Outside My Door

A little change of pace from the Christmas lights.

 Houston doesn't have a lot of Fall color but this afternoon while I was walking Carly I noticed that the crape myrtles still have some leaves and they looked like flames in the bright sunlight. This tree was right outside our apartment door. My heart was filled with joy to see this brief moment of beauty. The sun isn't shining on them now and their color is dulled. In another day or so they will be gone but that one instant in time was precious.

I'm making myself a promise to look for and cherish more of those special moments whether it is with the natural world around me or with my family and friends. And also, capture them with the camera.

Making Progress

We are making progress. Ned's staples are out and last night when we went out to eat, he didn't wear a hat or cap.....and no one seemed to notice his "scar." Actually I think that when his hair grows out it will hardly be noticeable. And more progress has been made on the radiation front. He had the first of five radiation treatments on Friday. We'll know more today when we see the radiation oncologist but it looks like we will have a window of opportunity to go home for a few weeks once he is finished with the radiation. One day he feels really good and the next he feels tired but overall he is one tough guy.

I haven't been outside this morning but the weather man says that it is cooler. Kind of San Miguel temperatures are predicted for today.....61 this morning and 81 degrees for the high this afternoon. This is a good thing. One morning I walked to a bagel shop about 6 blocks away. It wasn't too bad walking there but by the time I came back I was in a good sweat.

Speaking of walking, we are really happy with our apartment. We are so close to the grocery store. I walk to the back of the apartment complex and then about 50 feet to the door of a great HEB/Central Market grocery store. There is a lot of help in the store including a very knowledgeable fish monger. Wonderful beef. Great selection of vegetables....of course all of this is more expensive than what we pay in SMA but sometimes not that much more. And a lot of the products are not even available in SMA.

If it was cooler we could even walk to the Medical Center which is about 2.5 miles. Of course that just isn't done in Houston. Walk? Except on walking trails or in the neighborhood for exercise. No, no, no. You will find very few people who walk to do their errands. And we are missing that a lot along with all our SMA friends.

New Digs

We are back to a two-house family again. We have taken a two-bedroom apartment for a year in the area where two of our sons live. I looked at high-rise condos before deciding to rent the apartment. Even looked at condos to buy but it seemed too rushed to make a good decision. This past year while Ned has been having treatment we have mostly lived with son Mike and his family. That has been wonderful but it may be getting to be too much of a good thing. And since it seems like we are going to have to be back in Houston on a regular basis for check-ups, having a place nearby is a good idea.

It is an older apartment complex but there is more storage in the apartment than we had in our house in Houston. The gardens are lovely and the staff seems friendly. And it is quiet. Also we like that we can walk to two grocery stores, a drug store, and several restaurants.

About the time we sold our Houston house we knew someone in San Miguel who after many years of living in Mexico, had to return to the States because of a health issue. We aren't spring chickens so that made me think. What would be a safety net if we suddenly had to move back to the States? I thought if we saved some stuff, then in about one or two weeks we could be "living" in Houston. We saved a mattress set, a couch, two club chairs, 2 oriental rugs, coffee table, paintings, some linens, towels and some dining room chairs. I, also, kept my Uriarte dishes...not a full set but enough to live with. Last year we rented a one-bedroom furnished executive apartment. It was okay but never felt like home and it was expensive. Our apartment with our stuff in it feels like home although we have been shopping for things to fill in. A couple of folding tables for our computers, vacuum cleaner, ironing board, iron, glasses, pans and groceries. So now we are pretty well set up.  I'm glad that I kept some stuff and it is really nice to be able to hang some art we love on the walls.

When we were furnishing our house in San Miguel, I became a junk store and consignment shop addict. So I headed back to my favorite shops and yesterday, we bought two end-tables and two bedside tables for $250 total. One of the end tables is really very nice with a burled-wood top. The rest are in good shape but they are just furniture. I'm still looking for a dining table. Queen Anne and Duncan Phyfe are not currently in style so I think I can pick up one of those for about $200. I've seen some at that price but haven't made a decision yet.

We have run into one problem. We can't get TV and Internet installed until September 9th. Originally they said it would be September 15 but my great schmoozer kept talking until he got them to move the date up. Still we were facing a week without TV. We can go to the club room at the apartments and get on the Internet via wifi and the iPad is signed up for 3G until things settle down. But one of the sons came to the rescue. He brought us a HD antenna yesterday so we are at least getting some channels on the TV.

It has been an incredibly busy two weeks in Houston. Some days we were on the go from 9 AM to 9 PM. We met the movers at the storage unit one evening at 5 PM after a full day at the hospitals for tests and by 8:30 we were moved. Some stuff to a smaller storage unit and the rest to the apartment. I think that now that the medical tests are behind us, we have a plan and we  are moved into our new digs, we can slow down and just focus on getting Ned well.