Cheryl on the Web

In many ways, today represents the beginning of the end. I’m not talking about the world (though based on the recent hurricane in Germany and the ice storms in Texas you could start to wonder), I am referring to our move to the new house: tonight we start packing everything at the old house into boxes. As you can imagine, we are really excited about the beginning of the end, because in this case the end - being settled into the new house - is a very desirable outcome. The move from the beginning to the end isn’t, in this case, nearly as well-planned as our wedding was. (For those of you not actively involved in the wedding, everyone got their own up-to-the-minute schedule of activities for up to 5 days prior.) But our moving project is still relatively in-scope, only slightly over-budget, and not running behind in any critical areas, so I’m pleased with our progress. I can’t wait to post pictures for you of the end result, we expect it to look fabulous.

In some ways, this move represents the end of the beginning.

We’ve been in Germany now for just over a year (we actually didn’t move in 2006!) and these last 14 months were definitely a year of “beginnings”. Tim started a new job, I started working at home, we got married, we bought a house, and we soaked in German culture and customs. With all that going on, it wasn’t actually until late 2006 that we started to make any effort to actually speak the language or feel integrated; moving to a new country and a new culture, even if it is just next door, doesn’t happen overnight in terms of mental and emotional readiness to accept the new surroundings.

With this move, though, and at least an intention of “settling” for a while, I think we see the end of the beginning. This concludes our first chapter of life in Germany, chapter 2 to follow!