I don’t remember the first time Martin proposed that I get a pilot’s license.  My answer was probably something like, “Yeah, I should do that some day.”  Then I’d probably change the subject because it wasn’t really something I thought of doing before falling in love with a pilot.  We did a few flight lessons here and there.  I caught on to the left/right turning with my hands and feet a little.  It was the up/down that was happening at the same time that made my stomach feel like it was in my throat.  That up/down feeling in my stomach was probably the biggest factor in my plans to learn to fly SOME day but not TOday.

Martin liked to put his arm around the back of my chair.  When I did really well during those lessons, Martin kissed my cheek.  I asked if he did that with all of his students.

But most of the time we went flying I was not learning how.  I was busy taking on this role.  I was very good at it:

The elevation always knocked me out.  I tried my hardest to stay awake, but just like when you take commercial flights, I got worn out.  Yep.  It was jetlag in a bitty plane.

Then we got married.  We didn’t fly much.

Then we moved to Germany.  We didn’t fly at all.

Now that we’re back in the US, and I’m going to learn to fly, I am beyond excited.  I’ll share my experiences with you about once a week because while flying and a blog about creating a home don’t exactly blend seamlessly, I would very much like to share what I’m learning and seeing with all of you.  When Martin and I used to be at small airports, no one ever expected that I was a pilot.  They figured Martin was the pilot for one basic reason:  I’m a girl; he’s a guy.  Aviation is dominated by men.  (Remember that picture I showed you about women flying?)  I could never even count how many pilots I have met since Martin and I started dating.  NONE of them have ever been women.  One may have sounded a little girly, but that’s as close as I’ve seen. 

Most pilots learn how to fly at professional schools around the country with flight simulators and large classrooms.  I’m going to learn to fly on a gravel runway.  My classroom will be the little hangar that smells like oil and our kitchen table, which is why I think it’ll be such an interesting adventure to share with all of you.

Martin is going to teach me along with help from his original teacher (the owner of the airport), so to be perfectly honest, we’re not sure what my biggest challenge is going to be:

1. learning to fly
2. learning to do what my instructor – my husband – tells me without arguing and without telling him to quit being so dang bossy

I am very excited and very nervous at the same time.  Very soon, it’s going to be time for Martin and me to switch places.

It’ll be the girl in the captain’s seat from now on.

(Images for Making This Home)

The other day, I was wandering around the mall (and applying all of these green tips- including parking in the back of the lot despite the rain).  There were a lot of American stores that I was completely unfamiliar with – Crate and Barrel, West Elm, Z Gallery, Anthropologie… I only know they existed because people in the US used to email me when we were in Germany.  They wanted to know how I could stand being away from these breath taking stores.  Of course, you can’t miss something that you’ve never experienced.  We used to drive over a hundred miles just to hit up Costco when I grew up.  The lack of shopping does wonders for a simple life!

Still, I decided to venture into two stores I’d heard so much about: Anthropologie and Crate and Barrel.  I know, I know.  Stone Age Katie.

We could have used a Crate and Barrel in Berlin.  My taste in accessories is very American because I like a lot of color (here’s our reeeeally bright dishes in Berlin), and Crate and Barrel is filled with a very American display of brightly colored everything.  My eyes had to adjust from the relatively black and white shopping in Germany.  When they did, I picked up one thing:

These silicone baking cups could be a great way to reduce our paper waste if we can use them over and over for years to come.  They were on clearance, and I know I can wedge these into my suitcase back to Germany in a few months.  

Then I went to Antropologie.  And I hope I can wedge my one Anthropologie purchase into my bag, too.  (Yes, I am already thinking about what I really want to bring back to Germany like every expat does when she’s back home.)  I picked a porcelain bird that pours sugar out of its mouth.  Dorky?  Maybe.  It’s also so perfect for those recipes that call for a tablespoon or two of sugar.  Pulling an entire container of sugar out of our drawers of food or keeping a little snack bowl on the counter were both a pain.  We needed a sugar bowl, and this little guy was just begging to be The One:

Now when people ask me how I survive in Germany (or the countryside for that matter) without stores like these, I can show my treasure.  I might as well mention that Martin and I had never even heard of IKEA until I stumbled on this blog about an American who was living in Germany at the time.  I’ve never even seen an IKEA in the US, and I’m perfectly okay with that.

So to all my rural readers, this one’s for you.

We shared our first experience in IKEA here.  It was on the day we arrived in Germany. 

(Images for Making This Home)

Living in the suburbs has been making simple living a real challenge for me. Where I once learned how to be patient in Germany, I find myself getting overwhelmed now. Speed seems so important that we rush through things. We know we’ll have some errors, but we still keep rushing. Maybe you can guess what this week’s simpler life challenge is: be patient with yourself!

