Gotta Have It

Ack!

Hubby and I went furniture shopping this weekend. Last year, we bought a cabinet, TV stand, sideboard and a coffee table. There was a final cabinet in the set, but we decided to wait to make sure we had plenty of room for it.

Then the uncertainty of his job made us hold off. It’s 8-10 weeks from ordering the furniture until it’s delivered. We wanted to make sure we’d still be here.

Once we were sure, we talked about ordering it. It was around Thanksgiving and we were planning a trip back to the States for the holidays. We’d wait until we came back.
We may have waited too long.

The salesman was unable to place the order through his computer program on Saturday. He has to call the manufacturer today to see if it’s possible. I should hear sometime today or tomorrow.

Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Now heading out to get some lamb. I’m going to try lamb stew for the first time this week. If it turns out good, I’ll post the recipe on Friday.

How did your weekend go?

Books, Books and More Books

I love books. It’s my one true vice. I can never leave a bookstore without something. And don’t get me started on ebooks. I’ve been buying those for about 7 years, before the Kindle and the Nook made them as popular as there are today.

Why am I bringing this up? Probably because I spent most of the day yesterday, about 6–7 hours helping hubby put together bookshelves.

When we moved to Germany, we put a lot of books into storage. If I remember correctly, I counted about 50 boxes. I brought somewhere between 10 and 15 with me. After 2 RWA conferences and just buying online and at the PX, the 2 bookshelves we brought were overflowing.

So we went to IKEA. I’m not a fan of their stuff, but hubby loves them and I can deal with their shelving units. After discussing what we wanted, we knew we’d have to come back because our little car wouldn’t hold things. We were prepared to rent a van, but then a friend offered us the use of her husband and their station wagon. Saturday, the 2 guys went to get our stuff.

I would like it better if they had had all the pieces in the warm brown that I wanted. Instead, hubby came back with that light birch stuff that I despise. It does look clean, but it also looks cold to me. The brown would have felt more welcoming to me. Oh well.

We again have a wall that is almost all bookshelves. There are a few spots for growth, but yeah, we’re pretty filled up. And I’m not even going to mention the boxes of books still under the bed in the guest room from conference this past summer. ;)

I have noticed that since I’ve started writing, I don’t read as much as I used to. I still do and I love it, but I’m finding myself reading the shorter works now. One of my goals for next year, though, will be to read at least one book for pleasure per week. Since I used to inhale them in a day, I think it’s doable.

How often do read for pleasure? How many books do you generally read a week? What’s your all-time favorite?

Good news

Yesterday was a gray, rainy day here in Bavaria. Typical weather for this time of year. I find I don't mind the rain here so much. It's more of a soft, constant thing, and as long as I have an umbrella or a rain coat, I'm fine with that. I could use some sunlight though. I love it when the sun shines while it's raining. I know, I'm weird.

I also worked all day at the part time yesterday. It was rather slow, so I pulled out the study guide and text book for my computer class about 2:30 (shh, don't tell my boss) and worked on that in between customers. I was able to take my chapter 4 quiz last night after I got home. I'm hoping to knock out chapter 5 today and chapter 6 and the mid-term this weekend. The class ends July 2 but I'm hoping to finish up early. Then I just need one more class before I can apply for graduation. Woohoo!

Speaking of classes, I got my final grade for the philosophy class, Introduction to World Religions, yesterday. I keep a close eye on my scores so I knew what my grade would be, but still, it was nice to see the 'A' listed as final grade.

I got another bit of good news yesterday. Remember a couple of months ago when I mentioned that we bought furniture for the living room? It will be delivered on Monday morning! I'm so happy about that. I can't wait to see everything in place. All we'll be missing in there now will be the pictures on the wall. I guess I need to get into the frame shop and get to work getting them framed. Of course, I'll post pictures.

Last but not least, the letter that the attorney was supposed to send to my landlord finally went out. We got our copy in the mail yesterday, so that means he got his yesterday as well. It basically says that he needs to show up at the attorney's office with all the documentation that she asked for by a certain date or we'll be taking him to court.

