Life in Houston

 5 Things to Love About Houston

1.  Shopping anyone?  I know.  I'm not the most enthusiastic shopper, but when it comes to quality shopping...don't send a girl.  How can you not love a mall that has a Nordstrom's, Neiman Marcus, and a Saks...all in ONE place!  Matthew can think of $100's of reasons I'm sure.   Add in Gucci, Bvlgari,Chanel, Fendi, Armani, Stuart Weitzman, Valentino, and Versace...just to name a few, and I'm short of a going into a clothing coma. I think everyone knows where Vick the Chick and I will be spending some quality time in a few weeks when Mom and Dad get here!

2.  Professional Sporting Events.  With the NFL Lock-out over and done with, Matthew and I cannot wait for the Titans to come play in January... Now that the NBA season's future is looking dim, M and I are heartbroken.  We were already planning to buy a pack of tickets to enjoy seeing the Rockets...and more importantly Patrick Patterson and Chuck Hayes play.  And then there's the Astros.... bless their hearts.  Of course, there's always the MLS team, the Dynamos...where they will pretty much pay you to show up to a game.  I'm interested, M would take a little more convincing.

3.  Shipley's Donuts.  How a ball of sugary dough can bring you so much joy is beyond me.  I have NEVER been a donut fan.  I've always been able to pass on Krispy Kreme's "Hot Now!".  But something about Shipley's has me hooked.  I can't get enough of them!  Our house rule is donuts on the weekends only....Sometimes once, other times twice :)

4.  H-E-B- Our local grocery store!  Most people assume that H-E-B stands for "Here Everything's Better"...which is totally true, but a true Houstonian like me knows that it actually stands for Howard E. Butts.  Not surprising that they are trying to distance themselves from the name :)  This grocery not only has the BEST deals, but it's clean, has incredibly fresh produce, coupons attached to items in the store, free food samples EVERY day of the week (not just Saturdays), awesome pre-seasoned/stuffed hamburgers/seafood/chicken/etc..., a homemade sushi station, a cooking demonstration in the afternoons, and a Hispanic lady that makes homemade/fresh corn and flour tortillas everday!  And they are A-MA-ZING.    I seriously couldn't ask for more.  In Birmingham, I missed Kroger a lot.  We have one a couple of minutes from our house here and I've never been...I love H-E-B that much. 

5.  New Friends.  God has been so present in our lives ever since we got here...from placing us behind people at church our first Sunday that we had connections with, to them in turn introducing us to a couple who lives just right down the road.  I know that I've said all this before, but hardly a day does by where M and I fail to mention to each other how grateful we are!

5 Things to Dislike About Houston

1.  Traffic.  I don't ever want to see another facebook status from someone in Nashville complaining about traffic..  Come to Houston.  A 3 minute drive can turn into 30... not exaggerating, it happened to us last weekend.  If you want to avoid traffic, you can take the Tollway.  But in order for me to do that to come home from work, it cost $2.50, ONE WAY!  Crazy?  I think so!  Now, I know, Green Hills traffic can make you want to pull your hair out; I lived it for 4 years.  But here, it's just on another level.  I've got to find me some good books on tape...  Or I guess I should say CD.  Newflash, it's not 1990 anymore.

This is actually Houston, according to Google Images.

2.  HEAT!!  It is unbearably hot here right now.  We are currently on day 23 of 3 digit temperatures..a record here in case you were wondering.  With no end in sight.  Everyday the meteorologist acts as if the city deserves to win a prize for beating the odds once again!  Our grass is slowly dying one blade at a time.  There's only so much watering you can do.  Apparently the best time of day to water is at 3:00 in the morning.  Well, what if you don't have a sprinkler system?...I would rather have dead grass then set my alarm at 3AM to wake up and water the yard.   Although, everyone can just be jealous when it's in the 50's and 60's here in Jan/Feb....I secretly think I'm going to miss the cold.

3.   Hurricane Season.  Right now, anybody in Houston would tell you that we'd love for a little tropical storm to pass right on through.  We need rain badly!  It hasn't rained at our house in close to a month... On the flip side, I'm not looking forward to a big boy of a hurricane making it's way here.  Unfortunately, we live on the south side of Houston, AKA closer to the coast.  In 2008, Hurricane Ike caused $29.6 billion dollars of damages in the US after hitting landfall in Galveston, TX...45 minutes south of us.  Ike caused the biggest evacuation ever in Texas, and I know that a lot of the roofs in our neighborhood wore torn completely off due to the storm.  I think this is actually the hurricane we were worried about hitting us before we left on our honeymoon... I've been told to put all of our important documents in water-proof containers, buy non-perishable foods to keep in the pantry, and always keep a gallon of gas in the garage...Haven't done any of the 3. 

4.  Everything's BIGGER in Texas.  I don't know if this is really a bad thing, it has just taken some getting used to.  Nashville was a decent size city, but because of the southern hospitality it felt more small-town.  Birmingham was even smaller... In Houston, everything is 20+ minutes away.  You could get from one end of Birmingham to the other in 20 minutes!  Driving to church is 30 minutes, work is 30-45 minutes (for M it's 20), the big mall is 25 min...you get the drift.  Thankfully our little suburb covers most of the bases.  We've got tons of restaurants, a small outdoor mall, Target, tons of grocery stores, etc... And Matthew's staples- Best Buy and Home Depot. We don't have to leave if we don't want to on the weekends other than for church, which is nice.

To give you an idea of where we live/work/drive.  We live in Pearland...Although our house is actually west of the Pearland marker.  We go to church in Sugar Land.  And Matthew's work is right inside that interstate loop that surrounds the city.  My work is directly north of Sugar Land on the interstate that takes you directly west out of Houston towards Katy.  Far..

5.  Being Far Away.  I'm NOT adjusting well to the "flying only" option for traveling home.  1. I don't love flying (I'm not phobic, I just don't always like it) 2. It's expensive.  Right now, we're debating flying to Cinci for Thanksgiving vs. buying a new rug and loveseat.  The flights are so expensive on those dates that the latter option might possibly be cheaper.  The furniture we can keep for a while, while a trip is only a few days...but then again memories are priceless :)