Stop and think for a moment. When have you made mistakes because you were rushed? The next question is: why were you so rushed to begin with? Chances are that in most of those situations, you can remember the exact results of being rushed. You didn’t perform very well. Chances are also that you don’t actually know why you were so rushed, right?

Take typing for example. When you type, is it quicker to do a fast, sloppy job and then go back and correct everything or is your time better spent typing better (although slower) the first time?

When we get impatient, we draw conclusions so fast. We hurt ourselves, do the dumbest things, and break things when we’re not being patient. Remember the pizza delivery companies that would guarantee a free pizza if they couldn’t deliver with enough speed? Delivery boys started getting in wrecks because they were so stressed out about delivering a silly pizza. The oddest thing about not being patient and pushing others to hurry up is how those accidents multiply our wasted time and money.

This week, I urge you to join me in trying patience. It sure beats going back and correcting things.

(Images for Making This Home)

You know those dreams where someone is chasing you?  It’s somebody really bad, and no matter how hard you try, you just can’t loose him until you’re jolted awake in a panic.  Well coming back to your home country isn’t quite like that.  But it still shakes you up.  I’ve never really experienced culture shock before.  My nature is to have an open mind and grasp every opportunity I can.  It means I’ve eaten a lot of weird things.  I’ve followed a lot of paths and embarrassed myself and my family on multiple occasions.

I don’t think I’ve embarrassed myself as much as I have lately, though.  Like some of you warned, I began facing reverse culture shock when we got to the US.  With a little change of pace today, I thought you might be interested in some of the things going on.  Here’s my perspective on life back in the US after being an expat in Germany:

1.  When an American flight crew speaks in English to me, I should answer in English. I think that I said danke almost every time they gave me something to drink.

2.  The people here are really nice.  I was sitting with half of our suitcases while Martin went to report that the other half of our bags were missing.  The woman next to me just started talking to me.  That was it.  Just started talking!  No one started chatting to me in Germany unless they needed directions.  Part of me wanted my silence back.  A bigger part of me wanted to give that woman a great big hug.

3.  The cars are insanely enormous. The first thing our ride from the airport said in the car was, “I’m sorry it’s so tight.”  Martin and I looked at each other.  It was the most spacious thing we’d ridden in for months.

4.  When strangers start speaking to me, they kind of expect to hear an answer. But I don’t answer; I just look at them like a doof.  It’s the most bizarre feeling to find yourself lacking basic communication skills.  See, I got so used to strangers speaking German to me.  I had to take the time to be sure I understood what they were saying and figure out how to answer.  In my mind, if I didn’t know a person, she was going to speak German to me.  My mind defaulted that way.  The only people speaking English to me already knew me.  So in the US, it throws me off when someone I don’t know comes up to me and speaks in English.  I just look at her.  My mind feels fuzzy, and I try to figure out what language I’m supposed to speak.  So far, the people I am with step in and answer for me.

5.  I cannot handle large American grocery stores. We had to get toothbrushes on the way from the airport since our bag with toilietries wanted to enjoy a longer vacation, and I swear we could pick from over a hundred toothbrushes that night.  Guess how many choices our grocery store had in Germany.  Two.  Shopping in American grocery stores that are easily 5x bigger than German stores was more overwhelming than figuring out what language to speak to the clerk who smiled at me AND started talking to me.

6.  Plastic sacks are free and abundant whether you want one or not. After the clerk smiled at me, she put my toothbrush in a plastic sack.  She was so fast that we didn’t even know what was going on.  No one in Germany even bagged groceries for you.  You brought your own bags and put your things in them.  If you forgot your bag, you paid a buck for one.  We didn’t have any US bills yet.  We paid with a card and walked out with our toothbrush in a plastic sack.

7.  The roads are really big. You don’t really have to pay attention when you drive in the US.  Huh!  That’s funny because compared to Germany, nobody else here seems to be paying attention to their driving, either.  All the slow cars drive in the left lanes, which are supposed to be for fast moving traffic, and the majority of drivers are weaving through lanes without signaling.  I don’t know if I can feel safe biking on  six lane streets like I did in Germany.  Am I going to have to drive everywhere?

8.  People are so loud. I am struggling with information overload because not only does everyone seem to speak with twice the volume, I can understand every word.  I hear conversations all around me – some on cell phones, some with other people.  No one is walking around in silence.  Why is that?  (If it were winter, I would be shopping for a toothbrush AND earmuffs.)

9.  The salsa and chips are So Good. I can’t even describe what Mexican restaurants are like in Germany.  But you can imagine – they’re weird.  I would gladly live above a Mexican restaurant and forgo our plans for the summer.

10. M&Ms aren’t as good as I remember. Don’t get me wrong, though.  Peanut butter cups are still amazing!

11. Everything is so cheap. Contact solution, toothbrushes, computers, socks, paper…  I see why Germans go on a shopping spree in the US.  THE STUFF IS SO DANG CHEAP HERE.  The only thing is that none of the stuff for sale here seems to be made in this country.  I am finding more “made in Germany” labels than “made in America” ones.

