Where we get our mail...

The CMR was the busiest I have ever seen tonight! I don't know if all the backed up Christmas mail finally burst through but there was a line all the way from the pick up window around the corner. By the time I made it half way to the pick up window, that many more people had joined the line and it was still going around the corner our of sight! Crazy! We check our mail everyday (except Sunday when they are closed for pick ups) and we had 3 packages today! YAY! I absolutely love getting packages. How often do you check you mail? 

(I love her outfit btw!)

Do you have hot water at night?

Does your base turn off the hot water or heat at night?
Since moving into this apartment nearly two years ago we have very rarely had any hot water in the evening. Forget taking a relaxing bath after your child finally falls asleep, coloring your hair, doing the dishes, ect. I had to learn the hard way to check for warm water BEFORE you put dye in your hair!! We had pretty much accepted it until it got cold outside and this year the HEATERS weren't working at night. When spouses started calling DPW they were being told that the the post stops hot water production between 11pm and 5:30am to conserve energy. See the e-mail below (names and phone numbers have been omitted due to privacy.)

Ms. ------, 


the Garrison intentionally turns off hot water production between approx 2300 and 0530. Which is why there is no hot water late evening or early morning. One reason this was done is for energy conservation. We are required to reduce our energy consumption every year and this is one of the measures that does that. Another reason is that there is a direct cost savings resulting from reducing the amount of energy consumed. It isn't economically justifiable to provide hot water during these hours of very low demand. 


S---- W-----
Ind Engr Techn
USAG BMH DPW, BOI
DSN 485----- (Civ. +49-06783/------)

 Further complaints to housing led to statements that they "weren't stopping production per se, they were just stopping the pumps that feed the steam to the buildings" (I don't see much of a difference since either way we're not getting the heat...) "and that the buildings should have an adequate amount left to get through the night." Apparently ours either does not, or someone else is using it all. Thank goodness it has been a mild winter and it hasn't affected us much.


Do you think the base should be allowed to deny families from getting heat and hot water during the winter months to save energy? I want to know your thoughts.

Mission: Hanging Curtains in family housing in Germany

This is my tutorial on how to hang curtains in your Army housing in Germany. This was something that I was really confused about when I moved here and I know many others have expressed the same questions. Hopefully if you are PCSing to Germany or have just moved here this will make it easier for you. 


The apartments come with a track attached to the ceiling around each window. You could install rods but it would be difficult because:

• the windows open inward so a rod would make it very difficult to open your window
• the walls are cement which make attaching the rod more difficult

Since the tracks are on the ceiling your curtains will be hanging higher than they normally would if you were to hang them from a rod in the states. If you are ordering curtains and want them to just graze the floor order the 95" curtains. The 84" curtains will hang about a foot off the floor. Most people try to cover the ugly heaters that are located under each window and opt for the longest curtains. The heaters don't seem to cause a problem with the curtains so I wouldn't worry about causing a fire, ect. If you want counter height curtains for the kitchen or just want them to graze the window sill the 63" are perfect. The windows are wide so you will need 2 curtains for each window. (Some people use shower curtains and they are a perfect width.) Each ceiling piece has 2 tracks so that you could hang sheers on closest to the window and solid panels on the outer track, or you can hang you panels on the inner track and a valance on the outer track. That of course is all up to you and your decorative style but if does increase the number of curtains you will need.


The PX sells plastic hooks that fit into the tracks in the ceiling. There are different kinds. What you get will depend on what type of curtains you have and how easy you want the install to be. If you have curtains with small loops on the back, or hooks on the back the cheaper ones (with the loop pictured below) will work great and it will be fairly simple. If you have rod pocket, grommet style  or tab top curtains you can still use these but it will be a little more time consuming. You can either sew a piece of fabric or ribbon on the back of the curtain and then attack the white hooks to the ribbon or fabric. What I did was to hook the curtain hooks through a small safety pin and then pin the safety pin to the backside- top of the curtains. Then the curtain hooks go into the track. You can't see any of it if you do it well enough.

The other type of hooks have a clip that opens similar to a clothes pin and then the other end goes into the track. These are sold about 10 to a pack and you will need about 10 per curtain to get it to hang right. That means 1 package per curtain. Now if you have 7 windows like I do and want sheers and solid panels that's  curtains in your apartment you can see why I went with the cheaper method for some of the rooms. That's 28 panels! I don't remember what the package of clip style hooks cost but I think it was around $4.00 per package. That's $112 just for curtain hooks!!! ($4 x 28 packages = $112) The cheaper way cost I think about $2-3 per package and comes with 50 hooks. That's closer to $20. Also pay attention to what it says on the package. Notice in the picture one package says "rollers" and the other says easy to press into inner track. I highly recommend the roller type but the others work as well. They just tend to get caught easier and pull off. The other downside to these clips is you can see them where they are clipped on the curtains. 

Once you have your curtains up there are plugs or stoppers you can buy to fit in the ends so you curtains don't come of of the tracks. This is a VERY good idea. 

