle #54.

And we made a trip to Worms Cathedral, not real far from us, even though we couldn’t count it as a castle.

Still discouraged about finding a place to live and with Steve out of town, I went to the base housing office one more time — and found a listing that sounded interesting out in Gundersweiler. Here’s where I write about that:

At the housing office, they had some new listings, and I was able to make one appointment. On the way, I passed through another village with a house for rent, so I decided to try to find it and see if it would be worth pursuing.

Just as I was about to turn around, I found the street. The house was on the very end, and when I saw it, I was so dazzled, I felt shaky! On a hill, it had a view and large windows — what we knew we’d miss from Leithoefe.

After I got Josh from school, I brought him by the house because he was very sad about having to move, and I wanted to cheer him up. Well, as soon as we parked in the driveway, who should pull up but the owners from Stuttgart, there to clean since the previous renters had moved out the day before.

Once we saw the inside, I was hopelessly hooked on this house. It had FIVE bedrooms, two big bathrooms, a basement, and a windowed “nook” where we eat looking out on meadows and hillside. Yes, we took it — The catch being that we had to move the very next weekend, and we did it ourselves because the Air Force wouldn’t pay.

At first, it seemed like terrible timing that this happened right when I was starting a new job, but it turned out that it costs a little more than what the Air Force will give us for rent — so without my income, we wouldn’t have dared take it.

And so that was how we got to move into my dream house — Of all the places I have ever lived, the house in Gundersweiler is my favorite. Here are views of it shortly after moving in:

So — I ended my 33rd year with a new job and a new home, still completely in love with living in Germany.

It’s time for Project 52, Week 32, Part 3!

32 weeks ago, on my 52nd birthday, I began Project 52. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, each week I’m taking one year of my life and blogging about it. This week, I’m covering the year I was 32 — June 14, 1996, to June 14, 1997.

But, boy oh boy, am I ever going to have to start editing myself! So far, I’ve done two posts about the year I was 32, and I still haven’t gotten half done, and just barely got to Germany! Sigh. If I want to finish the year in a week of blogging, I’m going to have to leave out a lot of the castles and sights and try to give the big picture.

Last time, I’d gotten us almost through November, which ended with Steve’s 32nd birthday. We had our landlady Silke and her girls, ages 3 and 5, down to share our cake.

They were very interested in Steve’s tuba!

But the super significant thing about Steve’s birthday that year?

Now all the ages of people in our family were odd powers of 2!!!

Tim’s age was 2 = 2 ^ 1.
Josh’s age was 8 = 2 ^ 3.
Steve and I were both 32 = 2 ^ 5.

!!! I know! Thrilling, or what?!

This (of course) never happened again, once Josh had their 9th birthday. (The next year, all our ages were odd multiples of 3, which always happens the year after your age is an odd power of 2, but it’s not nearly as rare for our whole family. In fact, just last year, I was 3 x 17, Jade was 3 x 9, and Tim was 3 x 7.)

But back to moving to Germany…

On December 1st, we visited Castle #2, Burg Falkenstein.

Burg Falkenstein is only about 20 minutes from Sembach Air Force Base, and ended up feeling like “our” castle. It became our favorite place to take visitors when they just got off the plane. It’s a little castle, but the view is beautiful. And close by. And no admission charge. It’s just there. There’s also a restaurant just up the road from the castle, though I don’t think we discovered it just yet. Oh, and the road to the castle has a 25% grade, so I was always glad that Steve was driving. But fortunately, you can drive to the level of the castle and don’t have to walk up the hill to enjoy the view.

So here’s “our” castle, Burg Falkenstein, the first time we visited it on December 1, 1996. (This is probably the ugliest it ever looked — still very beautiful.)

On December 5th, we got our household goods and Josh started 3rd grade at Sembach Elementary School.

I think it was the very next day, a Friday, that both kids came down with a fever. Timmy got a super high one and burned it out within a day, but Josh didn’t have as high a fever and was sick long enough to miss some school the next week. Steve made a special trip to the Base Exchange at Ramstein to buy a video for them to watch. I think it was Toy Story. We’d found our TV and VCR, but we hadn’t found our videos yet. (The folded up bed in back is loaner furniture, which got removed on the 11th.)

Remember how I’d been trying for a white Christmas ever since 1990, when we left California? Whenever we went back West for Christmas, they’d get snow at home, and whenever we stayed home, we wouldn’t get a flake during Christmastime. But this year, all that changed. Here’s how I put it in the Address Change Letter I wrote the following March:

“And, yes, at long last, we had the White Christmas of our dreams! It snowed on the 23rd, but on Christmas Day there was not a cloud in the sky, and the view from our house was breathtaking! Thanks to an ice storm on the 22nd, the treetops really did glisten, as if coated with diamonds. It was incredible. We went sledding both on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, simply walking up the hill behind our house. They say that they haven’t had a white Christmas here for 8 years, so again, we feel that this was a special treat from the Lord. We’re glad that wherever we go, He still watches over us.”

Some Christmas pictures:

The glistening treetops:

In the afternoon, after some sledding, we visited Marie-Laurence and Sam Sikaly, who now had newborn Joel as well as Elise.

Marie’s Grand-mere was there, who only spoke French. Elise “only” spoke French and German. Marie, of course, speaks excellent English. We played an interesting card game with English, German, and French all used.

That first Christmas was when Steve and I bought each other a cuckoo clock, complete with a German band of musicians in front.

On December 28, we went to another favorite castle, Castle #3, Schloß Heidelberg. I love Heidelberg’s Castle, because it’s got picturesque ruins and a beautiful view, but it’s also got luxurious parts still and even parts that are still used today. And there’s an American base in the town of Heidelberg, so they give castle tours in English.

