There was quite a bit of discussion on Tuesday after I shared my “what I don’t like about Hessen” post…and apparently I got a lot of people thinking that I absolutely detest living here and should leave as soon as possible.

Let me state for the record that although living over here has certainly had its ups and downs, I am happy living here and there are certainly some great perks to being in Germany. Yes, of course, I get homesick and I don’t know that I’d want to stay in Germany forever…partially because I want Mackenzie to experience other cultures as well. But after 10 years, we’ve certainly become more used to the German way of life.

What’s cool about living in Germany?

• Like they say in Eurotrip, Europe is practically the size of a postage stamp. I mean not literally but visiting various countries over here is a bit like driving to another state in the US. So any time you feel like escaping, you can just hop on a cheap flight to Spain, France, England or anywhere else you like and make a weekend of it.
• There’s a lot of nice day trips outside of Frankfurt…as well as cool places in the city to see and photograph. Palmengarten, Frankfurt Zoo, Opel Zoo and Hessenpark are some of our favorites. The Senckenberg Museum of Natural History is also high on the list after our first trip there last year. And when you drive outside of a city, you are generally in the forest or other types of pure nature within an hours drive. And of course Bavaria is a little slice of heaven!
• Curbside recycling is commonplace in most larger cities and you don’t even pay for pick up of paper, plastics or other packing wastes. Each town usually has a recycling center nearby and they will generally take your items without cost, as long as it’s not something too huge. There are also recycling trashcans at every gas station, airport, shopping center, etc. Special free collection days also exist for old furniture as well as chemicals or old paint, and most cities also have someone you can call to come pick up your old electronics for free.
• It’s really easy to be green here. Aside from the great recycling practices I mentioned earlier, there are all sorts of things in place here in Germany that make it easier to be kind to Mother Earth. They’ve been reusing shopping bags for decades because otherwise you have to pay for a new bag every time you go shopping.
• Stores are closed on Sunday. Yes, that is a real shock to the system at first…but I actually prefer it. After they extended the shopping hours to something normal (most stores are open until 8pm, some even until 10pm), there became no reason that we couldn’t get the shopping done, even while both working full time. Not being able to shop on Sunday is a great feeling because although you might discover you need something, you just can’t do a thing about it. So you learn to plan better as well as take a day exclusively for yourself and/or your family.
• Privatized healthcare is not only affordable but incredibly good. The public healthcare system here is alright…better for the consumer than the doctors. But it has serious faults. After recently switching to a private healthcare, I have to say that the service you receive is far above and beyond any other service you receive, and the costs are extremely reasonable…especially compared to the insanity one encounters for care in the US.
• Germans know how to party. If Oktoberfest, the largest, most popular, two-week long event to celebrate the royal wedding isn’t enough to convince you, go to just about any local Fest and you will also find a bunch of people living it up. Frühschoppen is a huge tradition around these fests, which basically means you get up in the morning and start drinking. I’m pretty sure it’s to curb the hangover you undoubtedly have from drinking late into the night the evening before…
• And their beer is the best in the world. Drinking beer in the US is and will never again be the same. Nothing compares to the hearty, full body beers of Germany — and the fact that every one of them from each brewery (large or small) has their own distinct flavors. Augustiner, Schneider Weisse & Altenmünster are some of our favs.
• Finding quality food is easier, and often local. In the US, it can be a real challenge to find a real butcher who can cut you a slab of beef just the way you want. But in Germany, they are around every corner. Our town of 2000 people has 2 butchers. Sometimes you might have to ask more questions but our small town guy will even give us US cuts if we order in advance…and he grows the cows himself. There are often little farmers’ markets in each city, although that doesn’t always equal organic or local produce — but at least you are supporting your local businesses.
• People are better at living within their own means. So many Americans have a complete dependency on their credit cards and have absolutely no clue how to live on a budget, nor why you’d want to. Germans by nature are very wary of credit debt and many places don’t accept credit cards — or even ATM cards for payments.

You may have noticed that in general, I try not to be a naysayer. I like to look at life as if the glass is half-full, and think positively so that good things happen. I fully believe that if you focus on the negative all the time, you are only going to produce more negativity. But our trip to Florida over Christmas really got me thinking about what a miserable place Hessen can be to live.

I mean don’t get me wrong, we have some of the best neighbors a family could ask for…and have generally been very lucky when it comes to neighbors. But there are always one to two evil ones in the bunch that go and cast a shadow over the block…and we definitely have a big one of those here.

