taking care of business back in Livingston

We had a fun time riding the Galveston ferry again – this time high up in the coach with a great view! Once we were across, we headed through some interesting scenery (including giant flocks of pelicans flying by, and a crazy bridge that looks like the type I have nightmares about) to Livingston, this time to stay in the RV park where our personal mailbox is located. On Sunday we decided to check out a local church, Life Vine. We really enjoyed it! It reminds me of Foothills back in the day when it was small; lots of people of all ages, from all walks of life, wearing whatever casual summer clothing they felt like – not at all what I expected from a Bible belt church, LOL. The pastor chatted with us for a bit, so we got some idea of his heart and their history. We’ll go again next Sunday, on Easter, but most likely we won’t be in town again for a long while after that.

On Monday Deron had to use the car to drive over to the Escapees office and get our mail, because there was so much! Now that he has lots of supplies, he’s spending the week working on projects – installing a system to monitor tire pressure on all the coach and toad tires, and replacing the couch seatbelts, the windshield wiper blades, and the air filters for the A/C (they were so gross from the dusty windstorms in west Texas) … just to name a few. Meanwhile I’m working on reorganizing the precious space in our cabinets to get some of that stuff put away while I plan meals, make grocery lists, get caught up on laundry and take care of the finances, etc. etc.

Livingston isn’t a big town, so we ended up having to head to Huntsville on Tuesday, about 30 minutes away, to get some errands taken care of. It was a really pretty drive, other than crossing over Lake Livingston (the sky was so gloomy that its reflection made the lake look like baby puke instead of its usual pretty blue). In Huntsville we stopped at the UPS Store to send off an Amazon return, Goodwill to drop off a donation (there’s really no room in the RV for stuff we don’t need so we’re always looking to pare down), and Office Depot to recycle our old laptop battery, and then we drove over some “speed cushions” (which were the opposite of cushiony, hahaha), and turned down Avenue P½, LOL, to stop at a nice tree-lined dog park (where the dogs had more fun trying to catch squirrels than interacting with other dogs).

Overall, it’s been a relatively mellow week. Since we already checked out most of the sights around Lake Livingston when we were here in September, and since it’s pretty hot and muggy right now, we’re not spending a lot of time out and about. But now that we’re back in our own RV, we have plenty of other games to play in our downtime besides Rummikub. We made each other laugh so hard during a game of Boggle that we both had tears running down our faces (sorry, no pics available).

Though we’re having fun entertaining each other, once Deron’s finished with jury duty and we’ve had the oil leak taken care of, we’re looking forward to exploring new territory again! We found out today that the mechanic who works on CAT engines is going on vacation starting a week from Monday – the day we were planning on bringing in the coach! So now we’ll need to leave this RV park a couple of days early – either Thursday or Friday, depending on what happens with Deron’s jury duty – so that we can get it there before the mechanic leaves. Then he’ll either fix it by that Saturday and we’ll pick it up and be on our way, or he’ll diagnose it and put it back together so we can live in it until he returns and is able to fix it. Thankfully this should all be covered under warranty because everything in that part of the engine is new. So, all we have to worry about is logistics.

praise & prayer

Have you ever noticed when God is trying to get your attention, and the topics of the sermons you hear and the devotions you read all fit together into one message? That’s been happening to me lately. I suddenly realized that this whole time we’ve been on this #nomadlife adventure, I’ve been praying that God would lead us to the right place to live – with a church community we fit into, and a climate we enjoy, and a cost of living we can afford. But something shifted when God got my attention – I’ve been so focused on finding what we need/want in a new hometown, I haven’t been praying that He would lead us to the place where HE wants us to live… what if He wants to settle us somewhere hot and humid? Or where there’s only a tiny church that’s just starting out? Or where it costs more than we anticipated? Am I going to recognize His leading if I’m only looking for what I consider the perfect place? So I’ve changed my prayer to just that – “Lord, show us where You want us to be!” We’d love you to join us in praying that too!