The world's worst blogger

Okay, okay, I know. I have been slacking on the blog. I will try to do better, I promise!

I am in my house as of last Monday. Officially, I got the keys last Friday, but stayed in the hotel through the weekend. All of my stuff was delivered Monday, including my snazzy new washer and dryer. (More on that later.) My wardrobes came Tuesday. (German houses don't have closets.) The dogs also joined me on Tuesday. I was as glad to see them as they were to see me, I'm sure. The house is much less lonely with them here and I missed them while they were at the puppy hotel. They seem to be adjusting well to their new digs, although Guinness still struggles a bit coming down the slippery wooden stairs. I plan to get some sticky carpet thingies to help her out a bit. Also, the backyard isn't fenced yet (sometime this spring/summer after the ground thaws) so that entails lots of time standing in the backyard with them and at least one walk a day. But we're flexible, that's how we roll.

So far, I have unpacked the kitchen and my bedroom. My clothes are almost all put away, still have a few boxes of shoes and clothes to deal with, but I should be able to knock that out pretty quickly. (I was going to do that this evening, but figured I was WAAAAAAY overdue for a blog entry. So here we are.) I haven't started in the office yet. Mostly just boxes of books and my computer to set up. Shouldn't be too bad. The living room is mostly in place, but now there are empty boxes stacked up all over, so it isn't quite inhabitable yet. (The dogs aren't having any problem finding spots to lay on the couch, though. Punks.) We're almost there. Damage appears to be light up to this point. My kitchen trash can was a little dented and the plastic tray in one of the dog kennels got a bit broken off, but so far so good.

Speaking of furniture, IKEA makes so much more sense to me now that I am living in a German house with teeny narrow wooden stairs. The movers had to bring my dresser and my queen boxsprings in through the window! (And I had to help lift the dresser up since there were only two movers. That was a sight to see, I'm sure!) The wardrobes also had to be taken apart and reassembled upstairs. I have two bookshelves that I intended to put on the 3rd floor in my office, but they wouldn't make it up the stairs. So they are going to live in the living room on either side of the TV. Not what I wanted to do with them, but oh well.

As for the washer and dryer... they are on the 2nd floor, which is convenient, since that's where all of my clothes are kept. So no schlepping anything up or downstairs. BUT. The laundry room is in the center of the house without any access to an exterior wall, which means no vent. So I had to get a special type of dryer called a condensing dryer. It manages to suck all of the water out of the clothes and puts it into a bucket that I have to empty out after every load. Fun, huh? The washer and dryer are both pretty small, but take FOREVER to run a load. I'm used to being able to wash and dry a load in an hour and a half or so. This washer takes almost two hours to run a cycle and the dryer is probably another two hours. So I've been trying to get into a routine of putting in a load before bed and then putting it into the dryer when I get up in the morning. I'm just fortunate I am only doing laundry for one! :)

School is going well. I have three classes of drama (will add a 4th in February) and one section of a reading class called Read 180. I also have a seminar/study hall for seniors. I just pretty much babysit and sign them in and out while I can grade papers and do other paperwork stuff. It is not in my classroom, since my classroom is being used by another teacher that period. Space is definitely an issue at PHS. The cafeteria stage is small and cute, but the wrestlers are in there after school every day from November through February. Not sure how we will manage to do a show next fall. Maybe finish in November and not start the spring musical until later? Oh well. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

The kids are great so far. I have 25 in two of my classes and only 10 in my 3rd. I have enjoyed getting to know them over the past two weeks. It is definitely a different culture than Leander or Pflugerville. Military kids are just different. But I feel right at home and they seem to be adjusting to having a "real" teacher.

I just uploaded some pictures and will get some posted on here ASAP. I promise to write again before another week goes by!! Don't give up on me! :)