Neighbors aside, there is generally just a huge difference between living in Germany and living in Florida. I know the two places would usually never be on the table for comparison, but Stefan and I actually met in Miami while we were in college (Go ‘Canes!) and then we moved here to the Frankfurt area. Most people can’t quite understand what we were thinking but we were young and invincible then…and we definitely value the experience. But in retrospect, we do sometimes wonder what in the world we were thinking when we left The Sunshine State.

What makes Hessen so horrible?

• People usually won’t greet you on the street even if you greet them first — not even a super cute 3-year-old waving frantically and saying, “Hallo!”
• Germans are just not as open & friendly as Americans. This goes above and beyond greeting strangers…Americans can become instant friends with anyone, anywhere, and we don’t feel uncomfortable joining in on a random conversation we overhear. Americans also are often more social and want to throw parties, have friends over or entertain. We have thrown a lot of parties in our days, and almost never received a  invite to anything in return. Granted, it wasn’t our sole purpose in hosting, but it’s nice to have a friend invite you to dinner at their place or just to go hang out somewhere. Maybe we just have the wrong friends…
• The weather is the worst, especially in winter. I actually looked up the average number of rain days per year, which is 173. But after living here for 10 years, I would estimate that on average, our area gets about 150 days of rain, 150 days of weather looking like rain and 65 days where you get to see the sun for more than an hour. Not pleasant at all. And let’s not even delve into the temperature extremes and the total unpredictability.
• You can’t wear flip flops year-round. Perhaps I’m just spoiled because I grew up in Texas and Florida (although I did spend 4 years in Virginia in between) but I LOVE my flip flops and open shoes…and I hate that I have to put on big galoshes and snow boots a good portion of the year here because of the sucky weather. But LL Bean sure does appreciate it.
• Customer service is the pits (this is actually a bit of a Germany problem overall) and there are very few occasions when the customer is ever right or valued. For example, we have a restaurant down the street which has decent local fare. The business has been in the family for generations and the same 4 people are working in there every night. The owner lives literally around the corner from us and we pass him on the street regularly. Once while we were in there, we noticed a bunch of old photos on the wall, some of which feature our house, and we talked with the owner about them. Now if it were me, I would make sure I notice locals that are in my restaurant almost weekly during the summer. The Asian take-out place sure has no trouble remembering us even if we disappear for a month or six. But not this guy. Or perhaps being rude and impatient is how he shows he likes you.
• Everything in Germany is highly taxed. Your income is heavily taxed (up to 60%), your business is taxed (and do not even get me started on what a pain it is to run a business here) and nearly everything you buy is subject to the VAT (value added tax) at the whopping rate of 19%. Seriously, I can fully grasp a 7% tax (which does apply on some items like certain foods, books and magazines, flowers and things like mail services) but 19% is harsh. And the tricky thing is that it’s priced right into whatever you’re buying, so you just barely notice it. Which is good or I’d probably be angry about it all the time.
• I miss coupons & bargain shopping. Being able to use coupons and special offers to get something for next to nothing was always one of my favorite challenges. But here, coupons & sales at times other than the end of seasons were only recently introduced so they aren’t really that big. So going to the grocery store and actually having the store pay you to take their products or bringing home two huge bags of clothes for under $75 just doesn’t happen here.

Why Naples, Florida, may be the greatest place on Earth

• Of all the places we were in Florida, not one person was rude, impolite or in a bad mood. Yes, Mackenzie is very helpful for improving the moods of people — but somehow her powers are far greater in the US.
• It was warm enough to go swimming outdoors on Christmas Day.
• I got a sunburn on the beach the day after Christmas — where we were able to wade in the water without fear of frostbite.
• People say they live certain places because they need seasons….they can have mine! I’m happy with hot season, tourist season, hurricane season and rainy season (the latter of which means a rain shower torrential downpour daily that lasts 30 minutes between 2 and 3pm.

Those of you who have lived in Hessen/Germany or currently live here — what do you think about all this? Did I just get spoiled being back in the US?

This post is linked up to Oh Amanda for Top Ten Tuesday

There is no doubt that one of the hardest obstacles to overcome when you decide to move to Germany is the language…assuming you don’t speak German already. Those who speak other languages like Spanish, Italian or French may find the sentence structure similar, but very few of the words sound anything like you hear in the more guttural German language.

