I would like to start off by saying that this is not meant to be a complaining/venting blog. I have a wonderful life here in Europe, I am blessed to have a wonderful husband, three amazing daughters and by European standards, a pretty great house to live in too. I am sure that in light of the most recent natural disaster being the earthquake that hit Haiti, most people should be thankful for what they have. I am truly thankful, however I do miss some of the "perks" that I had in the U.S.A.!
For example, I miss being able to turn on the car radio and hear a traffic report in ENGLISH. In fact I don't even know if there is a traffic report in French or Flemish! I know I have never seen a helicopter flying around with a weather or traffic reporter swinging from the edge to shout out the latest reason why we are all just sitting there. Yesterday for no apparent reason whatsoever, it took me an hour and ten minutes to drive the girls to school. Yes, we left on time, no there was not any inclement weather and no we did not see any car accidents, just bumper to bumper traffic. (This ride usually takes a max of 30 minutes even with morning traffic, 15-20 with no traffic.) Today, we woke up to snow. Of course I was expecting 'some' traffic, perhaps even like yesterday's traffic. We left with a positive attitude and braced for 'some' traffic. We sat in stopped traffic about 1 mile from our house for about 45 minutes. The good news...once it finally moved we did make it to school and the girls were only 15 minutes late, just as they were yesterday. The other good news is that their tardy's will most likely be excused because we even beat many of the school buses. So that is why I miss those crazy traffic reporters on the radio.
Now on to another trivial luxury that I miss from "home"....a garbage disposal in the kitchen sink. Yes, I know you are all probably laughing and saying "what"? I had no idea how much I truly enjoyed having that little luxury in my home. One of our big "issues" with the girls is that they cannot seem to scrape their food off of their plate and put it in the trash before placing it in the sink. Our drains are so tiny that this is a very important thing to do. I would guess that the opening to the drain of our kitchen sink is smaller than the opening of a soup can. Now I know you are thinking, "why don't you buy one and install it"? The answer...they do not have them here and the plumbing/sewage system is not set up to even allow it. So, we will just continue to press on pulling food out of the sink and pestering the girls to put it in the trash first! Stig warned them last night that if they keep it up, he is going to teach them how to take the drain apart and pull out the food themselves. I am sure that one time doing that would do the trick, they don't really like to touch gross things anymore than their mommy does.
The other thing that I am lamenting about and missing these days...any one of my brand new beautiful homes that we have owned in America. Actually, we still have one in Alabama and I hope the renters appreciate it and take good care of it. Then I hope they love it so much that they will buy it next year. Is it wrong to miss my homes? Perhaps it sounds materialistic, and it probably is...but I am just being honest. I miss cleaning my house and having it look and feel clean and shiny. When I clean the house here, it still feels cluttered and messy and worst of all, it often still feels dirty. ICK! I am slowly but surely working on more organization and deep, deep cleaning. Like the grout project that I have been slowly moving forward on, one bathroom at a time.
Well, there you have it...my very strange list of things I miss about America. Of course I miss my family and friends most of all.
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