The day after the longest day of the year

I have chosen to attempt to wake up earlier in the day with the purpose of accomplishing more.  It worked at least this time.  The problem I always run into is the discipline to keep getting up early...early for me being 0500.

On my walk this morning with Etsy, we saw a HUGE fox, roughly 2/3's the size of Etsy!  That means the fox would have been roughly 50 pounds!  Even better, it was sauntering down one of the main trails from our right and didn't take off until Etsy started barking at it.  Maybe next time I can give it a treat.

Yesterday, I felt a little more American because I bought a cheap grill and grilled some brats for dinner.  I smelled like smoke for the rest of the night, the brats and potatoes tasted great, and I actually felt a little guilty because I was concerned that the Fire Department, one block from our house, would get mad at me because of a lack of a permit or something.  I'm so used to needing papers or permission or taking into account something I normally wouldn't think about to do most things in Germany.  That said, no one got mad at me, and the brats turned out well.  The charcoal was a little interesting in that it smoked and steamed more than I'm used to experiencing.

In another small act of resurrecting old habits, we have filled a large storage bin with 120 liters of pflanzerde (pflanz = vegetable, erde = earth or dirt) and planted some potatoes and an onion that decided to sprout in our pantry.  Admittedly a bit late in season, but it's better than throwing them away.  If nothing else, we can leave them there for next spring.  I'm honestly curious if we could have a regular amount of fresh potatoes.  For those of you who know my love for gardening and experimenting, this could be a bad thing...I might get carried away if this works.

I applied for more jobs today.  I'm uplifted by the fact that a consistent number of technical jobs keep popping up that I qualify for.  I'm bound to get one eventually.  The wait is the killer...120 day wait from application to acceptance for government service jobs, that's even with overseas military spouse preference.  I'm already looking into other ideas in the meantime. J and I have already come up with some options that I might be able to entertain.  I'll update you if any of them materials.  I don't want you stealing our ideas :)

We're slowly learning where some staple stores are.  I shopped at Toom, the German equivalent of Menards yesterday.  We've perused Mobel Martin, the German answer to IKEA (sorry, we like IKEA better in terms of style).  We've also shopped at Globus and Real, both pretty similar to each other and roughly the equivalent to a Cub Foods that sells clothes or a Target that has over half of its wares dedicated to groceries.  The key push for us to shop "on the economy" is that on-base wares are often imported, thus sometimes costing more.  The major differences are that only half of the items sold are roughly the same, and each focuses on a different cultural and economic mindset.  Example, if you recycle bottles and use a VAT (Value-Added Tax) form, buying soda and beer in large bulk at Globus or Real is less expensive than purchasing aluminum can 24 packs of soda.  However, if you don't have a VAT form or recycle bottles, then it's cheaper on base.  Produce also tends to be better on the economy because it's more fresh and more local, but the options are far more restricted than on base which has a lot of American and exotic fruits.

We are attending our first "Volksmarch" this weekend.  I hope to take pictures and educate those interested:)