The first sentence I learned in German was, “Finger weg du geiler Sack!” This essentially translates to, “Paws off you horny pig” — which was important for a 20-year-old American girl in a short Dindl at her first Oktoberfest.

My first real interactions with German were during an intensive course which occupied 8 hours of my day for 5 days. I learned a lot of the basics in that course…and I’m certain that if we’d already been living in Germany then (or even thinking of moving here), I would have retained a lot more. But it was actually just a way to occupy my time while my husband was at work all day doing an internship and I was visiting him over the summer. So when we returned back home and I hardly used what I’d just learned.

Nearly a year later, we were actually making plans to move overseas and I was thrust into the abyss.

When you live in an international city like Frankfurt, you’ll actually find that you can get along for a long while without really learning any German at all. I know people who have lived here for over 10 years and hardly speak German at all.  But that’s definitely not the path I would suggest anyone takes if you’re serious about immersing yourself in the culture.

One of the first things I made sure to learn was how to order food and what was what in the grocery store. A girl’s gotta eat, ya know? And from there, it just became a matter of actually getting over the fear of totally screwing up my sentences and sounding like a fool. So it’s always nice to try out your German around other foreigners so you know you really don’t sound that horrible while you’re trying to get your thoughts out.

German is not one of the hardest languages to conquer and words are WYSIWIG (what you see is what you get). So if you learn a few basics of the way letters are joined together and those strange umlauts (with the little dots over the letters like ö and ü), you can sound things out really easily…and even spell things out yourself pretty well. Oh, and there’s always the fun words that are compound words strung together.

Have you ever learned a foreign language? What’s your tip for anyone who’s giving it a try? What languages have you always wanted to learn?

This post is part of the German Roundtable of expat bloggers. Hop around to the other links below and read more inside scoops on language in Germany.

She came. The dreaded meter reader.

Every January, we sit and wonder just how severe our bill will be for the previous year…and if the monthly payments we made in advance will actually cover what we burnt up in electricity.

You see, since we first bought this house, one of the sorest spots of all has been the energy consumption that we use to keep this place going. Our first year was just crazy because we were renovating, there was a huge hole in the side of the house for a few weeks while we still ran a bit of heating in other parts of the house (our heat is oil but the heat pump itself runs on electric), our workers used all sorts of power tools…and the bill was icky.

Now before I make this sound too bad, we have managed to lower our energy use on many accounts. But compared to “average” figures, our house just doesn’t fit the plan at all. And it’s not unusual for an old house like ours to be an energy hog (our new windows should help with some of our heating waste costs.) Sometimes we even have to wonder (or maybe just hope) that someone is stealing power from us. (*cue the suspense music*)

But in all honesty, you certainly don’t want to find yourself paying more and more for electricity each year if you can help it. Here are a few of the things we have done that you can do as well to save electricity (and lower your bills):

• Get new appliances — We have a new fridge (July 2007), new washer and dryer (September 2010), new freezer trunk… all of which were likely a serious drain on the meter because there is no way they were running efficiently.
• Turn off gizmos and gadgets — We have reduced the number of computers we have running at any given time, and try to keep all the chargers, lights, etc turned off/unplugged when we can to reduce our power consumption.
• Replace your old light bulbs — We have energy saving light bulbs pretty much all over the house now. Yes, they take a while to warm up and get to full brightness, but it gives a more romantic feel to the rooms when the lights aren’t glaring down on you.
• Install newer radiators — Our living room always used to be cold, even with the heater set to full blast. Then we installed a new super efficient radiator in the room and found we only needed to run it at about half-power. Gotta love that!
• Get automatic thermostats — The rooms in our house which have huge temperature fluctuations during the day because of constant sunshine have automatic thermostats which adjust according to the current temperature in the room. They’re really cool. Plus we have them programmed to turn the heat down when we’re not in the room at night (or during the day as is the case in our bathroom upstairs.)
• Put on more clothes — We are generally warm weather folk. And I’m not too keen on the idea of having to wear two pairs of socks and a thick wool sweater while I watch TV at night. But sometimes it’s really a better idea to put on a bit more clothing if you find it chilly in your house before you crank up the heat.
• Use area rugs — We have wood flooring all over our house and it definitely gets chilly under our floors (which are poorly insulated to begin with.) But we’ve put down big carpets in most of the rooms and it makes a huge impact. The thicker the rug, the better. Especially in a place like the living room where you always have your feet down on the floor where you feel the drafts.
• Never turn the heat completely off — Some people love to turn off their heaters when they leave the room during the day or go on vacation. But doing this will only make it take longer to heat your rooms up again to a comfortable level. Instead of turning your heaters off, just turn them down to a lower setting.
• Install new windows and weather stripping — Although I kinda hated to see the ratty old windows in our house go, the new ones are really awesome. You no longer feel a draft when you walk by a window and we have barely had to touch our thermostats which definitely shows us that the house has become more energy efficient in the last month.
• Don’t buy an old house — Many of the things we are dealing with throughout the year have to do with controlling the temperatures in our house, but for us keeping our house warmer organically goes hand in hand with saving heating oil and electricity. Newer homes usually have better insulation in the walls and aren’t as drafty, which saves you a lot on heating and cooling. Of course, they often lack a lot of personality which was definitely a consideration for us when we bought our “gingerbread house.”