(stoppers)

Here is a website I came across when I was trying to figure out how to do this. http://www.germanyinfosite.com/p/base-housing-information.html Hopefully you will find it helpful. She has an article about how to sew the clips on. I didn't have my sewing machine yet so I opted for the ghetto safety pins on about half of my windows. (That's the other kicker, the run out of the clips quite often with so many people moving in all the time. If you have a neighbor moving out ask if you can have their curtain clips. You may save a lot of money!) ***Disclaimer - Each base you go to is different. There will be different options for cable, phone, internet. The housing will be different. The base housing she shows at the above website is MUCH nicer than what we have in Baumholder. Each base will be different. Her housing info is geared mainly toward the KMC area (Ramstein AB, Landstuhl, Vogelweh, Sambach, Kapaun and ROB) The only options in Baumholder currently are stairwell apartments (most are 16- 24 apartments per building) or if you are high ranking enough you can live off post. You may have to commute a bit if you can't find something close by. Baumholder also does not always follow the 1 child per bedroom rule she talks about. If you children are close enough in age or of the same sex they may require more than one child per bedroom if they are running short on housing. It will vary so please only use this as an example and don't count too much on getting something in particular. She also has some good information about how to work your windows.  I found the windows really confusing for some reason when we were staying at the hotel.


Please don't allow me to overwhelm you. Just bookmark this page and come back to it when you get here so you have a reference when it comes time to hang your curtains. :)

My German Dishwasher

I finally did the dishes this afternoon. It should have been done yesterday but I played hookie and went to visit a friend. We ate supper there so there were no additional dishes added to the pile last night and I told myself it could wait until the next day. If you can't tell I'm a huge procrastinator. While I was washing the dishes (yes, I'm one of those people who waste water by washing my dishes before I put them in the dishwasher, but believe me...I've tried not washing them first and they don't get clean. I mostly like how the dishwasher makes them shiny and dries them.) I started wondering loading the dishwasher is like playing Tetris for anyone else out there? I like to challenge myself to fit them all in. (probably another reason why they don't get clean unless I wash them first, cough cough*) Usually the most challenging part is the silverware but today it was the glasses/cups. Usually if I don't win dishwasher Jenga I will wash any leftover pieces by hand so I can enjoy having a nice empty sink but I really detest hand washing and drying glasses. They are all lined up around the sink waiting for the next load, which will probably be full! I wonder...can I put up a sign that says, "This is not a buffet...please do NOT take a clean glass for each trip" ?

I was reading through my dishwasher manual (and before you call no fair, I didn't get one...no they did NOT give us a manual when we moved into family housing. I had to search for it online and finally found our model# and found an English version of it. If you are living in Germany yours may or may not be the same model but you can find mine here. There is also a link on the left of my home screen.) and I learned that you are supposed to wash your central filters after every wash. Did you know that? I sure didn't. (probably yet ANOTHER reason why my dishes don't get super clean...) Hopefully my husband has been doing this at least periodically because I didn't even know about these filters! Then there is a large filter that is supposed to be cleaned once a month. News to me as well. I know the Army usually isn't as well organized as I would like it, and it's got to be difficult keeping everyone informed, but it would be nice if the Army would provide things like manuals to German appliances when you move in. Not everyone will go online to look it up like I did. Which is why I thought I'd post a quick reference cheat sheet to your German dishwasher.

• German washers are equipped with water softeners that use special salt. If the water is soft (i.e. does not contain calcium particles), the detergent will work more effectively and there will be less streaking on dishes. Hard water can also block the washer jets with lime scale and cause deposits on heating elements, which will reduce the cleaning efficiency, increase electricity costs and shorten the life of the machine. The salt can be purchased at your local commissary or on the economy. 
• Three in one salt tablets do not activate the water softener. For optimum results, the reservoir should be topped up with granular salt. Three-in-one and 'salt action' tablets do not top up the reservoir and should be used in conjunction with granular salt for optimum results. Using granular salt will mean that you won't need to use as much detergent and rinse-aid - saving you money!
• DO NOT use ordinary table salt.
• Rinse aids can also be used to help keep your dishes shiny and prevent lime build up on dishes, and prevent water droplets on glasses and pottery to help it dry faster. I recommend using a German brand found at the commissary or on the economy to ensure compatibly with your machine. (We use Somat.)
• Do not use the same soap you use when hand washing dishes. I also recommend a German brand of detergent
• Clean filters to ensure correct operation of your machine. 

Do you recycle?

Last month USAG Baumholder asked what three things are recycled on post. Only five people answered and only one got it right. I hope that statistic isn't reflective of the rest of our post! 


Obviously a lot of folks don't know this but we are required to recycle here in Germany. It's part of our agreement with our host country and it's in our housing handbook. It's much stricter off post in the local community. We have it pretty easy on post. There are recycling bins for paper & cardboard (the blue dumpsters) next to every building here in Baumholder. In Smith housing there is a recycling point next to the commissary. You can take glass, metal, paper & cardboard, clothes and even bulk items such as electronics, tires, and scrap metal. There is another recycling point in Wetzel between the elementary school and the gate to the golf course. It's not hard to do. We have a couple extra trash cans next to our fridge and we use one for soda cans, soup cans, ect. We use the other for our paper and cardboard. When they get full we take them out. I don't have a lot of glass but I save it in the built in wastebasket.  I often times see trash in the blue bins and cardboard in the black bins. I hope this is just a lack of information and not due to laziness. We all need to do our part so please take advantage of the recycling bins. There are other ways to recycle as well. You can turn an old newspaper into a pinata, as packing paper, or line a cage. Use a plastic bag from the commissary as a trash bag, to pack a sack lunch in or pick up dog poo (that's a whole different post LOL!).


For more ideas and information on recycling in general click here
For more information about recycling in Germany click here
For hands on information from an eco-smart blogger click here

What ways do you recycle?


**UPDATE: There are now receptacles near each building for Paper/Cardboard (blue), Glass (red), Cans (yellow), and Trash (black)!!! Please make sure you're using them :D