12.  Target is breathtaking. But it’s so dang far away.  Everything is far away.  This urban sprawl and I are not getting along very well.  I told you I was questioning biking before.  Now I’m certain the answer is no.  I’m a chicken.  …Is the irony screaming at you, too?  I’m afraid of biking to a grocery store around here, and yet I’m going to learn to fly a plane.  I hate that even the closest bus stop is a fifteen minute car trip away.  The sprawl is loud, really really big, and dare I say:  so incredibly ugly.

13.  I can go shopping on a Sunday night at 10 o’clock. Nothing ever seems to close.  Sundays don’t slow down.  We can get cereal and Annie’s Macaroni and Cheese any time we want.  And trust me, with the jet lag, that’s just what we’d been doing.  Then we bring the food into a HUGE kitchen.  In these moments, I miss our little 36 square foot kitchen that we remodeled in Germany so much it’s hard to breathe.

14.  I’m home, and I’m so so so happy to be exactly where I am today.

Have a beautiful week, everyone.

It’s true what people say:  Everything is bigger in the United States.

We sadly kissed our little kitchen in Berlin goodbye:

and replaced it with this big guy in the US:

We’re calling the burbs of Denver home for a couple of weeks until we head into the mountains and get all rustic.  We’re so thankful to the couple letting us be here again while they’re gone.  I’m just having a really tough time adapting to the much, much larger space.  (For reference:  the island in this kitchen has the same square footage as our entire kitchen in Berlin.)  I have no idea when I would need two ovens, especially now that I’m used to my microwave and oven being the same appliance.  And I cannot tell you how much food we keep forgetting about in the fridge already because we’re used to our standard German fridge that’s the same size as a dorm fridge in the US.

The good news is that I probably walk a good 1/3 mile putting away dishes.  Making dinner is even more.  All this walking might balance out the fact that the grocery store is a good fifteen minutes’ drive in these suburbs, so I can’t walk.  I know that we are beyond blessed (spoiled?) to call this home for a few weeks no matter how different it is from what we prefer.

We’re still a bit overwhelmed with our adjustment, so how ’bout you tell us what you like?  Are you into a big kitchen, a little one, or something in the middle?  Maybe you can’t live without two ovens.  Then again, you might not be able to stand having more than two mixing bowls.  Whatever it is, we want to know:  What’s your dream kitchen like?

After squeezing everything into out suitcases for our return to the US, Martin and I were instantly relieved that there were a couple of things we wouldn’t have to be lugging back and forth.  We began streamlining a couple of habits about a year ago to keep our back-and-forth lifestyle more organized.  Not only have these efforts made it easy for us to have access to everything we need, but they’ve also meant less clutter in our home and at times, fewer wasted resources.

To start, we quit buying cds. They cost a few dollars more than downloading music from iTunes or Amazon, which was a little redundant since we download all of our music onto iTunes anyway.  We imported all of the cds we already owned, and we haven’t looked back since.  A lot of people hesitate to download music – don’t!  If you back up your computer regularly, you won’t lose your music.  From personal experience, iTunes is quick to help you with any music you’ve paid for and lost.  Skipping cds meant we could also skip the cd players (not that those would be going into our suitcases!).  It was just one less thing we had to buy.

And once we were hooked on downloading music, we made the switch to getting dvds online, too.  I splurged and got Martin an Apple TV for his birthday last year, so all we have to do is plug this little box into a TV or computer, and we’ve got all of our favorite shows and movies.  It’s really easy when we go to a friend’s house, and we never have to worry about scratched disks again.  And if that weren’t enough reasons, dvds in the US and Europe run on different zones.  So a dvd from Germany wouldn’t even be compatible in the US.  I’m okay with buying two cookbooks – one for the US, and one for Germany, but not two copies of the same Star Trek Deep Space Nine.

As for books, we’ve been making some of those digital for a while, too.  Audiobooks are a traveler’s dream. They’re cheaper than English books in Germany, and they don’t take up space on your shelf when you’re done.  We’ve listened to stories together like Marley and Me and What We Eat on long flights and train rides.  Our fix comes from Audible.com, and we know it’s working.  My bookshelf is nice and slim.

We are scanning maniacs.  Anything we might need gets scanned.  Anything we don’t want to haul gets scanned.  We know we can just print a page of our pdfs if we need to.  (We haven’t yet.)  We usually find that most of those papers we were so certain we’d need weren’t all that important after all.  Glad we discovered it digitally!

Finally we make sure every paper is in its place before we go so if we need something that wasn’t scanned like a receipt or warranty, it’s really easy to walk our families through our filing system from thousands of miles away.

So there you have them – a nice handful of the tricks we use to make our house functional wherever we may be.

Speaking of which… see you in Denver tomorrow!

(Images for Making This Home)