A few weeks ago I decided to compare electricity prices online and I think we can definitely start saving some money from just the price per kW that we are paying…and even get the energy from a “green” energy source. Our current provider certainly isn’t doing us any favors on price.

By the way, if you personally feel assaulted by your electric bill every month — don’t EVER move to Germany. The costs here are through the roof compared to in the U.S. — and filling up your car at the pump will make you cry even harder.

What other tips do you have for lowering your energy bill? 

As you have very likely learned in the last few weeks, we went “home” to Florida for two glorious weeks and spent Christmas over there. I will not even begin to rub it in regarding just how awesome the vacation was (because there will be more posts about that like our trip to SeaWorld and the amazing fact of being able to go swimming on Christmas day and get a sunburn on the beach the day after.) Let me just say that it rocked. Hard.

But there is something that every expat, no matter how long they have been living in a foreign country experiences…and that is the need to shop when they return home.

It used to be that when we went home, I’d be stocking up on things like Ranch dressing or Louisiana Hot Sauce. I have since then learned how to make my own ranch dressing (which is way better than the bottled stuff) and found a source of hot sauce in Germany (hard as that is to believe)…and if I can’t make it or buy it here, I’ve mostly learned to live without. But the one thing that I just cannot substitute or replace while living in Germany are American clothes.

IMO Germans are either way behind in their clothing interests or just not on the same wavelength with the rest of the world…to be honest, I’ve never been very into trends which only last one season so even H&M (my safe haven for clothing) has few things I like. My style is pretty classic (according to this style quiz I’m “classic chic”) and most of the things I like last for years. If you take a look in my closet, you’ll notice that most of my clothes are several years old — and some of my sweaters I’ve had for 15 years (although they are huge baggy things I only wear around the farm to stay warm).

I have actually been working on parting with some of the clothes I bought for working outside the home and now never wear — but if I tossed out everything I rarely wear, I would have about 15 t-shirts, some pants and one suit left. So I have yet to get that radical and instead am just sorta slowly phasing things out as I can when I know I will never wear them again. Like turtle necks, which although practical and warm, get me absolutely no points with my husband. I think there are also some things which I just can’t bear to part with and will be able to work back into my wardrobe one day, perhaps in a new way.

Another reason I like to shop back in the US is because I find German clothes to be insanely priced, especially when it comes to kid’s clothing. I mean really — who wants to pay $25 for a toddler t-shirt that they will either destroy or outgrow in 6 months? And it’s not even name brand.

At any rate, I did a power shopping trip to Marshalls and hit the post-Christmas sales at JC Penny & Old Navy (which were just completely insane BTW). I seriously got more clothing in those trips than I bought in the last 5 years in Germany — for probably half the price. And I was pretty pleased to see that although there was a lot of plus size clothing and “normal” sizes seemed to be creeping upward when I tried to go shopping in the US 3 years ago, things seem to have normalized again. So a medium shirt can no longer be used for a tent and I can’t go into any store in the mall to find clothes that are suitable for pregnant bellies although actually meant for those with a spare tire too early in life.

So what did I buy? Lots of warm weather clothing like hoodies, thermal shirts, sweaters, warm gloves and a hat. Plus a few pairs of jeans, a couple cute USPA polo shirts for myself, flip flops, a super cute long wispy skirt that I have been trying to buy for years, new exercise shoes and some exercise clothing. And the best part is that a major portion of it was 60-75% off. In Germany, you just don’t get those kinds of deals…and if you see them, it’s on clothing you probably don’t want from 1974.

