Sunday, October 31, 2010
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
Getting Settled
For the longest, one word described my recent job hunt best: frustration. I started looking for jobs and applying as soon as I had my SSN (wich was in mid-July). However, I did not even get an interview until mid-September. I sent out over twenty applications in less than six weeks and no word from anyone? Now that is what you call frustrating.
You can probably imagine how happy I was when I was invited for an interview. So of course I went and hoped for the best. I must have made a pretty good impression, because I did get the job. After all, I am finally back in the work force.
At times, I felt so useless and my self esteem took some serious hits from my job hunt, as I started to feel that no employer would even be interested in me, despite my skills and qualifications. I knew it was going to be hard to find employment as an immigrant and I assume that many American employers had no idea on how to interpret my German education and training. I decided to have it evaluated and I should receive my evaluation soon.
Meantime, I was finally able to start working. I had a lot of paperwork and screenings to complete before my start date. However, my biggest worry was finding child care. I was very relieved when I found a solution for our family and I know my children are well taken care of. It is an adjustment for all of us, but it is worth it.
Having work is priceless to me. Besides finally being a dual income household again, it simply gets me out of the house and I am meeting people. Being in a foreign country and missing your family at home is hard enough, but the hardest part for me so far was not knowing anyone over here for the first two months. It takes time for me to warm up to people, which does not make it any easier.
We do have some really nice neighbors across the street and I also met with another German lady who also lives here on post and our husbands actually work together. It seems things are finally working out, it just takes time. One thing I am definitely learning is being more patient. Not everything can happen overnight, especially not the really good stuff! :-)
Oh, in case you were wondering: I am an administrative assistant in a daycare center. So I get to work my kind of job and get to be around children which rocks!
You can probably imagine how happy I was when I was invited for an interview. So of course I went and hoped for the best. I must have made a pretty good impression, because I did get the job. After all, I am finally back in the work force.
At times, I felt so useless and my self esteem took some serious hits from my job hunt, as I started to feel that no employer would even be interested in me, despite my skills and qualifications. I knew it was going to be hard to find employment as an immigrant and I assume that many American employers had no idea on how to interpret my German education and training. I decided to have it evaluated and I should receive my evaluation soon.
Meantime, I was finally able to start working. I had a lot of paperwork and screenings to complete before my start date. However, my biggest worry was finding child care. I was very relieved when I found a solution for our family and I know my children are well taken care of. It is an adjustment for all of us, but it is worth it.
Having work is priceless to me. Besides finally being a dual income household again, it simply gets me out of the house and I am meeting people. Being in a foreign country and missing your family at home is hard enough, but the hardest part for me so far was not knowing anyone over here for the first two months. It takes time for me to warm up to people, which does not make it any easier.
We do have some really nice neighbors across the street and I also met with another German lady who also lives here on post and our husbands actually work together. It seems things are finally working out, it just takes time. One thing I am definitely learning is being more patient. Not everything can happen overnight, especially not the really good stuff! :-)
Oh, in case you were wondering: I am an administrative assistant in a daycare center. So I get to work my kind of job and get to be around children which rocks!
Saturday, October 02, 2010
dangerous beauty
I have never had as many spiders in my house in all my life, as I have here. We kill between two and three spiders in the house daily. To top it all off, I had an encounter with a black widow today. She was sitting less than three inches away from our door, on the outside wall. I took a large piece of mulch and moved her away. Normally I leave spiders alone as long as they stay outside, but this one I killed with insect spray. I am not taking chances with a black widow. Even though I am freaked out by any kind of spider, I was really fascinated by this one. I actually thought she was beautiful. LOL. I never thought I would say that about a spider.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Butterfly Festival
Today we went the 2nd Annual Butterfly Festival in Oak Grove, KY. I met with two other german ladies and their children there, which was really nice and we had a great time. At the festival they had all kinds of fun things for the children to do: games, arts & crafts, a petting zoo, and much more. Elijah was actually riding a pony today! We were also able to go in a tent full of butterflies. In the end, they released 400 live butterflies into the air, which was beautiful to watch. I took pictures, of course and I will post them soon.
More pictures coming soon.
More pictures coming soon.
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
It has been a while...
