Howdy from Texas!

Texas is nice--temperature today is 69, and they are anticipating a high of 79. Except for some rain on Sunday, it's been sunny every day. The rain slowed down our travel some on Sunday, making it after dark when we finally got to San Antonio. The road signs were difficult to read, and for a few minutes, all I wanted to do was turn around and go back to Kentucky!

The road system is really intimidating, for me at least. There are a number of "spaghetti" junctions, and I often feel like a meatball at the bottom of a bowl of spaghetti! It doesn't seem to faze David too much, though, and so far he's done all the driving. Right now, going to the grocery store is an adventure (one we need to repeat tonight). Getting to the store isn't too scary, but getting back home again is a different matter. Too many of the roads are one-way, 55 miles an hour--the access roads are a whole new experience for me. A person can get directions to the store, but once they get there, they (if they're me, anyway) need directions to get back home! Lydia and Ann's friend Jennifer has been nice enough to send me directions, but they only get me to the place, not back home again.

Our apartment is very nice--living room/dining area combined, with a kitchen separated from that area by a large counter--very open. Nice carpeting, comfortable furniture, a good supply of kitchen utensils, nice appliances. The bathroom and bedroom are also a comfortable size, with good furnishings. David is really impressed with the size of the bathtub--he said he wants to take a bath in there for sure before he goes back to Kentucky. It ought to be about time for his spring bath when we leave, so he might get a chance. Our only complaint so far has been about the slowness of getting hooked up to the outside world through cable, etc. I finally played the invalid card on Tuesday evening, telling the woman who was supposed to be handling the hook-up that I was a diabetic and concerned about being stranded here without a local phone. If I had an emergency and called 911 from my cell phone, the emt's would have no idea where I was. That seemed to get results, since the guy showed up at 10:30 or so on Wednesday morning and got everything installed. Also, the woman called me back twice on Wednesday, once before he came and then again around noon, to make sure we had been taken care of!

A couple of other minor complaints--we're on the third floor of the building, which means there are 39 steps between us and the ground floor (and if a person wants to be picky, there are another 5 down to the parking lot!). The most I've left the apartment so far was four times on Tuesday, once to pick up a key to the apartment, then three more times to check the mail. I still don't know when it comes, since we didn't get any on Tuesday. I was told on Tuesday evening that you had to put your name inside the box in order for the mailman to leave mail. I had no clue about that. I figured having the apartment address was all they needed, really. Anyway, I finally figured out how to do that and am looking forward to at least having some junk mail today.

Back to the stairs. Going to the grocery store is an event, I already told you. Carrying the stuff up to the apartment is NO FUN. I tried just buying small sizes of everything, so that we could carry it in one trip. Only problem with that is, a person tends to run out! David and I have joked about rigging up a pulley system to haul it up over the balcony railing in a milk crate, and I'm telling you, that doesn't sound like a bad idea right now. Of course it involves two folks being there to make it work, one to load the crate on the ground floor and the other one to unload it at the top. David says he has a really long rope, so he might be seriously considering it.

We went to church last night at Jennifer's church here in San Antonio. It was a good experience, except for the breakneck drive to get there. I don't handle the traffic well, and I'm pretty white-knuckled by the time we get anywhere. Once we were at the church, though, the service was comfortable and familiar, and the folks were really friendly. We know that we will go back, at least on Sunday morning. Unless we see something we like when we're out exploring the area around us on Saturday, we will probably continue to go there. Like I said, the folks were really friendly. We may just have to pass on midweek services, as long as David is working overtime. He didn't get home yesterday until 5:30. We were supposed to be there for supper at 5:30, but we thought that maybe since they served until 6:30, we could get there in time to eat before the 6:30 service. By the time he had changed clothes and cleaned up (very minimally), it took us until almost 6:30 on the dot to get there. As a matter of fact, they were already singing the first hymn when we got into the service.

You can see we have a lot of exploring and adapting yet to do, but so far the experience has been good. David has had a really comfortable work experience so far. He's working as a quality inspector, making sure all the equipment that goes into the trucks is installed correctly. He seems to enjoy the folks he's working with, although he hasn't started telling me stories from the break room yet. I guess that's when I'll know he's settled in.

I hope all of you are enjoying being home, even if it is cold, raining, and without the over 100 cable channels we have here. Just remember, when you're envious, that at least you can go to the grocery store when you are almost out of toilet paper!

Love to all, and God bless.