It is starting to look like home

I finally got the internet set up but the land line doesn't yet work. At least I have two cell phones.

This has been an exhausting week!

I moved last weekend and have been frantically unpacking since.

Monday, I paid to have someone pick up a white leather couch and it turned out to be huge. Of course the guys had to rip off half of the wall trying to get the thing into the living room. Grrrrr.

Tuesday, I had to stop the settling in efforts to give a seminar about an hour from here. Good that I had put the materials to the side or I would never have found them.

Wednesday, it took an hour to get back to the old flat. Daggone traffic jams here in Germany. My cleaning lady and I swept and cleaned until the apartment looked really good. The landlady came while I was out getting some bank business taken care of. I didn't take any pictures and I didn't have her sign anything. Let's see if I get ripped off with the security deposit. (My daughter screamed at me when she found out I was so trusting/naive.)
I've included an article about what you should do when moving out at the bottom.

Thursday, unpacking. Starting at 5 am. The office was so full, I couldn't move. The worst part is, I put my Amazon account back on active and promptly sold a book! Where in the world, in those 100 boxes, is the Amazon box with THAT book?! It took a long time but I finally found it and sent it off on my way to work.

Friday, I was up at 4:30 (did I mention that I can't sleep well here?) and had worked four hours before my new cleaning lady showed up. What a great worker she turned out to be! She carried heavy boxes, cleaned the basement room and organized everything so I can get in there, unpacked, etc. She was here for four hours. When she left, I fell into bed for a short nap. This kind of activity is exhausting!

My daughter was supposed to help me this morning. She came at about 10 and we went over to the street market (one of the charming things here in Germany) and checked out the health stores. After eating a small lunch, she left for krav maga, or something like that. Where she learns to destroy attackers. :- Which is very amusing since she weighs about 115 pounds...

The kitchen is set up, the new laundry situation works (I strung a clothesline across my bathroom), and the living room looks kind of nice. It is only 5 pm but already dark here in Germany.

Think I'll go unpack a box.



How to Avoid Getting Charged When Moving Out of an Apartment
by Kathryn Hatter, Demand Media


A thorough cleaning can help avoid security deposit deductions.

When you sign an apartment lease, a part of the rental agreement probably included paying a security deposit in addition to monthly rent. The purpose of the security deposit is to cover damage and expenses that the landlord may incur from your use of the apartment or your sudden vacating of it. If you want to avoid getting charged when moving out of an apartment, follow instructions for giving notice of intent to vacate and then clean with gusto to make the apartment look spiffy before you leave.

Items you will need
Move-out checklist
Cleaning supplies
Spackling paste
Paint
Vacuum cleaner
Feather duster
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Step 1
Read your lease carefully to make sure you're complying with vacating terms. If your lease is ending, the lease may stipulate that you need to notify your landlord of your intent to not renew by a specific date. If you're vacating before the end of the lease, you'll need to communicate directly with the landlord about your plans to vacate. The landlord may have grounds to withhold all or part of your deposit to recover expenses and lost revenue from your move in this situation. Write the landlord a letter that explains your plans to vacate the apartment in detail and send it to the landlord within the time frame specified in the lease. Include your new address in the letter so your landlord knows where to send your deposit refund.

Step 2
Get a moving-out checklist from the landlord before you vacate the premises. This should be a written checklist that spells out exactly what the landlord expects you do to before leaving, including cleaning, painting and repairing walls, appliances and floors.

Step 3
Move every item that belongs to you out of the apartment. Empty every cupboard, drawer and closet. Many landlords will charge tenants a fee if it’s necessary to move items and furniture out of a vacated apartment.

Step 4
Clean the kitchen from top to bottom, including cabinets, counters, sinks, floors and appliances. It’s especially important to get the stovetop and oven spic and span, removing every spatter of grease and food debris. Similarly, clean out the refrigerator and freezer to make them spotless. If the freezer needs defrosting, perform this maintenance too.

Step 5
Clean the bathrooms from top to bottom, including sinks, counters, floors, mirrors, tub and toilet. Make the toilet gleam and scrub out the tub and shower to remove every trace of soap scum or mildew. If the shower curtain was one you purchased, remove it.

Step 6
Check the walls for damage and make any minor repairs. If you see tiny cracks or holes in the walls, fill them with spackling paste. Repaint over the spackled areas to match the walls – it shouldn’t be hard to match because most apartments have white walls. If you painted any walls after getting the landlord’s permission, you’ll have to paint them the original color again before you move out.

Step 7
Vacuum the carpets thoroughly. While you vacuum, look for any stains or damage. If you find stains that you created, use a carpet stain remover to scrub out the stains. If the entire carpet seems soiled, rent a carpet cleaner.

Step 8
Sweep hard-surface floors to remove dust and debris. Damp-mop tile and vinyl floors.

Step 9
Clean the windows with window cleaner. If the apartment came with window coverings such as blinds, dust them with a feather duster or damp cloth. Dust the windowsills with a damp cloth too.

Step 10
Return all keys, garage door openers and other gadgets that were included with the apartment. Failure to return every item may necessitate deductions from your deposit.

