Settling In

I'm always amazed at how much work it is to move. Since I was spoiled rotten by having movers, I didn't have to do the heavy lifting, but it's always such a job to take all of our belongings that each have their place in one house and move them to another. I still have a few items that haven't found places yet, but considering that we gave up a garage and 475 square feet of living space when we moved to our apartment, I feel like we are doing well.

So it's been two and a half weeks since we left San Antonio. We are finally starting to feel settled. I still don't really think of it as home, but I think that will take some time. It's hard not to constantly compare and refer to things in San Antonio as "we haves" and things here and "they haves." But I'll get there. After three trips to the Drivers Licence Branch, I finally have my new license. They won't let you show teeth in your picture, and I felt like I managed a semi-natural closed mouth smile for the first picture they took, but they said I had too much hair in my face, so they retook it. The second one felt pretty good too, but the picture was crooked, so again, they had to retake it. Benjamin was with me and was sitting at my feet under the counter in front of me and by the third picture, he was losing patience and I looked down to tell him we were almost done. I barely looked up in time for the third picture and could tell it wouldn't be very good. But it was good enough for them. :)

The weather here has been amazing. This time of year in Indiana is usually cold and rainy with maybe a couple of days of sunshine and a couple warm (maybe 60's) days thrown in. But since we got here a little over two weeks ago, it's only rained maybe three times and been cold maybe 4 days. I feel so blessed. One of my most difficult things about this move was knowing there would be a lot less sunshine and warmth here. I know this is unusual and that it won't be this way every year, but I'm so thankful for sunshine and 70 degree weather.

One thing that's been fun has been rediscovering a park I played at as a kid. It's been totally redone and it's amazing. And the best part is that it's super close to our apartment. Benjamin loves it and I'm pretty sure we will be spending a lot of time there. We also discovered a paved trail that runs through the city for walking/running/biking. We've been a few times already and love it. I'd forgotten how much I love Indiana in the Spring. Everything is in bloom and it smells so good outside.

There have been some hard things too. My first grocery shopping trip was rough. Anyone who knows me knows I like my healthy food and especially produce. My first trip out I had a hard time finding even a decent head of lettuce and found that the prices of most things were quite a bit higher than they were in S.A. But, I did end up going to another store here that had a much better selection at least, even if it was expensive. The other hard thing is that to my knowledge, the only gym here with child care is the Y. I absolutely loved our gym in San Antonio and was pretty religious about going at least three days a week. That was one of the first things I researched before moving and it was pretty hard finding out that my only option was a Y. But, I decided it would be OK and planned to sign up. I went to visit it this past week and was majorly disappointed. All their equipment is crammed into a pretty tiny room with very little space to walk between machines and no place for stretching and abs. So now I'm trying to figure out how to get a regular work-out in. I'm grateful the weather has at least been warm and nice enough to get outside.

We started looking for a church this past Sunday. This is one of the hardest things about moving. The church we visited was nice, but it certainly wasn't our old church. I do realize that we just won't find our old church here unless everyone from our old church moves here :) but it's hard to feel like we are shopping for a church. We plan to visit each church on our list twice and then make our decision. We'd appreciate your prayers for wisdom and for courage in being outgoing enough to make new friends.

I promise that my blogging won't turn into a running description of boring details, but I wanted to let you all know where we are at. :)