The day we went to Schloß Heidelberg, the temperature was in the single digits Fahrenheit. The Germans were going on about how COLD it was. We didn’t think too much of it — days like that always came along in an Illinois winter. Well, it wasn’t until about our last year in Germany that we ever experienced weather that cold again! And the next time, we were complaining right along with the Germans. Brrrr!

(Interesting to me, I also visited this castle later on one of the very hottest days I ever experienced in Germany, about 102 degrees Fahrenheit. I think I actually prefer single digits.)

Here are pictures from that very first visit to Schloß Heidelberg, Castle #3:

Josh is posing below the statue of Joshua:

The green thing is a heater, which was on:

Well, I’m going to have to stop going day-by-day, or it will take me the rest of the year to finish the year I was 32! Now, I just realized that I missed scanning the film from several months of 1997 — beautiful months, too! So perhaps that will help restrain me.

Let me quote again from the letter I sent in March 1997:

“Steve has already been to England, Eastern Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg, and he played at many of the Christmas markets in this part of Germany. For our tenth wedding anniversary, we took a bus tour to Paris, where, to quote Timmy, we saw the “Awful” Tower. Paris was wonderful, but the bus was indeed awful. Anyway, we figure that one of the great things about living in Europe is that we really don’t have to do our sight-seeing with tour groups. All the weekends in February were beautiful, and we spent them “castling” and hiking. As a family, we’ve now visited 12 castles or palaces, including Heidelberg and some along the Rhine. There’s something magical about spending a Saturday roaming over an 800-year-old ruin! And they’re all over the place! We won’t run out of hiking trails either.”

So now I’m going to *try try try* to restrain myself and just post some of the pictures I do have scanned.

I have to show this one! At the Louvre, Steve told Josh that if they could get their head between the pyramids, they’d become super smart! Then this exact spot was important in the book The Da Vinci Code.

I was so excited to find a street named after a mathematician across the street from Notre Dame!

From the “Awful” Tower:

At the L’Arc de Triomphe:

Snow was on the ground the entire month of January! (The longest it was ever on the ground during our ten years in Germany!) When Aunt Kay sent money for Christmas, we decided to buy a German sled.

Our landlady had a costume party for Fasching:

The house had wonderful window ledges for Timmy to drive cars off:

And, okay, more castle pictures, since I’ve already cut them down to size for the blog. These are from when we went back to Burg Nanstein, Castle #1, above Landstuhl, which was closed the evening we first touched it. We went back on February 1st.

Okay, NOW I’m going to try to post fewer pictures. (The above, I’d already selected before I’d realized I was overdoing it.)

Here’s one from a hike in our woods by Leithöfe:

Oh! And another significant Castle! Castle #6 was Altenbaumburg, above the village of Altenbaumberg. (I’d counted Versailles and the Louvre — once the home of kings — as castles.) Altenbaumburg had a restaurant, and it was only about 20 minutes away from Gundersweiler, where we moved in 1998. So we visited many more times. Again, cool ruins, beautiful views. And this one also had hiking trails leading away from the castle, which we explored for a bit.

On March 1st, we took our first climb to the top of our own hill. This later became a regular after-dinner tradition. A game of Monopoly Jr., a walk to the top of the hill…

That’s our house, the white one right in the center of this picture:

Here’s our town’s sign:

And the front of our house:

We visited Castle #7, Burg Berwartstein, on March 2, 1997.

More Castling on March 8 — First Castle #9, Burg Neuwolfstein:

(This one is to show how tall I am, filling the doorway!)

Then Castle #9, Kyrburg:

A few from Leithöfe:

On March 12, 1997, we took our first car trip along the Rhein! We touched another castle that ended up becoming a favorite — but that day it was closed by the time we got there. Castle #10 was Burg Rheinfels.

And Castle #11 was Schönburg (“Beautiful Castle”):

It’s probably just as well that I didn’t get the rest of my Year 32 pictures scanned. There are rolls and rolls. I do have this set in photo albums, and there are many that are truly gorgeous. Clearly, I’m not able to restrain myself from posting them. Here are the castles we visited:

Castle #12, Ebernburg, after Schönburg, also on March 12, 1997.
Back to Castle #10, Burg Rheinfels, on April 4.
Castle #13, Burg Reichenstein, April 4.
Castle #14, Burg Lichtenberg, April 11.
Castle #15, Hohenburg, May 3.
Castle #16, Burg Breitenstein, May 17.
Castle #17, Burg Spangenberg, May 17.
Castle #18, Burg Meersberg, May 31. (We met Darlene here!)
Castle #20, Neuschwanstein!!! June 1.

And that brings us up to my 33rd birthday!

You can see that it would have taken me hours longer to finish this year if I’d still had all the pictures. Neuschwanstein! Leithöfe in the Springtime! The Partnach Klamm by Neuschwanstein! So much more! (I will scan them eventually and post them on Facebook, so my friends will get to see them.)

But one thing I do want to say about our move to Germany: A few years before, someone had suggested writing down your dreams for yourself. So I’d written down some wild dreams I didn’t imagine could ever come true until maybe I retired. Well, I counted up, and I remember now that NINE of those dreams came true when we moved to Germany. I don’t remember all of them, but some were:

1. To quit teaching.
2. To have more time with my family. (We used to play Monopoly Jr. after dinner, then go for a walk up our hill with its glorious view.)
3. To live where it’s beautiful. (Wow! That was the most incredible view I’ve ever had. It fed my soul.)
4. To travel to Europe again.
5. To learn other languages. (Well, one.)
6. To be able to go hiking right from my doorstep. (The crazy thing is, since then, I’ve never lived where I can’t do that, but that was the most far-fetched one of all when I first wrote it down. Not something you can do where I grew up.)
7. To write a book. (Now that I wasn’t teaching, I finished writing my first children’s book! I really finished it!)

