What’s this all about?

4 years ago I was sitting in a conference room in Germany talking about how our company just had to have a cycle counting program as a part of our new ERP (enterprise resource planning for non-computer nerds) software.  I don’t really remember who was in the room, other than a few of the German consultants who also work at our company had joined the conversation.  A month later, the German consultants joined us in Minnesota for another round of workshops.  This time, I was excited to find that one of the consultants, Alex, was a guy around my age who seemed really nice.  This normally would have gotten my romantic ideas churning but for I think the first time ever none of these ideas were running around in my head.  I was just excited to have a new friend.  When two months later I found myself alone in Germany, Alex asked if I had plans over the weekend and when I said that I just planned to write test cases for our project, he invited me out for dinner so I wouldn’t have to be alone.  Still, no romantic thoughts in my brain.  We went to dinner around 7 PM.  At about 11 PM, I looked at my watch for the first time.  Best. Date. EVER.  And it wasn’t even a date.  Though nothing romantic happened until a week later, I think in my heart I knew that night I had met the love of my life.   About 3 years later we got married…and are starting our happily ever after!

So, now I find myself sitting in our home in Germany – I have called Germany home now for a year and a half.  When I moved, I had planned to start a blog.  Then moving was not quite so blissful as I had anticipated it to be.  Sure, it was amazing to finally live under the same roof as my soon to be husband, but considering I moved from one civilized country to another the culture shock was a bit much.  I missed my family (and still do) immensely.  And for someone who relieves stress in the kitchen, talk about stress.  The grocery store didn’t have plain old sour cream.  There was no fat free yogurt!  And let’s not get started about cheddar cheese, salsa or Mexican food in general.  It makes my heart break.

I know that last paragraph makes it sound as though I regret coming to live here, which is not true.  There are things about life here which are far better than what I had back in the US.  Was it as easy as I hoped to move here?  Nope!  I guess I go back to the movie Bambi and think of the saying “If you can’t say something nice, then don’t say anything at all” (thanks, Thumper!).  That being said, it has taken me time to be able to do this.  Far longer than I had hoped for, but alas, the time is now here to start sharing about our life here.

As of now, our plan for this site is to share about our adventures in the kitchen (both in the house and in Alex’s BBQ paradise), stories of our travels, updates we make to our home and whatever else comes to pass.  It will be “Link at Home” (Link zu Hause in German), whether we actually are sharing about things from our actual home or from our adventures outside.  We hope you enjoy the journey!

Amanda (& Alex)