Step 11
Walk through the apartment with the landlord before you leave so you can provide input as the landlord is inspecting the premises. If the landlord finds issues, provide information as appropriate. For example, if the frayed spot on the carpeting inside the hall closet was there when you moved in, give the landlord this information.

Moving accomplished

Last week I wrote the following but couldn't get it online:

November 22, 2014

Well, it’s done. Almost. At least the move over here.

I hate to admit it but moving is exhausting. I was up at 4:30 the last two mornings but I still felt like I was a dog chasing his tail. Now, I am sitting in my recliner with a cup of green tea and feel “rode hard and put away wet”.

Yesterday the moving crew arrived at 8 am and immediately I felt like I was being pushed by a tsunami. They knew exactly what to do, worked very systematically from room to room – until they encountered an obstacle - me.

I had worked very hard to have everything ready but I didn’t manage to have the whole lot packed. My PLAN (the best laid plans of mice and men…) was to purge and pack. Friends, purging takes more time than you think. When you purge, you must also resist the urge – the urge to peek into that long forgotten photo album of your babies when they were just born, or, run through all the old magazines to check which ones you want to keep (don’t even THINK about it—just toss unseen), or, consider if anyone would want that perfectly good whatever. It all takes time, and time I didn’t have anymore.

After about two hours, the boss sent one of the vans over to the new apartment and I had to go with them to show them where everything was supposed to go. After getting that done (did I mention that the driving time each way was at least 30 minutes?!), the boss called and told the guys to come back and pick up the kitchen where I had bought it a month ago. While they were going for the kitchen, I was supposed to wait for the other van and show where things were supposed to go.  The trouble is, I had to go back to my “old” town and pay cash for the kitchen, which meant that I couldn’t be in the new flat. The other guys, now on their way back, had no idea where the kitchen company was. So I raced around until I found the janitor, pressed my keys into his paws and dashed off to Haan. When I got back to my old apartment, nobody was there! 

I dashed up into the flat, found the moving company’s number, called the secretary for the boss’s cell phone number and gave him a ring. He was furious! It turned out that one of my guys had put premium gas into his boss’s diesel van! Catastrophe. To make matters worse, we were supposed to pick up the kitchen before two pm and it was already one pm. I raced over to pay and my card didn’t work. So I bolted off to find a bank. Then the boss called me and asked me to go pick up one of the stranded workers, take him with me to the kitchen place and have him stand guard because the kitchen parts would then be outside of the building (since it was closing at two). Of course there was a traffic jam where I had to pick the guy up.

Finally, a quickly rented van showed up and the guys got the kitchen loaded and were supposed to head straight to the new apartment.

It took them an hour.

The guy who was supposed to install the kitchen had been waiting all afternoon to get started.  Toward late afternoon he finally could begin but left when I did at about 7:30 pm. And that is the way everything ended. No more kitchen helper, no functioning kitchen. Lots of sawdust everywhere. 

I slept in the old apartment since the movers were coming early. There was one bed and one couch in the flat and the messy office. Extremely cozy for my weary self.

This morning, I was up at 4:45 and was madly packing again. I was supposed to completely pack the rest of my office things and I still needed to finish packing things from my old kitchen.

Promptly at 8 the movers appeared. At 8:45, the new owners of my old kitchen appeared to disassemble everything. So now we had real chaos. Two people in the kitchen who kept asking for tools or a ladder, 3 guys grabbing up everything movable and a bossy, smart-alecky chief-of-operations barking orders and chain-smoking. (One time, he shouted at me that he was talking to me. I said “Oh, I didn’t think you were talking to me because I don’t know ANYONE who would be so rude to me”. That shut him up.)

I was so glad to have everyone leave. This whole thing was quite exhausting. And expensive.

It is hardly possible to get into my new office because almost every centimeter is covered with boxes. Even though I labeled the boxes, I find kitchen things in the bedroom and office things in the living room. When in doubt, stick the box in the office was their motto. So the heavy boxes reached the ceiling!! Now how am I supposed to get them down?!

So that’s where I am. Tired and drowning in stuff. If I’d done this move two years ago when I began this downsizing project, I would have ended up in the madhouse!!

So I’ll keep on with the quest. As I slowly move into retirement the next couple of years, I’ll not need the special books and seminar equipment anymore. So I need to keep on selling and recycling. Never give up!



 

2 more nights

Only two more nights until I move.

Yesterday, DJ Rafik and DJ Kid Fresh did a guest appearance in my basement. This time they used their brawn instead of their super talent. We transformed an incredible mess into something the movers could transport. The two found a way to help me sort out what goes and what gets moved: EVERYTHING gets tossed!!

I suppose it is the ultimate revenge for parents to leave all sorts of junk for the kids to inherit, er, dump. My son wasn't going to go through that. He tried to dump it all now.

He took some of his school things with him. Finally. It's only been 12 years since he finished...

My son kept telling me to "FOCUS!" and I was really trying to get everything put in front of the garage to be picked up on Friday. (As a matter of fact, the pile is now, one day later, full of things that never belonged to me!)

