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??