I don’t remember what the other two were. I never dreamed of getting to touch castles! But let’s just say that I felt that God had given me so many desires of my heart.

The funny thing about moving to Germany — many other band folks hated it. Now, the band commander was reportedly verbally abusive and awful to work for. So it was harder on Steve than on me. But Steve and I had a private joke about a couple we knew who hated it in Germany and wanted to go back to Scott AFB, which we were so glad to leave. When we saw a beautiful sight that seemed prototypically European, like passing a cathedral or quaint shops or a beautiful view, Steve would say, “Doesn’t it make you wish you were back at Scott?” And we’d laugh together.

It’s time for Project 52, Week 32, Part Two!

32 weeks ago, on my 52nd birthday, I began Project 52. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, each week I’m taking one year of my life and blogging about it. This week, I’m covering the year I was 32 — June 14, 1996, to June 14, 1997.

However, for at least my first few years in Germany, I think it’s going to take more than one long blog post to cover each year. Two nights ago, I covered June through September, 1996, as we said our farewells to many dear friends before leaving. I’m not sure I’ll be able to finish the year tonight. What I should do is drastically summarize. But I’m having so much fun looking at castle pictures and remembering the joy of coming to Germany — I think I’m just going to indulge myself in memories and keep going with this however long it takes….

Castles, you say? I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet that when we first found out we’d be moving to Germany, we were worried about how Jade (then called Josh) would take it. Josh didn’t like change. When we’d gotten rid of an old junky table and bought a new one, Josh had cried about the old table. How would Josh deal with such a big move?

Well, Josh’s second grade teacher told them there’s a statue of the Bremen Town Musicians in the town of Bremen. And I told Josh, “They have castles in Germany!” Their eyes lit up.

And that’s when we decided to collect castles. We decided that we could only count castles we actually touched. Eventually, we made more rules. It had to be at least a hundred years old. It must have a name. But we’d count castles, palaces, and fortifications, given those conditions.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Picking up where I left off in October 1996, we were making our last preparations to move away from Illinois. I recorded a lot of the details in my calendar.

We sold our Honda Civic — the one that had broken down in every major city in America but finally had a recalled part that would supposedly work — on October 2, 1996. (That was the only new car we ever bought, and one of the worst cars we ever had.)

On October 3, Steve broke his wrist when he fell off his bike. Not great timing, but what can you do?

On October 4, my Dad came to visit for a few days. (He probably had some business out there.) He’s always so good with little ones!

October 14 was the Columbus Day holiday, and we took Josh’s best friend Trevyor and went hiking at Knobelich Woods. (I don’t remember where that was at all, but that’s what it says.)

On October 18, our first shipment left. I think these were the things we’d want soonest, and they’d go by plane. I don’t remember what we chose. Maybe coats and winter gear, dishes, and what-not.

On October 19, Darlene came to visit for a few days! We took her hiking at our old favorite, Carlyle Lake. And now we had someone to take a family picture for us! The fun thing about that time is that our family was evenly spaced — we were all about a foot apart from each other in height!

On October 23 the Packers came, and we moved into Billeting. On October 24, they took our stuff away.

We took a trip to Rockford to see my cousin Karen and her family. She was sad, because she knew when we came back to visit, we wouldn’t visit Illinois. (She was right about that, I’m afraid.) It was super nice to get to know her during our years in Illinois.

Here’s Timmy with her youngest.

A couple of other cousins came over, and we had (as we thought) a bunch of boys, so we took some pictures of all the boys.

From there it was pretty much hanging out in billeting and going to good-by parties and dinners.

We still read to the boys at bedtime.

We took Josh and Trevyor on one last visit to Chuck E. Cheese.

And Halloween happened while we were in billeting.

I don’t remember who drove us to the airport. But this was our last day with the Honda before we gave it to the buyers.

Then, on November 3, 1996, we left for Germany! Here are the kids in the airport:

We arrived in Frankfurt Airport at 7:30 am on Monday, November 4, 1996. If I remember right, two band folks picked us up, so as to get all our stuff. Maybe Jody Pratt? Maybe Steve’s sponsor, Bruce Bender? Or maybe just Jody? The memories are vague. I think I rode with Jody, and I do remember that we saw our first castle, Burg Neuleiningen, from the Autobahn. Then Bruce had Steve go straight to work! The kids and I took naps and were far, far the better for it.

Then that night, at about 3:00 am (Germany time), a fire alarm went off in the hotel on base!

Steve had more presence of mind than me. I was just focused on getting the kids out, but Steve thought to bring a blanket with us. We didn’t have winter gear. It started to snow while we were waiting for the all-clear!

The USAFE Band at that time was based in Einsiedlerhof, near Ramstein AFB. But they were planning to move to Sembach AFB, about a half-hour away, in a few months. So we stayed in billeting on Ramstein, but looked for housing near Sembach.

Our time in Ramstein billeting was somewhat dreary. Lots of things went wrong. I didn’t start Josh in school, because they were going to end up going to school at Sembach. We did find an apartment by Saturday, but we stayed in billeting until November 26, when we could get our first shipment of stuff. And we used loaner furniture from the base office set up for that purpose.

We did have quite a lot of people we’d known from Scott AFB who welcomed us. I see “Dinner at Jodi Pratt’s” on the 7th and “Miranda Stanaford’s 2nd Birthday Party” on the 8th. In fact, it was a much, much less lonely move than the move to Illinois had been 5 years before. There was a lot of community spirit between the band families in Germany, because everyone was far from family (not just us).

