Update on Complications

A couple of weeks ago I was super stressed with a bunch of out-of-the-ordinary projects going on in my daily life. I thought I would give an update for those of you following along. Of course by now more projects have moved in to take the place of those that are complete, but thankfully it doesn't feel quite so hectic right now.

1. Pipes burst in Butte rental property - This task is still in progress. It has taken forever, but I finally got my property management company to send me photos and a couple of invoices, and I passed those off to the insurance company just this morning. It seems that my tenant moved out after this or maybe because of this, so more back and forth between the involved parties is in my future as I try to figure out if I can claim lost rent and if I can set up a payment plan for the costs, since most of them are unfortunately part of my deductible.
2. Legal issues with my former tenant - I did get a check for the remainder of the money I had paid the lawyer, so thankfully that piece is resolved. The lawyer suggested that I send my claim to collections, so now I need to decide if I want to pursue that.
3. Unauthorized withdrawals from German gym - I summoned all my courage and called the man to discuss the banking issue. Unfortunately he didn't speak (or was unwilling to speak) English, so I was really unable to have a conversation with him. He got an English-speaking colleague to call me back later in the day and we were finally able to discuss the issue. There was a lot of miscommunication - he had the wrong information about my membership details, he thought I worked for the embassy, he misunderstood the problem - but eventually he agreed to refund my money and prevent the gym from taking further debits from my account. However, a week or so later, he had done nothing. I think they were eager to please me initially because they thought I was with the embassy (my friend at the embassy gave me this specific person's phone number), but once they found out I was a schmo they were less inclined to help me. So I asked my bank to reverse the charges, and they refunded all the money to me except the charge from October which was too far in the past. I then signed paperwork for a "blacklist" to prevent them from withdrawing any more money from my account. I owe them a monthly fee, but I will have to figure out how to pay them directly (not as easy as you would think) rather than have the money debited. In the meantime, I sent them an email saying that I would not pay again until I have recovered the amount of the debit from October. I had thought maybe when I tried to check into the gym this week for my workout that they might stop me, but so far they haven't! 
4. Kitchen problems - Ugh. This one is the farthest from being done, although I have made progress since the original post. The guy who originally built out our kitchen came to our house a few weeks ago and checked everything out and measured and then he went shopping for me. At a local store he was able to find an in-stock stove that would fit the space. The easiest way to purchase is to order it online, so I searched for that same model in the store's online counterpart, but it was out of stock. I then found the same model at the store I had ordered the first stove from. The web page said "Delivery date unknown", but I thought that just meant they would have to call me with a delivery date. As it turns out, that meant the stove was out of stock. It has now been several weeks since I ordered the new stove and still no delivery in sight. Last week I got an email from them saying that they expected the stove to arrive in their warehouse this week, so I assumed I might receive delivery at my house next week. But it's Friday and I have never heard from them. This stove fiasco has been going on way too long. The kitchen guy said I should have just gone with him to the store where it was in stock and we could have bought it and brought it home and installed it. But the store where he found it is a long way from my house and I wasn't sure I really wanted to cancel my online order and then spend a whole morning with him traveling to this store and purchasing from German-speaking humans. Plus then I would be stuck with disposing of the old oven myself (???!!!), whereas if the new stove is delivered then they remove it for me. So, I continue to wait for the stove I ordered.
   
   As for the stove vent, I had lost the number of the electrician who had come here before, so I had to get his number again from an acquaintance here and then work up the nerve to make the call. The woman told me she needed to consult the schedule and call me back, but it has been a week and I haven't heard from her. Oh! How funny. She just called. The electrician will come next Friday at noon to install the vent. Crossing my fingers that I won't encounter any other problems with this piece. And I'm assuming I will have to haul the old vent to the recycling center afterwards? Another adventure. Maybe he will do it for me??
5. Furniture buying - done! Dan put Carter's table together and I moved all his Lego from the huge cardboard box where he has been keeping it onto the table top and into the new bins. I also assembled my new coat rack and some new lamps I bought and hauled all the cardboard and packaging to the recycling center. I even cleaned the leather on my "new" chair. 
6. Diablo's health - Surgery was last Wednesday and it went well! The doctor removed a huge fatty tumor that looked like a small chicken breast from Diablo's chest and leg. No cancer, just fat that was interfering with his mobility. He is healing well and is going stir-crazy without his daily walks. Against doctor's orders I have been taking him the last few days on a short walk up and down the street or around the block. He seems happy and well, thank goodness! (photo below)
7. Church mission work - Task complete, sort of. There was a last-minute twist that made this task just a bit more stressful: the morning of the day we were going to visit, we found out that we had too many volunteers. Our list had included like 36 people who wanted to spend the evening with the refugees, and we were told we needed to cut the list to 20! So I had to contact a whole bunch of people who had signed up and tell them not to come after all. It was awkward but everyone was really nice about it. The visit itself was interesting. It was much harder to communicate than I was expecting. I had thought most people would know some broken English, but actually we were not able to communicate at all with the majority of people there. Most spoke Russian, Farsi, or Arabic. Luckily we had brought decks of cards, so some people played cards, some did art with the kids with the markers and paper we had brought, some conversed with those who could speak a little English or German and some listened to music or danced to the (very loud) sound of a stereo the church had purchased with donations. It was an interesting evening. We plan to go back monthly and of course I'm in charge of coordinating this. :)
8. Job offer - I found out that the UK job contract goes through all of 2016, so I turned it down. If I had accepted then I would be consumed with work for most of the remainder of our time here. Strangely, I got a second request the following week from my former company back in Atlanta. This would be a very short-term engagement so I did agree to help them, but haven't heard anything back. It was just a casual inquiry, so nothing may come of it.