...since my last post. I am trying to catch up as soon as possible and will post some entries I have been writing on for a while now. I am doing OK, just very busy hunting for a job, which is a true challenge over here. We are also preparing for my husband's training that is coming up soon. The boys have been in school just over a month now and are finally getting into a routine. I will update soon. Promised. :-)
Thursday, September 02, 2010
Driver's License
Woohoo! I finally have my driver's license. I just took the road test and I was so freaking nervous it was not funny anymore. I did pretty good, and the examiner was really nice and laid-back and helped me overcome the nervosity quickly. Before I took the test, I was so scared I might be tested in parallel parking. That is one thing I am absolutely unable to do. I actually practised up until last night, but thank goodness I did not need it. So, I officially have a Driver's License now and I am allowed to drive on my own. Yay! One word: Independence. I hated that I could not go anywhere without my husband. I was basically stuck at home while he was at work. This also is a milestone in finding a job. Now, if I do get hired somewhere I can actually drive to work. There is barely any public transportation available over here. So before today, it would have been either bus (if there was one going) or my bike.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Road Trip
So it has not even been a full month since I finally got here, and we already went on our first big road trip. :-)
We took Mom's car (2004 Kia Optima) and went down to San Antonio, TX, to exchange it for mine (2010 Mazda3), which she has been driving since we bought it in January. And of course, the most importans thing, we finally got our boys and took them home at last. It has been so long since we actually lived together as a family.
We left Fort Campbell at 4 AM for our 936 mile trip and our scenic route took us all the way around the post and through a lot of woods at first. We then went through an area called the Land Between the Lakes, a popular recreational area in this region. Definitely want to go hiking and camping over there some time. We then drove through Tennessee in southwestern direction on I-40 and passed Memphis. After Memphis, we drove through Arkansas, passing Little Rock and the birth town of Bill Clinton, Hope, AR on I-30. Then we went through Texarkana (yes this is the name of a city), which is, surprise, on the border of Texas and Arkansas, hence the name I guess. Later on we saw a bit of Dallas, driving through it. It has some beautiful areas with big lakes, might want to live there one day. We will see...
So, Nathan was stubborn and decided on driving the whole route without an overnight stay halfway. By the time we almost got there (Austin) it was raining really hard and we stopped at Whataburger (Yum!) to grab a bite and then took a 4 hour nap in the car. We were just exhausted and did not want to drive in that heavy rain at night. Once we had enough rest and the rain wore off, we continued our journey and finally made it to Mom's house around 2 AM.
The following days we were busy packing the boys' things and donating anything obsolete to the Goodwill. Love that place! You can donate pretty much anything from furniture to clothes to toys etc. They create jobs for people who cannot find work in the regular job market due to disability or other reasons, by selling donated goods. So we went there with bags and bags of clothes and toys. I am always glad to help others. http://www.goodwill.org/
After we knocked out all the packing and getting rid of things, we finally had some time to kick back and relax. We actually spent our last couple of nights at a hotel, where we were barbecueing and the kids (the boys and their cousins) had fun in the pool.
We also met a "Texas sized" spider, as Mom called it. I believe it was a trantula. It was huge, hairy, and creepy. I was walking to my car, parked in the cul-de-sac, where Mom's house is at, wearing sandals of course since it is summer, and what do I see slowly strutting down the street next to my car? This big old, fat spider. Eeeek! I literally jumped when I saw it. I wanted to run, but then I was fascinated to see a spider of that size roaming freely and not behind glass in a zoo. I did keep my distance, considering my open shoes. That spider was walking extremely slow, not in a hurry or anything. Then comes the kitty of the neighbors, a tiny but bold little feline, attacking the spider and playing with it until the spider disappeared under a trash can. That kitty had some balls, I was afraid for it to be bitten and die or something, but that little furball was fearless.
Talking about crawling things. San Antonio had a plague of crickets this summer. Parking lots, store fronts, entire gas stations literally covered in carpets of black crickets. That was just crazy. I haver never seen anything like this. The boys were grossed out by them. I did not care, just hated the crunch everytime you stepped on one, which you could not avoid as they were everywhere, including the hotel grounds. Unfortunately they also made it into our room, through the A/C, but what could management do about it, a different room would not have made a difference. So every night we hunted the crickets (about 15 to 30) in the room and got rid of them. So, yeah, I had my share of crawling creatures this summer, not to mention the occasional roach you encounter in a Texas home. LOL. Roaches really are the worst though. One thing I love about Fort Campbell: I have not seen a roach here, yet!