On November 10th, after we’d bought a used car the day before, we drove to Frankfurt and saw Marie-Laurence, Steve’s friend from Biola! Here’s Steve with Timmy and Marie’s daughter Elise.

We had to get creative keeping the kids entertained in billeting!

Meanwhile, we were busy with paperwork and bureaucracy, paperwork and bureaucracy. But I see that November 14th was our first trip to a German bookstore — and I bought an edition of Momo, by Michael Ende, in the original language (German)! I also bought a book for Josh and Timmy about Flecki — Eric Hill’s Spot! And I bought my first hiking map. Hiking trails marked out for the entire area! I used that map our entire 10 years in Germany! When I first bought it, it was so much fun just to pore over. And that was when I first saw the symbols for Castles and Ruins dotted all over the map!

And on Saturday, November 16, we touched our first castle! Castle #1 was Burg Nanstein, a castle overlooking the town of Landstuhl, close to Ramstein, and even closer to the American military hospital. We got off to a late start, but followed the map and found it — and it was closed! I think it closed around 5:00 pm, though maybe it was 4:00. It gets dark very early in Germany in November (as far north as Seattle).

Somehow I had forgotten to bring a jacket at all. Steve let me use his.

We could get into one outer ruined tower.

On Sunday the 17th (two weeks in Germany), Steve went on tour with the band to England, and everything fell apart for me.

It started out not too bad. I went to church that day at Faith Baptist Church, an American church near Ramstein, and had lunch with two other left-behind spouses, Connie and Alex. But then my phone in billeting quit working, so I couldn’t call Steve or anyone else.

The next day, it snowed!

Remember, though — we hadn’t thought to bring snow gear in our airplane luggage for Germany. The same day, that car we’d bought broke down.

They did get the phone fixed — apparently we’d needed to let them know we were still there. And I borrowed a car from a band family, and I guess took our car in to get repaired. I made arrangements to have our first shipment come to our new apartment on the 26th.

Oh, that reminds me — while I’m talking about what went wrong is maybe not when I should mention that we decided to rent the very first place we looked at! And it was at a great price, and it was gorgeous! We’d been told over and over that apartments in Germany are smaller, but it had three bedrooms and was spacious and we loved it. Anyway, you’ll be seeing multiple pictures of Leithöfe….

Back to the comedy of errors — On the 21st, the car I’d borrowed got a flat tire! So I worked with the Kathy Huggins (whose husband was also on tour) to get it replaced. The world was cold, slushy and dark while this was going on.

Okay, I see I got our car back on the 22nd and got cash for the security deposit and dropped that off on the 24th. I remember getting lost on the way there. (German signs don’t use North/South/East/West, but just tell you which town the road leads toward. So you need to know the map. Hard to do while you’re also driving.) I’m not sure why I had the Huggins’ car again (some other disaster with mine?), but on the 25th, their car had not one but TWO flat tires! It turned out that the wheel rims were bad and were letting out air. I was involved in helping them get that fixed.

But on the 25th, Steve got back, and on the 26th, we moved in to Leithöfe, Germany — and everything started going RIGHT!

We had a garage. This is looking out our kitchen window.

And here’s the field behind our house.

Well, that’s a long enough post for now. I only got through a couple months, but the next post will cover settling in to Germany.

It’s time for Project 52, Week 32!

32 weeks ago, on my 52nd birthday, I began Project 52. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, each week I’m taking one year of my life and blogging about it. This week, I’m covering the year I was 32 — June 14, 1996, to June 14, 1997.

The year I was 32 was the year we moved to Germany! However, I’m writing this after working the late shift — so I don’t think I’ll be able to cover the whole year tonight. I will instead see if I can cover the months from June through October, as we said good-by to Illinois.

Last week, I covered the year we found out we’d get to move. We were ready to leave Illinois, and very excited about the adventure.

The first pictures from that year are more of my adorable children. That was the time that Timmy decided if he closed his eyes, I couldn’t see him or take his picture. Of course, I think the aggressively-closed-eyes pictures are cuter than ever!

And my last day teaching college math was July 24, 1996! I’d been teaching Calculus 3 for summer school — 6:00 pm to 10:00 pm on Monday and Wednesday nights. I wrote in my journal on the 22nd: “This is the week! The week a new epoch in my life starts — when I actually won’t be working for at least 4 months! A dream come true.”

The fact is, I’d wanted to stay home with my kids since they were born — but we couldn’t afford it. We were hoping that the extra money Steve would get in Germany — for Cost of Living Allowance and higher housing allowance — would make it possible for me not to work. But since I couldn’t teach Fall semester, we had more than three months of living in Illinois with me not working. Yes, every time we had a military move, our finances took a big hit. (This will always be true when both spouses are working. You can’t get a job instantly. Though I have to admit, it was close to instantly when we moved to Illinois.)

The other thing I was dealing with then — alas, the whole time I was not working outside the home — was mysterious very bad joint pain. It would happen in waves, but was quite severe. I’d also get waves of lethargy, so I wasn’t feeling great at that time, and was annoyingly unproductive.

I finally found out more than two years later that it was from the Inderal I’d started taking as a migraine preventative. Since the joint pain didn’t start until I’d been taking Inderal for six months, that never occurred to me (or my doctor). We did tests, and I came out borderline for rheumatoid arthritis — but it looked like it was probably lupus. (It did, in fact, turn out to be drug-induced lupus.) So that was something hanging over me, starting that summer after I turned 32. (And when I stopped taking Inderal a couple years later, it completely went away. So that was indeed the problem.)

That summer, Josh played Little League baseball. They had a tendency to stand in the outfield and look at flowers, but I think they had fun.

