Now coming to you from...Mittweida!!!

Dear Readers,

I know it's been a while.  It's been a very stressful, crazy time since October, when I found this gem on ImmobilienScout: 

The Sunday evening I found this lovely shack I had been searching for houses or even apartments in or near Dresden.  I found nothing, nothing and nothing.  My frustration grew to a level I'd never reached before, and just for fun, I typed in Mittweida.  And there it was, the Flosshaus.  I fell in love immediately, and could think of nothing but this house for the whole week.  On Friday we went to look at the house, expecting to find some horrible problems with it, some reason that nobody wanted it.  It seemed too good to be true.  But no, it was fine.  Over the weekend, we more or less moved into the house in our minds.  Our time in Dresden had come to an end. 

We called the real estate agent on Monday to tell him we'd take it, but the people who'd looked at the house after us were also of the opinion that they'd like to buy it.  He told us we were too late.  That day we fell into a black hole, we just couldn't imagine living anywhere but in the Flosshaus.  We couldn't imagine our lives without the Flosshaus!  This would eat away at us for the rest of our days.  But by some act of someone, somewhere, the owner decided to sell to us a few days later. 

So now when I'm preparing my lessons or doing translations, I'm sitting here in my office with a view of the Zschopau River.  This room also used to be a whole different kind of workroom.  The Flosshaus is well known in Mittweida as an adult establishment.  Word on the street has it that the previous owners were operating a type of, ahem, club here before the flood in 2002.  It appears that the high water ended their business venture, and tenants moved in.

Three weeks ago, we moved in.  I am absolutely thrilled with our new location and our new town.  I'm also lucky to have the best of both worlds:  I still can work in Dresden a few days a week, so I can get my dose of city life, but when I go home it's like a little vacation every time.  On the way home I drive along the river on a curvy road, then the house appears on the horizon.  The kids and I cheer every time we pop around the last curve and see the Haus.

This is the start of a whole new chapter, and a whole new set of adventures.  We've got a little land, what will we do with it?  We sure did get a lot out of our garden, which was not even a tenth of the size of our land here.  Plus, we can have animals here! On my list are cats, bunnies, chickens and Indian runner ducks.  An ostrich would be quite a novelty, but a bit too eccentric and sensitive.  I suggested a cow today, to which Wilhelm replied:  "But then we'd need a creamery!"  But before all of that can happen, it needs to turn into spring!  We seriously need some warmer weather.  We thought we'd have a nice time to move in, when the heating season was drawing to a close, but no, it's freezing, and we have to heat with coal and wood.  Oh, yeah, and our wood shipment?  It's completely wet.  There's no burning that.  So last week I brought home 900 kilograms of coal in three trips.  On my last trip, the guy at the store started to help load the packages of coal into the trunk after he'd gotten down my pallet of coal with the forklift, and I think he was a little surprised when I so matter-of-factly started heaving the coal into the trunk myself.  He made a sort of surprised noise, and I said "You're welcome to help, but I loaded the last 60 packages into the car myself".  He seemed a little miffed, parked his forklift then came back and helped with the last few packages.  He was also impressed with how exactly 30 packages of coal fit into the trunk of the car.  I probably could've transported more had my lovely car not suffered so horribly during the move: 

Just to set the record straight, this was not my doing.  My poor, pretty red station wagon's days are numbered now.  It still drives okay, but the crasher drives it now.  I took his car, which is even bigger than my A6 and a pretty smooth ride, except that the heat doesn't work. And there we are, back at the heating issue.  Spring, please come soon!  I've had enough of the sub-zero temperatures and ugly gray weather!

That's all from here for now, I'm sure there'll be more soon!