Car Shopping

My wish came true despite all of my friends saying I was crazy. The doctor said I need to be moving the ankle more. He said it will hurt and it will swell, but I have to work through that.

He asked if I have a bike. I don't. Then he gave me a choice - go to PT three times/week, or go to the gym three times/week. I love going to the gym and the cost analysis made it an easy choice. It's much cheaper to spend $25/month on a gym membership than $45/week on PT.

Tomorrow I go back to work full time. In the morning we will teach a parenting class in the neighborhood where I spent most of last year. Parents will learn how they can help their kids do well in school. We'll talk about things that most people in the US know, like requiring the child go to school whether or not they want to, and checking to be sure the child does their homework. Many parents here don't feel empowered to require their children to do anything.

A team is coming from Chicago to pray for my coworkers and me in the afternoon. My boss wants me to be there "to speak English with them". I guess that is different from translating.

I ran over to the gym to do my PT. He wants me to go three times/week and tomorrow I won't have time. When I got back I did the hot/cold foot soaking my doctor prescribed. Suddenly I realized I was soaking my foot when I should have been in online Spanish class! Bummer.

On the way home from the doctor I did stop by the car lot. The guy did find me a nice car. It was a 2011 Honda CRV. But it had 40,000 miles more than my car! I thanked him for thinking of me and explained that although it is the year I am looking for, there is no sense in buying a car with more miles than mine. He agreed.

Then he showed me a 2008 Hyundai Veracruz 4x4 for $12,300. That one was super cool. I'd never seen a Veracruz before. It's made for Latin America. It's more expensive because it's diesel which is in high demand here. It will run longer and gets great gas mileage. It seats seven. Two extra full sized seats pop out of the cargo space in back. I would use those for David and Samuel. Currently at least one of them has to ride in the far back and that makes me nervous.

On the outside the Veracruz is the same size as a CRV, even with the two extra folding seats. It still has equal storage space when the seats are folded down. The best part about that car is that it was not imported from the US. Cars brought in from the US can be pieced together from junk. It's a huge risk to buy a car imported from the US. If that car had less kilometers on it, I would have fallen completely in love. It had 171,000 kilometers (106,000 miles).

Please keep me in prayer as I go back to work tomorrow. I am reminding myself not to be discouraged if there is pain and swelling. The doctor says the more I walk, the stronger it will become. If it's still not better in three weeks I'm to go back. I also made an appointment to get a full physical. I feel fine, but I haven't had a check up since I moved here. In March that will be five years, so I'm overdue.

Car?

Well, I'm off to the doctor. I'm nervous. I want him to tell me that I'm being a wimp and I should be out walking around and climbing mountains again. But I wake up with pain and go to sleep with pain and it hurts to walk now, so I figured I better go back. It's been 8 weeks since my original injury.

Yesterday a friend of my mechanic's called. He sells cars and has been looking for a good car for me since last Easter. He said he's got a 2011 he wants me to see. I'll stop on the way home from the doctor. You may find it hard to believe that he's been looking for almost a year and this is the first car he's found worth looking at, but that's how it was when we searched for the car I now own. In fact we looked for more than a year. Patience is the key when buying a used car in Honduras.

Molly is dropping off the rest of Ana's school supplies today. Now all they need is uniforms. Depending what the doctor says, I may be able to buy them this week. Molly has an extra pair of uniform pants for David, so David will now have two pairs of pants. Hurray!