While Josh played, Timmy played in the dirt by the field.

I love this picture. I’m not sure why we had some candy bars. But Steve had put them in a high cupboard. One day I found Timmy in the following pose. Note the stool he’d brought over to achieve his goal! And the downcast eyes of one caught in the act.

And Colleen, my roommate from Biola, came to visit us with her parents! We took them to the Gateway Arch.

Alas! This was the last time I saw Colleen. She’d already had surgery and had a brain tumor removed. But it did grow back, and she died the following spring, on March 18, 1997. She was 33 and a half years old and an amazing high school English teacher. Very, very sad. Yes, I believe she’s happy in heaven. But I’m still sad that her potential for touching lives here on earth was cut short.

Then we started planning to see people in the States before we moved. At the end of July, we visited my brother Randy and his wife Cherita, with a stop at Fantastic Caverns on the way.

After visiting Fantastic Caverns:

Then we visited Randy. He’s a truck driver, and let Timmy take the wheel!

Our next stop was the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum on Rocky Ridge Farm in Mansfield, Missouri. We were there on a truly glorious day.

And the day after we got home was Timmy’s 2nd Birthday!

He loved his new bubble mower so much!

He also got a Tickle-Me Elmo.

My adorable children:

And Timmy’s favorite thing to do around that time (and later in Germany) was to drive cars off that small file cabinet and watch them crash on the floor. There were dents on the floor where they’d land.

Steve’s family visited, and we went to the St. Louis Zoo.

Gramp E. with all his grandchildren:

At this playground, Karli thought it was the greatest thing to pour the little rocks on her own head. They were incredibly dirty that night.

And we fed the geese at Scott Lake:

Timmy and Karli’s car seats were next to each other in the car, and they squabbled a lot. But after we dropped them off at the airport, and Timmy found out Karli wasn’t coming back, he burst into tears.

This was from a trip to Six Flags. I’m sure Timmy believed he was really driving the car.

Then we took another trip to Chicago.

While we were there, the band had a performance somewhere where there were tanks we could climb on.

On August 27, Josh began 3rd grade! They would not finish it in Illinois.

Here are my kids’ Passport Photos! The cutest passport photos ever!

And then at the end of September, Kathe arrived for a visit, with her husband Joe and son Tim!

We went to the Transportation Museum on the 24th. Both the two-year-olds were enthralled.

On the 25th, we went to the Gateway Arch in St. Louis.

On the 26th, we went to the Science Center. This is the bridge over the freeway.

On the 27th, we visited the Magic House, a sort of heaven for small boys. My Timmy had a peak experience, which he remembered for years.

Josh got inside a bubble.

And the final day of their visit, we played on the playground before taking them to the airport.

And that’s all I can post tonight! I’m still a month away from the day we left for Germany, but it was a very full month. Like I said, we were trying to see everyone and everything before we moved across an ocean.

It’s time for Project 52, Week 31!

31 weeks ago, on my 52nd Birthday, I began Project 52. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, each week I’m taking one year of my life and blogging about it. This week, I’m covering the year I was 31, June 14, 1995, to June 14, 1996.

The previous year, our second child Timothy was born after a pregnancy finishing up on bed rest and a very difficult labor. I didn’t bounce back quickly, what with starting to work again when Tim was 3 weeks old and, I see now, plenty of postpartum depression.

But around the time I turned 31, my journal sounds a little less frantic. I did teach summer school that year, which meant 8 hours per week of classes instead of 4 hours per week, so essentially working full-time for a couple months. Hmmm. That’s probably why there’s not much at all written in my calendar or journal for June and July 1995. (The entry that sounded so much calmer was before summer school had started.)

I’m going to try to just summarize this year, but I have a whole lot of cute kid pictures to share.

My journal does say that this was the time — before he’d quite learned to talk — that Timmy threw amazing, head-banging temper tantrums. What can I say? He was precocious. But those did get better a few months later when he started talking and could tell us what he wanted. And my goodness, he was cute!

We went on a short vacation to southern Illinois that summer. This picture cracks me up, because it’s so typical of my kids at that age. Jade (then called Josh) was quietly reading a book, and Timmy was getting into something, exploring!

We went hiking, trying to find “Old Stone Face,” and I almost got heat stroke.

The next day looking at these Cypress trees was nicer.

At the end of July was Timmy’s First Birthday!

My kids were cute at this stage!

Josh was 7 years old and losing teeth!

Of course, most precious are the ones of Josh with Timmy.

I’m not showing nearly all of the messy eating pictures!

Stacking cans was a favorite activity. (My Mom was the one who taught me to keep cans in a low cupboard because they make great toys.)

And in October, Kathe and Darlene came to visit! Kathe brought her son Tim, who is 6 months older than my son Timmy.

Rub-a-dub-dub, Two Tims in a tub!

For Halloween that year, this time Timmy was a clown, and I bought Josh a cell phone costume that really rang. They wore it a few years, and loved to make it ring after saying “Trick or Treat!”

In the Fall, we again went hiking to find Old Stone Face, and this time we found it! (We’d walked right by it that summer in the heat.)

And again this year we took pictures for our Christmas cards at Carlyle Lake.

Timmy still enjoyed stacking cans:

I had to include one picture with Timothy screaming. He was climbing over Josh, trying to get at the computer. Look how patient sweet Josh is being!

We went to Aunt Kay’s for Thanksgiving again:

Just more sweetness:

While they played video games, Josh used to give Timmy a controller that wasn’t hooked up!

Along about this time, the possibility came up that Steve might get to transfer to the USAFE Band in Germany. So when we drove out west for Christmas, we knew it might be our last trip in awhile. We saw lots of friends and family. I’ll show some of the pictures that came out the nicest.

