It's a Slide Puzzle Life

For at least the first two weeks of our new life in the Bronx, we felt as though we were living in a slide puzzle. 

When we moved all of our stuff in, we literally (and yes, I mean that word literally) couldn't walk from one room to another. Boxes, dressers, tubs, lamps everywhere. There was an armchair that we couldn't find for two days. It was a total mess.

Because we didn't put the rugs down before we brought in the furniture (a mistake that we will NOT make again!), we first had to take everything out of the room. But to take everything out of one room, we had to make space in another room. But there was no space in the other room!! See what I mean about a slide puzzle?

Before & After: Girls' room

Slowly but surely, room by room, we got rugs down and furniture placed. We got the girls' bunks together first so they wouldn't have to sleep on the couch or on the floor in the living room (as Bethany and I did for two nights). Then we cleared a space for Juliet to sleep in her room. The living room was next, then our room last. There were still no curtains or blinds on the windows, so we had to be somewhat careful, but at least we were all in our own beds. As each room came together, this little apartment began to feel less like some strange enclosure in a strange place and more like our home.

We still have boxes sitting around whose contents mock us: "Ha! You'll never find a place for ME!! Mwahaha!!" But they are fewer and quieter each day (either that, or we're just learning to ignore them). We have some things up on the walls, but not a lot. But we're functional, homey, and settled, and -- let's be honest -- are just about as unpacked as we were in 6 years at our previous home.

Before & After: Living/dining room

So now the new challenge: get out of the slide puzzle. Slide puzzles have four sides and contain all the pieces securely -- they don't leave. It would be very easy for us to enter our new home and be completely shut off from the people and the world around us, even with literal millions of neighbors. Very easy for us to focus on sliding our own pieces around and making them fit, rather than getting out of our walls and seeing what -- and who -- God has in front of us.

So, who wants to go to the playground??

19 Things We Have Learned Since Moving to New York City

Briggs Ave

1. Don’t trust reservations on rental truck websites. They have a vastly different definition of the word “reservation” than does the rest of the English speaking world. http://youtu.be/WKpt2E2Lqcw
2. People who help you load an 18-foot truck, drive 5 hours to a different state, and unload an 18-foot truck up to the 4^th floor are really amazing people. http://youtu.be/0siRMEEY8rc
3. Your four year-old just may decide to throw up in the back of the van right as you cross the George Washington Bridge into Manhattan, where there is absoLUTEly no place to pull over and tend to her.
4. Despite your extensive downsizing efforts, you will still have too much stuff and will still be trying to figure out where to put everything (“Well, I guess we can just keep that in Juliet’s room…”).
5. Do your best, when moving in, to put the rugs down before you bring all your furniture, boxes, and tubs in. I REALLY wish I had understood how vital this principle is.
6. Just because there are plenty of parking places on your street at noon, there may not be a single one when you try to come back to your apartment building at 9pm on a weeknight. http://youtu.be/egsdc7tZ_xc
7. Apparently New Yorkers believe their city has no bugs, and so screens do not come standard issue in your basic apartment window. [Author’s note: New York City does indeed have bugs. Ask mosquito-magnet Bethany.]
8. There is also no requirement to provide a phone jack.
9. Everything looks significantly different when you walk around than when you drive around.
10. The seemingly random emotional breakdowns your young daughters have about meaningless things (a potato chip that breaks, for example) just may be the result of being psychologically drained by a major life-change, even though they are unable to understand that.
11. Your four year-old may have believed for the last two years that the place identified by the words “New York” is no more than the Priority 1 apartment where we host teams. Correcting this misconception may prove difficult.
12. We absolutely should work hard at learning Spanish.
13. Hot water from a boiler is REALLY hot.
14. The ice cream truck may come by as late as 9:30pm.
15. Someone a couple of buildings over greatly enjoys his Spanish pop music. And he desires that entire neighborhood enjoy it as well. At midnight.
16. The Chinese place half-a-block away isn’t half bad. Prices are comparable too. http://youtu.be/E1OvVKAga2k [I couldn’t resist linking to this scene :]
17. A 2-liter soda costs $2.25 at the market half-a-block away. A gallon of milk is $3.50.
18. The fact that water – including the hot water – and trash and recycling removal are included in the rent makes us feel a tiny bit better about how high our monthly payment is. A VERY tiny bit.
19. Moving from medium-town Pennsylvania to the Bronx, NY can have a similar psychological effect to moving from the US to China, as we did in 2003. Overwhelmed, a little helpless, surrounded by people yet lonesome, excited to see and try new things yet wondering if you have done the right thing. In other words: culture shock.

These are merely a few of our initial observations; stories with more depth and detail will follow. We’re still figuring things out, learning our way around. It will take some time. But we are excited to be here and have to pinch ourselves occasionally that everything around us is actually real.

And as you may have divined, we’re Seinfeld fans. One day we’ll go to the actual café that was featured on the show. It’s down on Broadway and 112^th.