My cleaning lady packed most of the glass things this morning while we crooned to Abba. My cleaning lady is a pack rat. She has taken everything I didn't want anymore including all the booze! Better her liver than mine...

Being nibbled to death by a duck!

I think the trick to getting through times like this is staying flexible and a bit laid back.

I've planned things well yet I get hit with a mini-crisis every day. Like the visa I need for India - as soon as I got back from Sicily (I needed my passport there.), I got a passport picture made just the way the Indians want. BUT... I don't have enough pages left for their visa. Now my time is getting short because I have to get a new passport before I can apply for a visa to India. So, I drove down to Frankfurt to apply for the new one since it should take only about two weeks instead of the four if I apply online. 

One nibble by the duck...

My cleaning lady wanted to work while I was gone so I gave her the keys. One time she forgot to leave them here afterwards and both times she packed lots of boxes but put them together wrong!

Another nibble by the duck...

I was asked by the new tenants if I could move a week earlier so I called the moving company, got static from the kitchen company and got grumpy that the tenant never called to arrange some things he'd requested. After I finally got in touch with him, he said, oh, he wasn't moving in in November after all. ARGH!

Yet another nibble...

I put a sign on my dryer saying it could be taken for free. A tenant claimed it for her sister but I wondered why the sister never picked it up. Today I asked. Oh, didn't she tell you? She doesn't want it after all.

I went to teach yesterday even though only 3 students were going to come. I feel very responsible about teaching so I'll drive the long way to get to the school, even if I only have a few students. One of the girls forgot to come so I waited there for nothing. I drove over an hour to teach an hour.

The man who hosts my home page ( powerbrain.org ) decided not to do it anymore. Just tossed me out.

Being nibbled to death by many small but annoying ducks...

 

Starting early with little steps is not always best!

Goodness!

I thought I was so clever starting in September to get everything organized and most things packed.

It's a great idea but I am now sitting in a tiny corner on a recliner, which is the only place to park myself! Oh, my bed is often free but I am surrounded by boxes.

At least I have sold everything I wanted to get rid of. No real profit but I don't have to lug them out of my flat.

Next time, I'll pay the movers to pack everything last minute and unpack at the new location. All the while, I'll be relaxing with a cocktail in a 5-star hotel's Jacuzzi!!

 

Living with a limp

Humans are wonderfully adaptive. People who have been injured learn to get along pretty well without the optimal use of parts of the body. Look at Stephan Hawking. He keeps on despite so many setbacks.

But what if we limp and don’t have to?

Many years ago, my father lost his toes in a lawnmower accident and, from then on, he walked with a definite limp. At the age of 83, a physical therapist told him to stop limping because he was throwing his knees off whack. Say what?! Just stop.

And my father stopped. He could but he didn’t know it.

Just a few weeks away from moving away from this flat, I am noticing all the suboptimal things I’ve been living with for years: the faucet in the kitchen drips when the water heats up, there is some sort of brown glue on the door frames – who knows what it is, the toilets don’t flush correctly and they throw back half of the gook when they do flush, the  ventilator in the shower hasn’t worked correctly in years and, even though I’ve talked to the landlord about it, nothing has been changed. He even claims the brown spots now appearing on the ceiling aren’t mold...

How often do we limp and don't need to? What could be fixed if we just would wake up to the fact?

Let's go fix it!

December 1, 2014
I have to laugh! When I turn on any water faucets, the water is so hot because the handle is always turned to the left. This morning, I asked myself why the faucet is always turned to the left. Then I realized that, in the old apartment, I'd gotten used to turning faucets to the left because they dripped if turned to the right!! Harharr! Silly little limps.

Return on joy

Challenge yourself to be more mindful and conscious of what return on joy you're getting from every object you own.

This requires not only writing down how much money the things cost you, but how much joy they bring you.

I am enjoying going through my belongings, deciding if their time has past or if there is a possibility of me using them more/again/at all. I really have to admit that, with some things, I will NEVER use them so I need to loose them.

It is cute how my students go through the pile of purged items I keep in my teaching room. One darling fellow said "You never know when you might need this."

The making of a future messy??         

Two steps forward - none backwards yet...

November 3, 2014

The dining room table and chairs have been SOLD! For 20 euros.

Sometimes I wonder if some people have all their marbles. Yesterday, a man came to pick up a massive armoire (the famous one with the fold down table that was always full) and he came alone! I said "Who is going to help you?" and he pointed to me. Yeah, right. I paid 10 euros pizza money to the neighbor boys and they all got the thing out of my office. Oh, the price of the armoire? 10 euros.

Hmm, who was the dumb one??

Now that I have a free wall in my office, I can start piling packed boxes there. I am actually enjoying going through my things and sorting out items I don't need anymore.

The danger of having so much room/storage space is that you don't have to confront your stuff. It just sits there for years and catches dust.

December 1, 2014

I got a mail from the lady with the crazy husband. She was thrilled with the armoire, had stained it white and it is much admired in her little shop. She sent a picture. I want it back...