Gramp E. and Gram E. welcomed us warmly to Phoenix.

Cousin Karli and her parents were there, too.

All the grandkids so far!

Our next stop was my sister Becky’s house in Encinitas. They took us to the beach.

My parents and some siblings and cousins came down as well.

This next picture reminds me of two stories about Timmy and cars, which he loved.

We were driving into San Diego from Phoenix, and Timmy was getting really fussy. Well, then we turned onto an 8-lane freeway and were suddenly surrounded by cars — and he was amazed and overwhelmed. He’d never seen so many cars at one time in his life!

At Becky’s house, Timmy really loved Michael’s bucket of cars. He wasn’t talking a lot then, but he was pulling the cars out of the bucket one by one and saying “Caaaaar!” with each one and setting it down.

I noticed what he was doing and commented on it, and the next car he pulled out was the Batmobile. This time, he said, “Ooooooo!”

It’s my cousin Carmen talking to him in the picture. Timmy could say her name!

With various family members, including my Aunt Linda and cousin Kristi:

A trip to the Botanical Garden in Encinitas gave us some nice shots.

Megan, Megan, already a rebel!

Becky was expecting her fourth child, Kristen, in the Spring.

And we spent more time in Phoenix before we drove home:

When we got back, it was back to teaching Statistics and Calculus (2 nights per week, 4 hours per night). Steve was also taking classes still, 2 nights per week. Because of my job, he got very cheap tuition ($2 per unit) at Belleville Area College, and ended up finishing an Associate’s degree in Computer Science before we left Illinois. I was never quite sure why he didn’t try for a Master’s degree, since he already had a Bachelor’s degree in Music. But I believe he is now working in the computer security field, so perhaps it was just as well. And it did make my job more valuable. Though it doesn’t look like we got too many evenings together.

I guess when babies get where they can reach the top of their heads, they like to put things there:

But this was the stage where anything Josh could do, Timmy wanted to do, too. Josh always liked to pose for pictures with their thumbs up. Timmy thought he was doing the same thing, but it was an odd twisting of his hands with fingers up. So cute!

But my absolute favorite picture of Timmy imitating Josh was this one below. We always prayed with Josh at bedtime. You can see Timmy trying to figure it out:

Josh was also the age when a towel after a bath becomes a cape.

Just more fun:

Josh turned 8 years old in March and had another Chuck E. Cheese party.

We went to Aunt Kay’s again for Easter.

While we were in Chicago, we visited the Sears Tower:

Timmy still really liked to jump on Josh.

And more simple fun:

In March, we’d found out that yes, we’d get to move to Germany in the Fall. I was so excited about that.

Although I believe in enjoying where you are and what you do — I was very pleased to get to quit teaching. (I’m an introvert and don’t like getting up in front of a bunch of strangers who don’t really want to learn math and having to be their adversary and test them.)

I was very pleased to get to leave Illinois. (My friends and family were far away. I really do prefer the coasts. We’d been there 5 years, and that seemed awfully long.)

I was very pleased that I’d get to stay home with my kids. I didn’t know how long that could last, but Steve did get a Cost of Living Allowance in Germany that might make up for losing my job when we moved.

And — Germany!!!! I’d spent 6 weeks in Austria back in 1986, and I’d fallen in love with the German language. And Europe itself. And I was just so excited.

Here’s part of what I wrote in my journal on my 32nd birthday:

“It’s my birthday again today! I’m 32! And I’m happy. 🙂 Lord, it’s going to be an exciting year for me. I am thrilled about moving to Germany. And the rest of my life is going well. Steve and I are deeply in love; class is going smoothly; Steve is finishing his AAS degree; I’ll get to quit teaching soon; Timmy & Josh are lots of fun; my photo albums are meaningful; and I hope to get going writing soon. I am so happy about all that You are doing for me now, Lord.”

It’s time for Project 52, Week 30, Part Two!

On Tuesday night, I was happily writing Project 52, and my computer mouse broke. Tonight my new mouse arrived from Amazon, so I’m finishing Week 30, my reflections on being 30 years old.

I’ve been thinking that using my calendar from 1994 is getting me bogged down in detail. So my plan was just to summarize the year briefly.

But then I started looking through pictures! I had a new baby that year! Both my children were so adorable! So there are going to be lots of pictures in this post, but I’ll try to keep from going on too long!

Last time, I covered Timmy’s birth at the end of July. I had 3 weeks off before I went back to work — but I only taught one class that Fall, Calculus 3 from 6 to 8 pm on Monday and Wednesday nights.

And that makes me think how nice it was that at Belleville Area College, they gave me the same class to teach over and over! I’d been teaching almost 10 years by now — and that was the first that I really got in a routine with a class. It was so much easier than preparing new classes each semester. Now, this was partly because this was the longest I’d stayed at any one school. But still, at BAC, I was more quickly given consistent classes to teach.

I still wasn’t crazy about teaching, but I did manage to enjoy it, and I think I did a good job.

Mind you, I’m not a natural teacher. Not at all. I’m naturally good at doing math — but that makes it a little harder to teach it well. I don’t quite understand how it can seem difficult to people. It’s all so logical and beautiful! I also always, always wrote tests that are way too long.

My favorite student in all my years teaching came about that time. She was a 14-year-old high school student taking Calculus 3, because she’d run out of math classes she could take at her high school. It’s not a surprise she was the best student I ever had at a community college. And she enjoyed Math as much as I did. And when I showed the class some beautiful thing, she thought it was beautiful, too, instead of just thinking I was weird. And sometimes she’d show me some cool mathy thing, and it just made me happy to have her in my class. Because honestly, community college students don’t often take math classes because they love it.

