What I haven't been blogging about.

It's Friday night and the German has just left for the gym, I'm watching the season premiere of Pushing up Daisies, I have just cleaned the kitchen, my feet are up, and I am drinking Diet Light. The week has been exhausting and, as Germans would say, stressful.

It started with Saturday's mobbing and then continued...

It's been the holidays for the last two weeks, with kita closed. However, although my synagogue said that there would be babysitting, there wasn't. That put a serious crimp in my ability to actually pray and when I was fasting, made it impossible to even stay at services. Although Thing1 could run with the other children like a wild thing, Thing2 is just too small to be allowed to run up and down stairs with rambunctious children. Sigh.

This week was also a two day holiday, and I just gave up. We stayed home and played because Thing1 started a small cough and a low fever. (by Friday Thing 2 had a cough as well, but Thing1 has been fine since Wednesday).

I finally got our taxes finalized. Working with the German accountant we used through my husband's firm was stressful and annoying. After the German side is done, I will run them by my US acct. and go back to him next year: I don't appreciate dealing with people that are slow and don't return communications. That whole customer service concept. Strangely enough, the German side appears far more friendly. But they are done and sent off and we can anticipate a solid refund. That's annoying because I hate to give an interest free loan to the government, but gratifying because I had required them to withhold less than they said we should and it's pleasant to be correct.

I was supposed to have a book club at my house this week, but a combination of things came together to make me just give up: Thing1's illness, that I hadn't had a chance to reread the book that week, the chaos of my house and that the German had been leaving early and coming home late and I would have no time to tidy up and bake anything, that the kids wee spreading a wave of chaos like stones in a pond... So I rescheduled for two weeks from the date and I felt an immediate release from stress. The now amusing, but at the time peak of my stress, was when the person who had borrowed my book came over on Tuesday to return it and I wasn't able to open my door to ask her in or to get the book: the German had locked the door behind him when he left and Thing2 had taken the key and put it somewhere. So I had to call her on the handy and ask her to just leave it under the mat. Luckily, after about 15 minutes of concerted looking I was able to find it.

That was a relief because we don't have a spare. I tried to cut a spare last week and the locksmith said the key was controlled and only my landlord could provide a new one. The German hasn't gotten a new one yet and I need to follow up next week.

The power cable from my computer fried. It fried at about the same time that I found myself rather claustrophobically locked in my apartment. The German stopped by the Apple Store on his way home and found that the cable was still in warranty (the darned thing is only 2 1/2 months old!) but that they wouldn't sell it to him and then credit when we gave in the ruined cord, so he had to come home and grab the computer and cord and adapter and run back to the store. On the plus side, they relaced the cord with a German plug cord and we were able to purchase the American adapter for only 15 E (a savings of 90E). On the negative side, their Adobe Elements is not switchable to English, so I still don't have it.

We had another bi-lingual open house that the German attended without me because we couldn't find a babysitter available that early in the evening.

On the plus side, I invented a lentil stew that I was very happy with, had a great salmon dinner with rice and veg (with sweet chili sauce), and Thing1 helped me with making and baking cookies. Now I only have to make it through the three days vacation the children have next week and I can have a day to myself before my next round of German classes start.