MOVE

Well, I am happy to say that Chris and I have completed the first phase of our move to H-town. We live in Spring, TX now--one of the plethera suburbs outside of Houston proper. It is very different. Everything takes so long to get to...Barnes and Noble is now a 10 minute drive (if I'm lucky) as opposed to a 2 minute straight shot from doorstep to doorstep...well everything except the grocery store. I have so many grocery stores to choose from that are outside of our subdivision that I am now comparing their member rewards, gas prices, and organic selection and pricing. I think I am going with which ever one has the cheapest organic milk though. I was shocked to find out that a half gallon of organic, off-brand milk was $1 more!!! ARGH. That is not only my favorite grocery item, but often purchased. The second criteria for my grocer of choice is congestion. For those of you from Waco, imagine for an instant that you have arrived at HEB at 2 a.m., the store is empty, there are no lines, but there ARE stockers blocking the aisles...then take a moment to imagine you typical trip around 4 p.m. I literally had to take a deep breath and compose myself before I went in search for a "baby-cart" so that I could maneuver around the cabillion people that make up the entire population of Waco just for a few "basics": milk, eggs, tomatoes, apples and tortillas...Now when I enter a grocery store, it is to the smiling face of the door guy (or lady) and calming classical music over the speaker. No one is in my way, mind you, I MISSED people being in my way, but I carried on. At my first run, I found the aisles to be wider, the carts smaller and little dotted lines on the ground to indicate which side you were to stay on so that others could PASS!!! Amazing. Really. And they want to give me 10 cents off of my gas for shopping there...so we will see who wins, I have only been to one of the 4 different companies less that .5 miles from my house.

Next, we are living in a 1 bedroom apartment, which the owners apologized profusley for its small size and promised that we could come into the big side whenever we wanted...let me just say that it is anything but small for a 1 bedroom apartment. It is not large, but I can do everything (mostly) that I did before in our little house and the ceilings are at least 15 ft, so it is beautiful, bright and fresh feeling. We are truly blessed to stay there. We have a b-ball court upstairs if we want to get our game on and a giant screen to watch movies on...the list goes on...I basically feel like if I can't be home, that this is a great in between, couldn't really be better. Total privacy, yet I don't HAVE to be alone if I don't want to.

SO, that is the end of my ramblings for today.