I think we're going to move to Germany!

Some very dear friends of ours have been traveling the country/world for the last year and have decided to settle in Germany for a while. Being the spontaneous, travel-lusting people that we are, Adam and I have decided to meet them there and spend a year living in Germany. This, of course depends on our ability to get a visa, and, seeing how neither one of us will actually be working in Germany, this might be troublesome. I think that it is all going work out, though. Don't know why, I just do. 

So, yesterday, we hoped on craigslist and sold a bunch of stuff that has been cluttering our home for years. We have a long way to go, and the thought of finding a home for all our stuff is quite overwhelming, but, again, I'm not too worried about it. It will all work out. 

Where is this zen attitude coming from, you might ask? Why so calm in the face of such an overwhelming list of things to do? I don't know. Maybe my life is going where it should. 

I've been trying to learn German on livemocha.com for the past few weeks. I can now, with some confidence, call someone fat and poor in German. You gotta love these on-line language learning tools :) 

We would be moving to a small town about an hour east of Berlin named Magdeburg. Housing is really cheap and our goal would be to become fluent in German by the end of the year. 

In other, adorable baby news: Ilya can now get dressed by herself...kinda...

First, she puts the dress on over her feet (please ignore the mess...I was going to give some lame excuse for why it is so messy, but, lets face it, its always this bad)

Next, she pulls the dress up...

And, she's done! She then proceeds to walk around the house with both feet in the arm hole of the dress, which, in case you were wondering, DOES inhibit her ability to walk. Sometimes she adds pearls to her ensemble. 

What to do? What to do?

I give up. I am at a crossroads in my life where I can literally do anything, and I have no idea what I should do. As I am a fan of lists and bullet points, here are some of my thoughts in a nice orderly bullet pointed list:

* go back to teaching - 

Pros: I love the day to day interactions with students, love teaching, summers off, same hours as Ilya when she is in school. 

Cons: bad pay, no respect, angry parents who assume I am giving their child an F because I harbor some deep seeded desire for their child to be a failure rather than because their child doesn't actually understand the material, long hours.

* be an astronomer - 

Pros: love astronomy, love math and physics, want to learn more about our universe, respect. 

Cons: very hard to get a job, lots of school.

* be a computer programer - 

Pros: work from home, flexible hours, great pay, respect, solving logic problems. 

Cons: tedious, isolating, not sure I'm going to like it

* develop my tutoring company - 

Pros: great pay, interesting work, already have a client base

Cons: working more hours than get paid for, unreliable

These are the major options that I've been thinking about. I would love to know what you, my faithful readers, think. Any other ideas. 

My new favorite trick

Alice has always grunted like an old, constipated man while she poops. SDN and I think this is hilarious. Apparently Alice does too. Her new trick is telling you what sounds the animals make: Dog = bark, bark. Cat = meow. Cow = mooooo. Duck = quack, quack. If you ask her what sound poop makes, she looks at you and gives a low, long grunt: uhhhhhhhhhhhh, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...