Since this really isn’t a fashion blog, I won’t share my haul photos (although we really should have taken photos of all we bought piled up in the bags and how we managed to fit it in our luggage)…but I am actually working on a new project that would include more style-oriented blog posts. I’d love to know if you think that would be interesting and would like to learn more about me personally behind the scenes of the Homestead. Just let me know in the comments below.

If you’ve ever lived outside of your home country, what did you miss the most? Or what do you think you just couldn’t live without if you moved away for a while?

So you’re here in Germany and you want to find a place where you can really hang out and let loose with the locals. But you’re either apprehensive about the language barrier or you just don’t even know where to go to get yourself started when it comes to meeting your neighbors. Here are a few tips and tricks that we’ve learned over the years to get your foot in the door and on your way to great relationships with your neighbors and making new friends.

Forget your fears

Let me start by saying that if you are keeping yourself at home alone at night and eating frozen dinners because you are too intimidated to get out there and mingle — take all those feelings of doubt in yourself and chuck them out the window! Seriously. I have never met any Germans that refused to talk to me because my German wasn’t good enough, because my pronunciation was off, or because I’m a crazy American that structures sentences backwards. In most cases, Germans are quite happy to help you learn better German by correcting you (which you may or may not ask them to do or like hearing) and although it can sometimes be tricky to get your point across with a limited vocabulary, if you don’t start trying, your German will never get better.  And trust me, I’m sure there are people you know or will meet that have lived here longer and speak worse German than you.

When we first moved here to Germany, our plan was to live here for 2-3 years, and then return back to the States. Obviously that plan went wildly askew (since we’ve now been here 10 years) but it was at least our intention. Those first 2-3 years, I basically became a hermit. I was living in a place where we knew no one in our immediate vicinity, I barely grasped the language and if it involved talking to someone in German, I was going to do my best to avoid it. I became an expert at looking like a understood every word coming out of your mouth and, in fact, I went through an entire 3-hour long dinner party once without the host ever catching on that I spoke very little German.

Sometimes you will find that your new friends, neighbors and colleagues want to practice their English skills on you — and that’s ok. But you are not going to learn German that way. Trust me; I’ve been there. What really helped me break down the fears was going to a language class at the VHS (Volks Hoch Schule — kind of a community college system all over Germany) and hearing people from all over the world trying to speak German (I was already level 4 by then) and realizing that I knew more and spoke better than they did. It might sound conceited, but I needed that validation for myself so that I wasn’t walking around thinking I sounded dumb or was going to get everything wrong.

Where to go

If you really want to meet the locals, I highly suggest getting a dog or having a kid. Seriously, you cannot help but interact with people when you have a dog and/or a child…and if you are pregnant, your community is going to be having that child with you. People will come up to you on the street that you’ve never seen before and talk about how it seems like yesterday that you were carrying the baby around in a chest carrier — or that you were still pregnant. Seriously, the draw of a child is even more powerful than that of a Newfie.

If you’re thinking that getting a dog or a child sounds like an awful lot of work (and it is), the next best option is just to get out there and introduce yourself. When we moved in to our here (and our last house also), we threw a housewarming party and not only invited friends and family, but also our immediate neighbors. We hadn’t really met any of them yet, and we figured since it was a good-sized party anyway, they would be able to absorb into the crowd. What we didn’t really expect was that ALL of the invited neighbors would actually drop by for at least a few minutes. But it was great to actually be able to recognize them on the street instead of just passing by each other and never saying a word. Plus if we got too rowdy, they were less likely to report us if they’d been at or were currently at the party themselves.

Attending local festivals or markets (like Christmas markets) are other good ways to start warming up the locals to your presence. It depends on where you live in Germany, but in many cases, it will take a little time for people to really want to talk to you on their own. But if you are speaking English while everyone else is speaking German, people are going to know who you are. And they will speculate where you come from and what you’re doing there and so on. Just embrace it and consider yourself the new local celebrity. And know that eventually you will not be just the odd foreigners that speak backwards.

Shop local. It might sound a bit strange but if you go to the same butcher shop each week or market stand, the people working there are going to start noticing you. And you can slowly become more confident about trying out more German on them. The same applies for local restaurants. The very first thing I learned in Germany, even before we really knew we were moving here for a while, was food on menus. A girl’s gotta eat so I had to focus on what was crucial for survival! If at first you still are one of many faces in the door, don’t stress about it. Here in Hessen it takes many, many times before people start to recognize you– unless you have something memorable going on (like ordering T-bone steaks that the butcher usually takes home for himself…or a big huge Newfie is with you).