Now, my favorite class to teach was probably Intro Statistics — because that’s practical math. I liked bringing in real world examples that related. That class was usually full of earnest nursing majors who thought they weren’t good at math, but who worked hard at it and usually did quite well. Teaching night classes, I tended to get lots of adult students — and they were great students. But they didn’t necessarily like math.

Anyway, when I went back to teaching 3 weeks after having Tim, I only taught Calculus. And it was getting where I didn’t have to do too much preparation, so it was a real breather and meant more time with my baby. (It was hard on our finances, since I’d taken the summer completely off when I’d planned to work twice as hard. But such is life.)

And what fun to have this sweet baby!

Jade, then called Josh, was now 6 and a half years old and was a doting big sibling. In fact, looking back at that year, I remember how I would walk Josh to school with baby Timmy in his stroller. All the little girls also walking to school would stop and coo over the baby. The boys, not so much. But Josh would coo over the baby. I thought it was because this was their baby brother. Anyway, it’s all the more plausible that Jade was a girl all along. Not that a boy can’t be a tender and kind big brother. But if Jade was a girl all along — well, it fits.

Anyway, Josh was a wonderful big sibling.

Here I’m reading Josh The Horse and His Boy, by C. S. Lewis, at bedtime.

We had lots of visitors that year. I’m resisting posting pictures of every visitor, but you’ll see the ones who brought babies with them. Steve’s parents came early on. My Mom even came, bringing my youngest sister Melanie.

The church ladies at Faith Alliance Church threw me a baby shower, now that I was off bed rest.

Josh started 1st grade!

That Fall, we went to Carlyle Lake to take family pictures with the pretty trees in the background. The only trouble was, we got there as the sun was going down. But I still like this sequence:

And now I think I’ll just post pictures of my cute kids. I got a lot of time with my sweet children that year, and that was wonderful.

The looks on their faces in this one cracks me up:

Here’s Josh blowing dandelions at Scott Lake (just a couple blocks from us on the Air Force base).

And Steve carved a pumpkin with Josh again:

Timmy was a baseball player for Halloween:

The finishing touch was some black paint under each eye:

Josh was a clown again. I loved the way it made his smile enormous and infectious:

Here’s Josh on our back porch with a double rainbow:

More just nice pictures:

My sister Becky and her family came to see us over Thanksgiving. Timmy had just begun sleeping through the night, so then having visitors meant I still wasn’t feeling real rested. But it was great to see them!

I love this picture of Aunt Becky meeting Timmy!

And lots more pictures with the Friese family:

Timmy’s not smiling quite as big by this time!

Just more pictures of my cuties:

Then came Timmy’s first Christmas:

We spent it at Aunt Kay’s in Chicago. She gave Josh a big cuddly sweater from Ireland.

I don’t see any snow pictures from this year. But that makes sense! We didn’t go to California over Christmas, so of course Illinois didn’t get much snow!

More cuteness:

By this time, babies used an “Exersaucer” rather than walkers (like Josh had).

Josh could still fit in Daddy’s tuba case!

Timmy got his teeth all out of order, getting outside ones first, and on top. He was still really lopsided.

I think I wrote about this trick when Steve first did it with Josh. Before a baby can walk, they balance nicely on one hand, if you’re strong enough. Steve only did it over the sofa, but the babies didn’t fall.

Reading the Little House books at bedtime.

Those eyes!

All those baby milestones! Now sitting up:

Josh took this picture!

And now we learned the charm of letting Chuck E. Cheese do all the work of a birthday party! Josh was 7 years old!

We had another celebration at home and made cupcakes to bring to school:

We dressed them up for Easter. So adorable!

Timmy was quite round by this time.

More balancing:

This one cracks me up because of the book title. When Timmy was born, we told Josh to be gentle with the baby. But we forgot to tell the baby to be gentle with Josh! By this time, Timmy simply loved to jump on Josh. Eventually, we had to tell Josh to defend themselves.

Crawling!

Being together!

Steve’s parents came, and brought his sister Stephanie — and her new daughter Karli, three months younger than Timmy.

Karli could do a great Cabbage Patch face!

With all their grandkids! (Though they got one more, David, a couple years later.)

Standing!

This picture is fun because he’s playing with a toothbrush.

And he did learn to walk before his first birthday.

My Dad also came to visit. He has always loved to read to little ones.

And this picture makes me happy.

So I think that’s all I’ll say about that year. Looking back, it was a happy year with my children. Of course, at the time, it wasn’t so simple! There are plenty of difficulties all wrapped up in being a mother of young children. But to this day, I’m so thankful for those children.

Edited to add: I just read through my quiet time journal from that year, and Wow! I had a bad case of postpartum depression. And lots of conflict with Steve. I wondered many times if we would last. And we didn’t talk about the conflict. I talked about it in my journal, but we never did talk it out. I fantasized about leaving so he would appreciate me.

It’s sobering to me — because I didn’t remember that at all until I read the journals. I was overwhelmed trying to keep up with everything and my babies, and didn’t feel like I could do it all. Steve was taking classes at Belleville Area College to get an associates in Computer Science. He was able to get tuition of $2 a credit because of my working there — which made my work more valuable than just the pay.

But now I look at it and see the seeds of resentment between us. We didn’t work those things out. I would always conclude talking about it with something like, “I know Steve really loves me.” It never ever dawned on me that we really would get divorced one day. I was completely committed to marriage, and I thought he was, too. After all, he was a Christian! And divorce is wrong!

But somehow, we never learned to come back together. I do record that I felt bad when Steve volunteered to be on loading crew so he could leave sooner on a 2-week tour. That hurt. I’d been dreading his trip, and he was looking forward to it? Did he want to get away from me? Well, maybe he did, even way back then.

