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??

Apartment Hunting, Part 2

So, did you find a place?

Yes! Well, sort of.

Part 2 of our Great New York Apartment Hunting Venture (or GNYAHV for short) was, well, a little odd. I, Greg, drove up to the city first thing Monday morning, after having beseeched everyone who would listen the day before to pray for us to find an apartment, because, as I kept saying, "Once we find an apartment, everything else will start falling into place." 

On Monday I saw exactly one apartment. One. I did have the strange feeling as I walked in that I had already seen this one -- the previous time we'd come up to the city, though we saw it with a different broker. I think. Am I seeing this place twice for a reason?? It was decent: quiet enough neighborhood, parked pretty easily, fourth floor, 3 bedrooms. Hm.

I absolutely wanted to see more, but each broker we encountered lamented our limited budget and told us they didn't have much to show us.
Yep, that's right: $1700/month is a limited budget. Sheesh.

Tuesday I saw a couple with a different broker (who has been exceedingly helpful to us the whole time), but no real options. I told him about the aforementioned 3BR apartment, and his immediate response was “Why didn’t you get it?” Hm.

Lots of discussion, prayer, waiting, and simply a dearth of any viable alternatives led Bethany and me to conclude that this was the one to go after. On Wednesday I made copies of all the documents I needed (driver’s license, Social Security cards for all five of us, W2’s from last year, 3 recent pay stubs, and a letter from Priority 1 confirming our employment and salary), and was ready to meet the broker. After waiting almost the entire day, I ended up having to meet her down on 149^th when she was between appointments. I packed up my stuff, drove carefully down 32 unfamiliar blocks, met her, and filled out the lease application in my car, idling by the curb as rain began to fall. I signed, shook hands, heard the words “ten to fourteen days,” then whipped out my phone to figure out how in the world to get out of the city.

Crazy NYC rain

Sweet New Jersey rainbow

Rain fell harder and harder. I’ve only driven in such bad rain for such a long time a couple of times before, and this time I was trying to get out of New York City during rush hour. It was a stressful drive, but God gave me quite the light show driving home, complete with a New Jersey rainbow at 8:42pm.

Technically, our search is not over. We have to schedule a face-to-face meeting with the management company for the apartment, then presumably sign the lease. We’re hoping and praying that these things are merely formalities.

Will there be a GNYAHV Part 3? We’ll let you know.

Apartment Hunting, Part 1

Could our dreams be at the
end of this hallway??

Well, we learned a lot.

Our first foray into the big-city-apartment-hunting process produced no concrete results. The best we can say is that, well, we learned a lot.

Here’s what we’re looking for, and yes, this is our ideal wish list: 3 bedrooms, not on a main road, available and free parking, 3^rd floor, decently quiet, located between Priority 1’s current apartment and Ginny’s school, and family-friendly. Oh yeah, and “affordable.” [Author’s note: That last word is in quotation marks because what New Yorkers consider “affordable” is what most others may call “exorbitant,” “ridiculous,” or “highway robbery.”]

Yes, our wish list is long. We know this. We understand that whatever place we ultimately choose will have positives and negatives, and that there is very possibly no place at all that meets all of those wishes. Our primary concerns are the location and the cost, and after satisfying those two, the other stuff is negotiable. It’s funny, though, how our definition of a “good price” has changed since beginning our search. “Really? That 6^th floor walkup 2-bedroom 1-bath that needs new floors, paint, appliances, and fixtures is only $1510 a month? Wow!”

Juliet and Amber, our Children's Ministry Coordinator

So Bethany and Juliet (our 13 month-old – the older two girls stayed home with their grandma) and I saw at least four different places with two different realtors on Monday. We weren’t overwhelmed by anything we saw. The next morning I, Greg, awoke before my alarm went off, confused that I was no longer asleep, but also increasingly concerned with the growing sensation in my stomach that something was wrong. Skipping ahead in the story, I had picked up a stomach bug and was rather useless for the remainder of the day. Bethany, remarkably, was still able to see a couple of apartments in the same building where Priority 1 already maintains an apartment. On Wednesday we squeezed one more apartment in, but none of the four realtors we had interacted with had anything else to show us, nor had anyone we had contacted on our own through various Internet searches responded to us. So we got out of town, stopped for bagels along the way, and returned to our older two daughters.

So we felt a bit stifled, but we knew that it was highly unlikely that we would come back to PA having signed anything. We did learn a lot about the process, about what paperwork will be required of us to apply for a lease, and what questions to ask.

There will be a Part 2 of this blog. In fact, I’m going through Part 2 as I write this: I’m in the city once more, this time wife-less and baby-less, and may well return to PA with a signed lease under my belt.

That, or there will be a Part 3 of this blog. We’ll see.