So, there's my news for the day. I'm off to order shoes for national conference before I settle down with OOTS and get busy. I love dressing up but I hate heels. Hopefully the ones I found will be wearable for an evening.

Rainy Days and Mondays

Today's a rainy day here in Bavaria, so it's a perfect day for me to stay inside and at my computer. To work. Of course, that's what I meant.

Just returned from picking the furbaby up from the groomer. We take her once a month because she has enough poodle in her that her fur curls and knots up if it gets too long. She's freshly shorn now and cute as can be.

We purchased a dryer on Saturday and that will be delivered today. We forgot to get money out of the ATM before going. Most stores around here don't accept credit cards so it's good to keep cash on you, but before moving here, I never had cash. Always used the check card. Hard habit to break. So, anyway, we didn't have enough cash on hand. They still allow COD (cash on delivery) here. It's true. Instead of making us find an ATM right then and there, they said we could pay when it's delivered. Can you believe it? They did away with that in the States a long time ago so it was a pleasant surprise to find the practice still alive and well here. So, I've got the cash, my dryer will show up to share residence with the new washing machine that I got a screaming deal on and no more laundromat for me. Yay!

Anyway, I'm about halfway done with chapter 19 of OOTS. There are a total of 20 so I'm very close to finishing the first draft. I've changed the series arc since starting it, though, so there is still a lot of work to do on it. There's light at the end of the tunnel.

So, I've been reading J.R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood series lately. I know, I'm behind the times but I just finished the 3^rd one yesterday. I'm really enjoying them and I can see why they're so popular. They've also allowed me a bit of a breather. See, in OOTS, I have more POVs than just the hero and heroine. I worried about that, whether it would be allowed. In some cases, I just couldn't get the information across another way or not as well. I see that she has used multiple POVs and it works. So again, another case of write the book and work stuff out later.

Have you read J.R. Ward's series? Do you like it? Did the multiple POVs throw you out of the story? What are some other series that you enjoy?

Come Monday

I think I had mentioned my experiment – to work on OOTS during the week and a novella idea on the weekends? Well, that's changed a bit. See, a group of us are working through the book, The Weekend Novelist, and I thought this would be a good way to increase productivity. If it worked. Well, a novella isn't big enough. I need an actual novel-length idea to work on. OOTS is the first of a series of 5 and I didn't want to use the second in the series for this workshop as I'm hoping – no, planning – to have the rough draft done by Christmas.

So I'll be working on my urban fantasy mystery for the project, from here on out known as TWN. Wish me luck. We read the introduction this weekend and I skipped ahead a bit to see what's in store for us for the next 2 weekends. It's a different process than I've used in the past, but I'm interested to see how it will work. As for OOTS, I finished chapter 17 last week so that leaves me 3 more chapters to finish the first draft.

On another front, my philosophy class is going well. I finished 3 of the 11 lessons this past week. It's quite interesting. If all goes well this week, I can probably schedule my midterm exam soon. I need about 2 weeks lead time so that should be about right.

Oh, the weather has warmed just a bit. Hubby got the patio furniture put together and we grilled sausages on the grill Saturday night and the neighbors joined us for a nice evening. My blood is still thinner than the Germans, though. After it got dark, I needed a couple of jackets to ward off the chill. The neighbors? Just a light jacket. Anyway, here's a picture of the patio furniture.

How was your weekend?

Spring has sprung

Spring is really poking its head up here in Germany. Yesterday, I think the temperature reached the 60s. Today is supposed to be more of the same. Perfect weather to be outside, and of course, the furbaby loves being out in weather like this. To celebrate, we're buying patio furniture tonight.

We looked around a month or so ago, and found a set that we liked. Made of eucalyptus wood, the table is oblong, big enough to fit 6 people comfortably and squeeze 8. There is a bench to run along one side and two chairs. We're talking about picking up 2 extra chairs but we'll see if that happens today. This week, the furniture is on sale – about 70 euro less and then with our VAT form…

I was going to make cushions for it, but as I'm already behind on my projects, we'll buy some for now and then I can make some that match the table runner I plan on making. Yes, I'm adding to my growing craft list. Anyway, I'll post pictures tomorrow.