But we still definitely had good times. When we went to Germany in 1996, that brought us together. For awhile.

Looking at it now, I hope it will be different if I ever marry again. How to keep that root of bitterness from growing between us? I think I’ve learned ways to forgive. But it does take two to keep a marriage going, and you have to both want to. Maybe it is not so bad this happened. It seems the roots went further back than I had realized.

Anyway, looking back, I’m glad the joys of that time are what stuck in my mind.

It’s time for Project 52, Week 30!

30 weeks ago, on my 52nd Birthday, I began Project 52. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, each week I’m taking one year of my life and blogging about it. This week, I’m covering the year I was 30, June 14, 1994, to June 14, 1995.

As I mentioned last week, I began the year I was 30 pregnant, on bed rest, and on terbutaline trying to slow down frequent early contractions.

But turning 30 is a great occasion for a party, and it was also a wonderful time to see my friends from church who’d been bringing me food. Steve threw me a lovely party and folks came to me.

My calendar says I had some visits the week after my birthday. Rob Dalton, my friend from Lakewood First Baptist, the church I attended in high school, was in town on a business trip and stopped by (since I couldn’t go to him). I remember it was great to see him.

A couple days later, the de Rivera family — our friends from Biola, from Los Angeles, and from Philadelphia — came to see us and spent the night.

June felt a little like I was ensconced in luxury, holding court, with beloved friends coming to me!

But — the next day was another trip to the hospital — and Steve left for a trip with the Brass Quintet to Seattle for a week. I’ve got notes that every day while he was gone, ladies from the church brought me lunch and dinner. My neighbor and church friend Penny took Josh while I was in the hospital that first day. (No more delaying the trip for my contractions! They were too common now.)

I had two more trips to the hospital while Steve was gone. They weren’t overnight, but my notes say those three hospital visits lasted 4, 8, and 6 hours. Typically, they’d hook me up to an IV and give me fluids and IV terbutaline. At least I think that’s what went on. Anyway, they’d hook me up to a monitor, verify that I was having contractions, and give me drugs to try to slow them down. I went in when they were only a few minutes apart.

Okay, Steve got back on July 2nd and did the VP Fair Parade in St. Louis. On the 3rd, I went into the hospital at 8:30 am and was kept overnight. At that time, I was 34 weeks pregnant, so the baby was getting bigger and in less danger. But it was confusing because I was having lots of contractions.

No more hospital visits, just lots of doctor appointments the next week. On July 15, I hit 36 weeks and then on Monday the 18th, they took me off bedrest. My notes after that talk about going shopping and working on bedrooms. I think we moved Josh’s bedroom and got the baby’s room ready.

When I went off bedrest and off the terbutaline, my contractions did keep going. My calendar says I went into Labor and Delivery and sure enough, the contractions were 3 minutes apart. And they sent me home. I wasn’t dilating. So I wasn’t sure when I was supposed to come in. There were times when they were 2 minutes apart, but they weren’t doing anything.

Finally, on July 29, my water broke! No question about it, I went in and this time they didn’t send me back home.

Labor started well enough. Though I was annoyed that they had a policy not to give any drugs at all until you’ve progressed to a certain point. (With Josh, it was after I got drugs that I really started progressing.) Again, this time I progressed better once I had an epidural. But then it was time to push, and I pushed for 2 hours, and it turned out his head was turned to the side and he was stuck.

Steve had a really bad moment, because he saw the doctor get worried, and the baby’s heart rate drop. (I was oblivious.) They called in an OB/Gyn doctor from the next room (my doctor was a family practice doctor) and he used forceps and got the baby out.

For the record, any anesthesia had completely worn off by this time, and they wouldn’t give me more because I was pushing. And let me just say that it HURTS when they use forceps to take a baby out of you.

Oh, the other notable thing about that night was for the pushing part there was a shift change of nurses, and there were only men in the labor and delivery room. (Only in a military hospital would this happen, but they did have lots of male nurses.) At one point when I was pushing, I said, “It hurts!” and trying to be compassionate, a nurse answered, “I know,” and I looked around and saw only men, and I said, “NO you don’t! None of you knows!”

(I don’t know why that struck me so hard at the time, but I ended up leaving on a comment card that you should always have at least one woman in a labor and delivery room!)

But the end result made it all worth it, and on July 29, 1994, Timothy Ronald John Eklund was born!

His poor little face was hurt from the forceps, and that first night one eye was stuck open and one eye stuck closed because of a pinched nerve from the forceps. But those all healed quickly.

I was happy happy happy when the baby was born and that awful labor was done. Steve started crying. He had honestly thought he was going to lose me or lose Timothy.

[A couple months later, I came home from teaching to find Steve crying. He’d been watching E. R. and those manipulative writers had written an episode where a woman dies in childbirth. That was the night Steve told me that he’d been afraid he would lose me or lose Timmy. That was when he told me that he’d seen that the doctor was afraid. And this is how I know, beyond any doubt, that at that point in our marriage, my husband still loved me deeply.

That’s also when Steve decided that he didn’t ever want me to get pregnant again. I checked with the doctor, and though it was likely that I’d have to go on bedrest again if I were ever pregnant, the turned head and forceps delivery was just a fluke that probably wouldn’t happen again. But still, it was an awful scare for Steve, and he didn’t want to go through that again.]

By the next day, Timmy was already looking better.

Ready to go home! Newborns in a car seat always look so small!

And — my cordless mouse just quit working. And I can’t seem to fix it. And I really don’t enjoy using the trackpad on my laptop, especially when trying to manipulate pictures. So — I’m going to call this post Part One and try to finish talking about the year I was 30 later in the week.