These are just a few ways to help you break the ice and start interacting with locals. What are the tricks you use to meet your neighbors, get acclimated in a new place or just try to find a way to fit in and make new friends? 

To read more about expat life in Germany and interactions with the locals, visit these other participating blogs:

I know it’s hard to believe, but Thanksgiving is literally just around the corner. I kind of hyperventilated a little when went on eBay yesterday and it said 47 days until Christmas!

With only 16 days left until the main turkey event, now is the time to start planning. Don’t wait until the very last minute so you’ve got to fight your way out of the store with the last box of Stove Top or pumpkin pie mix.

I first shared this post in 2010, but it’s still more relevant than ever, and has some great reader tips on it, so I wanted to bring it back into the picture for everyone who is preparing themselves for the upcoming feast!

1. Start cleaning your house now

   If you do a little bit every day, eliminating clutter and getting things in order, you’ll have a lot less to clean when Thanksgiving arrives. If you’re having guests over, focus on those areas that they will be seeing and get your family to pitch in. We’ve all got to learn to clean up our own messes as we make them or quickly thereafter– not 3 days later. My family is infamous for this habit, and it often looks like a bomb went off after a long weekend!

2. Pre-order your turkey (especially if it’s farm raised)

   We actually ordered our farm fresh turkey at the beginning of October from the poultry farm down the street from us and it may indeed be too late for you to order a bird from your local farm. But a frozen bird can be just as good if you brine it beforehand. If you’ll be using a frozen turkey, consider buying it early (like now) so you’ll end up with the size you need (about 1-2 pounds of turkey per person) but don’t forget to thaw it out the day before either (or two days early if you’re brining)!

3. Start buying supplies

   If you begin purchasing the non-perishable items already, you will have a lot less to shop for on the days leading up to Thanksgiving, you won’t have to go to four stores to find what you need last minute, and you can space out the spending a bit more so it fits into your weekly grocery budget.

4. Plan your menu

   I like to go with several classics that I basically only make on Thanksgiving. To be honest, I would love to eat them at other times of the year, too, but I just haven’t gotten around to doing turkey dinner in July yet. If you want to do something new and exciting, consider trying it out a few weeks earlier. You don’t need the stress of trying new recipes and them turning out differently than you expect. I also tend to make everything myself, from stuffing to cranberry relish. It’s not only because I prefer homemade, but because you just can’t get most of the prepared things here in Germany. The one thing I do still use is Libby’s canned pumpkin but this year I’ll be using some of the Baby Bear pumpkins we grew!

5. Make a time map

   I like to write down exactly what I need to prepare and the day I intend to make it (I bake the pies a day early to free up the kitchen space). I consider it my Thanksgiving Day Game Plan. Then I go through and build myself a time line for turkey day so I know how much time I need to chop, prepare and mix. I may not follow the time table exactly in the end, but it helps keep me from running around like a crazy person during the last hour (although I do a bit of that too). And since my dining table is in our kitchen, I don’t want the guests seeing me freak out! Plus, it helps me to remember all the various dishes I’m making so I don’t end up forgetting to bake the rolls — as I did a few years ago!

6. Make as much as you can ahead of time

   As I mentioned, I like to bake the pies and cheesecake a day earlier. And I start brining the turkey 24 hours in advance too. Because I make stuffing from old pieces of bread, I actually started a bag in my freezer with the pieces already chopped up. Anything you can do a day or so ahead of time to save yourself stress — do it!

7. Make decorations a week ahead or earlier

   Don’t be running in four directions, trying to build a centerpiece while you baste the turkey and mix pies. If you want someone else to do the centerpiece for you, by all means let them do it the morning of — but if you are the chef on Thanksgiving day, just be the chef.

8. Solicit help

   In the past few years,we have always had helpers in our kitchen for Thanksgiving. Some years I’ve even had help the day before. Yes, the pies did get over-salted one year, and sometimes giving instructions can be tedious, but having extra hands to peal, chop and stir are invaluable. If you are willing to give up that much control, host a pot luck Thanksgiving dinner, where the guest brings sides and/or desert so you just focus on the turkey and drinks (or something to that effect).