As we, or should I say Nathan since I cannot drive yet, learned our lesson, we decided to split the trip back home in half and stay overnight at a hotel in Little Rock, AR. In Little Rock we also went to a BBQ place called Backyard Burgers, one of the best grilled chicken sandwiches I ever had. Delicious! I later found out that it is a chain restaurant. I am not a big fan of chain restaurants, which are a big deal in America. This place was different though and I love it! I need to find out if there is one close to Fort Campbell, too.
As we arrived at Fort Campbell in the early evening (this time we took more time and longer stops throughout the trip, I could not help it and had to take the picture of the squirrel just relaxing in the shade at the gate:
More pictures coming soon.
We took Mom's car (2004 Kia Optima) and went down to San Antonio, TX, to exchange it for mine (2010 Mazda3), which she has been driving since we bought it in January. And of course, the most importans thing, we finally got our boys and took them home at last. It has been so long since we actually lived together as a family.
We left Fort Campbell at 4 AM for our 936 mile trip and our scenic route took us all the way around the post and through a lot of woods at first. We then went through an area called the Land Between the Lakes, a popular recreational area in this region. Definitely want to go hiking and camping over there some time. We then drove through Tennessee in southwestern direction on I-40 and passed Memphis. After Memphis, we drove through Arkansas, passing Little Rock and the birth town of Bill Clinton, Hope, AR on I-30. Then we went through Texarkana (yes this is the name of a city), which is, surprise, on the border of Texas and Arkansas, hence the name I guess. Later on we saw a bit of Dallas, driving through it. It has some beautiful areas with big lakes, might want to live there one day. We will see...
So, Nathan was stubborn and decided on driving the whole route without an overnight stay halfway. By the time we almost got there (Austin) it was raining really hard and we stopped at Whataburger (Yum!) to grab a bite and then took a 4 hour nap in the car. We were just exhausted and did not want to drive in that heavy rain at night. Once we had enough rest and the rain wore off, we continued our journey and finally made it to Mom's house around 2 AM.
The following days we were busy packing the boys' things and donating anything obsolete to the Goodwill. Love that place! You can donate pretty much anything from furniture to clothes to toys etc. They create jobs for people who cannot find work in the regular job market due to disability or other reasons, by selling donated goods. So we went there with bags and bags of clothes and toys. I am always glad to help others. http://www.goodwill.org/
After we knocked out all the packing and getting rid of things, we finally had some time to kick back and relax. We actually spent our last couple of nights at a hotel, where we were barbecueing and the kids (the boys and their cousins) had fun in the pool.
We also met a "Texas sized" spider, as Mom called it. I believe it was a trantula. It was huge, hairy, and creepy. I was walking to my car, parked in the cul-de-sac, where Mom's house is at, wearing sandals of course since it is summer, and what do I see slowly strutting down the street next to my car? This big old, fat spider. Eeeek! I literally jumped when I saw it. I wanted to run, but then I was fascinated to see a spider of that size roaming freely and not behind glass in a zoo. I did keep my distance, considering my open shoes. That spider was walking extremely slow, not in a hurry or anything. Then comes the kitty of the neighbors, a tiny but bold little feline, attacking the spider and playing with it until the spider disappeared under a trash can. That kitty had some balls, I was afraid for it to be bitten and die or something, but that little furball was fearless.
Talking about crawling things. San Antonio had a plague of crickets this summer. Parking lots, store fronts, entire gas stations literally covered in carpets of black crickets. That was just crazy. I haver never seen anything like this. The boys were grossed out by them. I did not care, just hated the crunch everytime you stepped on one, which you could not avoid as they were everywhere, including the hotel grounds. Unfortunately they also made it into our room, through the A/C, but what could management do about it, a different room would not have made a difference. So every night we hunted the crickets (about 15 to 30) in the room and got rid of them. So, yeah, I had my share of crawling creatures this summer, not to mention the occasional roach you encounter in a Texas home. LOL. Roaches really are the worst though. One thing I love about Fort Campbell: I have not seen a roach here, yet!
As we, or should I say Nathan since I cannot drive yet, learned our lesson, we decided to split the trip back home in half and stay overnight at a hotel in Little Rock, AR. In Little Rock we also went to a BBQ place called Backyard Burgers, one of the best grilled chicken sandwiches I ever had. Delicious! I later found out that it is a chain restaurant. I am not a big fan of chain restaurants, which are a big deal in America. This place was different though and I love it! I need to find out if there is one close to Fort Campbell, too.
As we arrived at Fort Campbell in the early evening (this time we took more time and longer stops throughout the trip, I could not help it and had to take the picture of the squirrel just relaxing in the shade at the gate:
More pictures coming soon.
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