We're also going to look a bike rack. We were told we could buy them at the OBI, which is where we're getting our furniture. The OBI is Germany's version of Home Depot, right down to the orange and white store. We need one that will hold 2 bikes because we are buying a set from a friend. I'm so excited. I love riding bicycles and the area is so beautiful. I've even been looking at harnesses to attach so your dog can run safely beside you, as well as a basket big enough to hold her when she gets tired. She has little legs but lots of energy.

Those are my plans for today, after I get my work, of course. Do you have any plans to get ready for the lovely weather coming?

Buying furniture in Germany

First things first, thank you to commenters regarding Hailey Edwards' Everlong. As promised, a copy of this wonderful book will be winging its way across the Ethernet to one lucky winner. I wrote the name of every commenter on a small piece of paper, shuffled them around on my desk and picked one with my eyes closed. I couldn't get any more random. J The winner is…drum roll please…Gale Stanley, better known as GPS. Gale, please email me at riley@riley-quinn.com and I'll get it out to you today.

Now on to furniture shopping in Germany. Before we came here, we read a lot about the people, culture, etc to be as prepared as possible. One of the things that we read concerned the size of German apartments. That they were small. So I worried about bringing my living room furniture because a) it was fairly new – about 3 years old, b) it was large so possibly wouldn't fit in a small apartment, and c) being new in a foreign country, I wouldn't know how to go about storing pieces that wouldn't fit (see b). Since it had taken me about 2 years of looking to find exactly what I wanted in the first place, I wasn't taking any chances and we left it in storage in the States. Fast forward to our life now in Germany.

Yeah, the small apartment? Not so small. The living room is quite large, in fact. Could've fit my furniture no problem. So now I have this big room and no furniture. So last year, we shopped around and finally decided on a big couch and chair. I'm not fond of the German styling so it was months of searching before we finally settled on what we have now. So for the past year, we've had a U-shaped couch, a chair, and a TV stand with our TV in the living room. Nothing else.

I've searched for other components but I have expensive tastes. Without even looking at price tags, I gravitate towards the most expensive items available. This means that furniture we've been looking at has been about 4000 euros, which is about $5500, for one piece. Yikes! So we've kept looking. We finally found a set of furniture that we both liked and was reasonably priced so we went on Saturday to do the deed.

They must have been short salespeople that day because we waited about 20 minutes or so without seeing anyone available to help. Then we caught sight of a man and he stopped to ask if he could help. We told him we wanted to purchase furniture. He said he needed to finish with another customer first and would come over. No problem, we said, and we happily went back to the area and waited. I should mention that German furniture stores look just like American stores, with sample rooms laid out for inspiration. So we lounged on the furniture there and waited. And waited. And waited.

Finally, about 20 minutes later, the man bustles over to us, ready to help. Yay! So we point out the pieces we're interested in. Now, at this point, we expected to pay about 3200-3400 euros for all the pieces that we wanted. This salesperson proceeded to knock off euros here and there and everywhere. We sure weren't complaining. When all is said and done, our bill is about 2500 euros. Then we whip out the VAT form. This is a form that, if the store accepts it, means we don't have to pay the German tax. Germans pay 19% tax on everything and it's included in the price. So, with our VAT form, we paid about 2000 euro. Oh, happy day!

The downside is that we have to wait 8-10 weeks for it to be delivered. What? My household goods from the States only took 6! Apparently, they wait until the furniture is ordered before they even make it. Then it's shipped, hence the long wait. So, I've waited this long. Another couple of months isn't too bad. Below are pictures of what we ordered. The first one, we got all four pieces, the TV stand, the cabinet and the two shelves. The second is the matching coffee table. The third is the sideboard. The last picture is the last piece of the set and we're waiting to see everything in place in the living room before ordering it because hubby thinks he wants 2. I don't think 2 will fit but proof is in the pudding so I'll let him see for himself.

What do you think of my new furniture? Do you have any shopping stories to share?