9. Budget in a break on the big day

   Just because you CAN be superwoman and wake up at 5am to get everything done in one day does not mean you HAVE to! I’ll never forget waking up to the house smelling like turkey and other yummy foods when I was a kid. But back then we also ate at about 2pm…and now we eat about 5 or 6pm on Saturday. So if you need to arrange the day’s meal a bit later in the day so you can fit it all in, do it. And make sure you allow yourself a few minutes to sit down and drink some water or iced tea in between shifts.

10. Your tip!

    What do you do to make Thanksgiving run smoothly?

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind... and your neighbor as yourself.

Regardless of where you live, there are few things as important as good neighbors. We have been incredibly blessed to live across the street from the nicest family on the planet. They go out of their way to help others out and he’s really a jack of all trades. We’ll call him R. Anything you can dream up that involves building, repairing, renovating or overhauling (from homes to bicycles to mopeds to random equipment), this guy can do it. And the whole time he’s jovial and smiling about life. His wife and two children (which are about 13 and 16) are also really good people, and they make it easy to love them like ourselves because they are just so fabulous.

One sure way to know that they are fantastic people, aside from our daily interaction with them over the last 5 years, is because both Mackenzie and Ayla absolutely LOVE them. Ayla will run across the street in heavy traffic to get loving from our neighbor. I sometimes wonder if she would leave us for him because she rarely gets that excited about seeing us.

Mackenzie talks about the neighbors rather often and always asks to go over to their house. The have tons of toys and things stored up from their own kids, so there are always new things for her to play with. Not that she needs anything more than a ball or some trash to pick up. But they just adore her and she also gets to help them with their English.

We often take deliveries of packages for them when they happen to be out of the house (and they do the same for us). Last week, we saw R while walking Ayla and stopped to talk for a moment. When we got home, Mackenzie could not stop talking about going over there to see them. Then she grabbed her favorite rabbit, found a box and put him in there. She then stands up and says, “We gotta go to R’s. Got a package.” SO cute. And pretty smart thinking!

Other awesome things they have done for us include closing our property back up after a storm blew open our front gates. We were several hours away and managed to find their phone number to call them once we heard that there were huge storms rolling through our area. They had already gone over to secure everything, without us ever asking, and were keeping an eye on things. That’s just how good they are to us.

As it turns out, they have a Golden Retriever who’s super cute, obsessed with rocks and not much of a lover. Ayla, on the other hand, cannot get enough loving and could care less about fetching something. So sometimes their daughter will drop by for a few minutes to just to pet Ayla. And they’ve been gracious enough to watch Ayla before for a weekend, and even ended up letting her sleep in their bed. It’s not something I would do, but they seem to enjoy sharing the bed with a gigantic woolly mammoth.

So why this ode to the greatest neighbors on the planet?

We’re going to Florida for two weeks over Christmas (our first flight with Mack) and we obviously can’t take Ayla with us.  Stefan’s parents will be in Florida with us, so we can’t ask them. Normally, we wouldn’t ask someone to take her over the holidays, but we’re also not so fond of leaving her in a kennel since she’s so attached to humans. Our babysitter offered to take her as well, but with a recently redone house and two small kids at home, I’m not really sure she realizes the craziness that is having a big, black Newfie in your home for two weeks while it’s cold, muddy and possibly also snowy. And there are also the two cats to consider (geez, we live in a zoo — but you knew that already from reading my posts).

I happened to ask our neighbors this week, after hoping and praying they would say yes, if they could take care of all our critters. And they will indeed be taking Ayla for the two weeks that we’ll be gone. We know she’ll be in good hands, and that they are familiar with having a dirty dog around since their own dog goes mud bogging on an almost daily basis. Plus we’re only a phone call away and the two dogs get along famously.

You can be assured that they will be getting a super special care package this year from us. Whether babysitting or dogsitting, they refuse to take money from us (unless it’s their 25th anniversary and they have no option to refuse our gift!) We try to be awesome neighbors too, but they rarely need our help as much as we could use help from them. We did get to loan out some of our stuff to them this year (like our party tent) which was a great feeling to finally be able to help them out. And we do our best to thank them with yummy goodness, too. Last year they got a big gift basket of chocolate liquor, champagne vinegar, Lebkuchen, and chocolate bark that we made. And I take baked goods over there from time to time as well. It’s the absolute least we can do for them considering how fantastic they are to us.

Do you have super special neighbors? People that you would cry over if you found out they were moving? What’s the best thing I neighbor has ever done for you? Or that you’ve done for them?