Poor Diablo had SO much hair shaved off. Haley made him
a paper medal for his cone that says "Diablo the Brave"

Here's what else is going on.

Tropical Islands is so big that they do balloon rides inside the
hangar.

In the last few weeks I have done very few cultural outings, after doing so many in a short period of time last month. Life hasn't been quite as stimulating, but it has allowed me to make some progress on some of these things at home. The kids had a week off from school February 8-12. It's the first time they have had a vacation and we didn't travel somewhere. Dan couldn't take the time off, plus we just felt a little "traveled out". The kids really didn't want to go anywhere, so we stayed at home and they read and vegged and lounged around in pajamas, Haley and I got haircuts, and Diablo had his surgery. We did go one day to Tropical Islands, an enormous indoor waterpark and spa housed in a zeppelin hangar. There were waterslides, waterfalls, a rainforest, a sandy beach, tons of pool space, mini-golf, schnitzels for lunch, etc. Everyone had a great time.

At night they backlight the huge tropical screen so it looks
like sunset over the water behind the palm trees.

Back in the fall Haley was cast as Sneezy the dwarf in her school's production of Snow White. Her practices have been ramping up, to the point where she now spends several hours during the school day being pulled out of her classes and rehearsing the scenes, and she spends several hours 3 afternoons a week rehearsing after school. She has 4 hours of practice this Saturday and Sunday and the same next weekend. And then she will have 3 performances the following week. It's A LOT of work but she is really enjoying it. 

"For the Beauty of the Earth"

Haley also agreed to sing with 5 other girls for a baptism at the church last Sunday. When I agreed to this I didn't realize how much work it would entail. The woman who was organizing it is quite ambitious and she chose a really difficult piece with several different singing parts. So Haley had 4 or 5 different practices, each lasting several hours, on Fridays and Saturdays for the last few weeks. I'm glad to be done with that!

Last weekend was the Pinewood Derby for Carter's scout troop. He and Haley have both been working on cars for several weeks (Haley entered the race in the "sibling" category.) Last year Carter's car made the finals but this year he came in second in pretty much every race, so he never moved on. They had fun racing on the track.

Carter has really gotten into programming lately, courtesy of Dan. Carter is still obsessed with Minecraft and he is able to earn computer time for Minecraft playing by completing online programming lessons. He is learning Python and spends most of his free time in front of the computer working on his lessons. I'm glad he's using his brain but still wish he would move away from the screen! 

Dan and I had a date night last week. We had dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant and then saw the symphony at the Berlin Philharmonie. It was a nice evening and I'm really glad to have gotten to experience the symphony at least once here. Tomorrow we have another date planned. Dan was invited to a very fancy birthday bash for the CEO of his company. It's taking place at a club near the Brandenburg Gate and the theme is "Stockholm". We were encouraged to dress up, so we went to the local H&M earlier this week to see if we could buy some Swedish fashion to wear to the party, but we didn't find anything we would actually dare to show up in. Christian keeps telling Dan he hopes he won't be offended by the entertainment. So this has us very curious - what is in store for us tomorrow???

It's time again for making lots of travel plans. Our Easter trip is settled: we will go to Budapest and visit Kathy, my friend from college! It will be so fun to reconnect with her and her family. We will also rent a car and drive to Slovakia, hopefully to ski for a few days if the snow cooperates. Now that that is taken care of, I have started to work on our summer vacation and am finding many places booked already. Argh! I hope to have our summer plans booked before I leave for Kenya... 

...In just 2 weeks I will go to Kenya. We were long overdue for a visit to Nakuru 3:16 and for a number of reasons we decided that I will go soon, and alone. So it's happening the first week of March. I'm pretty apprehensive about reconnecting after so long, and by myself, but I feel very strongly that I need to go so I'm counting on God to work the necessary magic to make it a worthwhile trip. There is a lot to do to prepare before I go, so that will be occupying a lot of my time for the next 2 weeks.

Spring is coming. It's still cold here (we got a dusting of snow the other day) but the birds are back and loud, and the trees are starting to bud. In fact, today when I took Diablo for his illicit walk, we went crocus hunting. There is a street nearby that bloomed last year in early spring with thousands of crocuses, and we went there to see if they were out yet. Sure enough, I found some early ones! We're also seeing just a bit more sun now than we have for the last several months. By the time I get back from Kenya spring should be in full swing. 

That's enough for now. Happy Friday everyone!