Winning

I'm beginning to celebrate the small victories at the end of every day. For example, today I know for sure that I learned at least 5 words or phrases that I will be using on a daily basis.. Maybe "butterfly" (Schmetterling) isn't a word that you use every day, but with three children under the age of 5, it inevitably comes up. Plus, do you really ever go a day without doing eenie-meenie-miney mo?? Neither do the Germans. (Eine-kleine-Mickey-Mouse).

I also found my way to an U-bahn stop from the school I'll be attending (read: I swallowed my pride and had my face in a map for about 11 blocks.) Then, I purchased my ticket even though the whole machine was in German (read: Stared at the thing for about 5 minutes, then just decided on "Ummm.. this button looks like it will give me a ticket to somewhere.") And then got on the right train to go home.. Four stops later, I walked up the stairs, smiled big, and took this picture to memorialize my experience. I'm sure in 10 months this picture will be trivial, but today it was my biggest little victory.

I'm not sure what kind of magic feathers the German geese have, but the goose-down blanket on my bed gets so hot that I sleep without it half the night in 30* weather. This truly is not a complaint, I promise you.