First off, I’d like to thank the “family” of NOH readers who entered the Refueling Power Moms Giveaway this past weekend. What an amazing response from your all and I absolutely appreciate all the support and love you have not only shown to me, but also to all the sponsors. You guys totally rock! Well over 400 entries in just 5 days really blew my mind. So thank you all and I’m glad to have you as part of this family.

In case you’re wondering, the US winner is Anji Beane & in Europe it was Piret. They’ve already been notified and confirmed their excitement about winning, so there’s no second chance round.

In other news, the topic this week for You Capture is Family (although Beth is still fully enjoying her hiatus which I would never begrudge her) but You Capture will most likely be back in full effect next week.

Since we’re here in Germany, we don’t have that many family members around (Stefan’s parents are about 4 hours away) and so our immediate little family is very important to us. And every weekend when Stefan gets to be home with us, there’s a scene something like this as we all get ready to take Ayla for a walk…

Ayla is sitting and waiting with anticipation, we’re getting our shoes on, and Mack is stalling. It’s not that she doesn’t want to go on the walk — there are just so many other things she “needs” to do before she can go. And yes, it is necessary to have that umbrella open at all times inside the house.

Indeed, Ayla is an integral part of our family, and she basically was our testing ground for having a child. We knew if we could manage a huge dog, we could handle a kid. I know, I know; they’re not the same. But honestly, anyone who has had a dog over 100 pounds knows that they are more like perma-toddlers than dogs. Because in my mind, a small dog (not mid-sized, but a Chihuahua or something) is far more like having a cat than a dog.

And speaking of cats…

I could only get one of them to appear for me, but this is really the critter that started our entire little family. My mom found her one day, half starved and barely big enough to fill your hand. Stefan and I ended up keeping her, even though we’d only been together for about a week, and she basically pushed us toward domestication a whole lot faster. But don’t let her fluffiness and cute pink-speckled toes fool you: she’s got a lot of evil in her.

Her name is Princess, and she certainly acts like one. And if I had to compare her to a cartoon character, I’d say she’s The Brain from Pinky & The Brain, because I’m pretty sure she’s planning world domination…

With that being said, as an expat, there are a lot of people outside your husband, kids and pets that become a bit like family. We find common ground from living in a foreign land where we don’t understand what is going on around us for at least some part of our stay. And many times, you just have an instant bond that would otherwise never exist.

This week, we got to catch up with some expat friends of ours. The oldest daughter is a few months shy of 5 years old, and Mackenzie and she are like too peas in a pod. I can just see Mackenzie maturing and evolving every time they play together. It’s incredible!

So that’s my take on family this week. It’s not the most traditional of families — but for us, it’s a pretty great group!

Since the beef cuts guide was such a big hit, and so many people have asked when this might continue so you can all figure out the cuts of pork you want to be buying as well, I figured I had better get cracking. It’s time to delve into the world of pork and see just how the cuts compare in the US and Germany.

First, lets look at the cuts that most of us Americans are familiar with:

Various cuts of pork common in the United States

Ah, ham. Nothing like a nice juicy ham to toss in the oven for a few hours at Christmas. But alas, I have never seen a ham for sale around here and taking a quick look at the German pork cuts will explain it:

As you can see, that’s an entirely different collection of cuts on the German pig. And you’ll also notice the Germans don’t have a Spareribs cut, although you usually can get them at most butcher shops just by asking for Spareribs.

The neck (Hals/Nacken) is generally reserved for BBQ, roasts, stews and rolled pieces (Rollbraten). Schweinebraten is made from a piece of the Nacken with the pig skin still on.

The tenderloin is the Filet which most people here pan fry or grill, along with cutlets (Koteletten) which might also be used for a roast as well a a lean pork chop.

Legs are generally used for things like Schnitzel, goulash, fondue and cooked ham for slicing.

Most bacon and pork belly cuts come from the belly (Brust), and there are few things like a nicely grilled pork belly to keep things interesting.

If you’d like to take things a step further, have a look at this pork cuts diagram below. You can even click on it to make it really huge. I would imagine that most butchers would be able to cut out exact cuts that you need, as long as they can determine where it’s coming from.

So the next time you start thinking about what’s for dinner, and are thinking about making some ribs or a roast, now you’ll have a better idea of what to ask for without needing quite so many hand and foot signals!

What’s the US cut of meat you miss the most? Or the German cut that you couldn’t live without?