Moving

Finally.  It’s here.  Moving day.  The day we go to New York City.  The day we have been dreaming about since before we were married.

We picked up the moving truck on our way to church Sunday morning.  We had reserved a 16 foot truck.  When I saw the truck I immediately decided there was no way that all of our stuff was going to fit.  I started a checklist in my mind of the things I would leave behind.  My parents arrived Sunday night from Colorado.  My dad is the “Master Packer” and we needed him!  He fit everything into that little truck, and nothing was broken in our journey of around 400 miles.  That’s amazing!

On Monday morning we began loading.  Ben carried boxes and Dad packed them.  Mom scrubbed the apartment and I dealt with Elaine.   It was very hot and humid, and with the door open and the dryer running my last load of laundry, we were dripping in sweat.  A friend from church came to help load the piano.

We went for a cool walk by the ocean, grabbed some pizza, and hit the hay.  We planned to leave at 4 a.m, but we actually left at 6 a.m.  My Dad drove his truck with pop-up camper (my parents are vacationing after leaving Brooklyn), Ben was next with the moving truck, and Mom, Elaine, and I were in our car.  We had to stop in Princeton, NJ to drop dad’s camper off at Dan & Rachael Brown’s home.  We didn’t want to try to find parking for it in Brooklyn!  At one point we were all on the phone trying to decide which highway to take.  Dad went west around Philadelphia, and the rest of us went…somewhere…and ended up on the toll-laden New Jersey turnpike that we were trying to avoid.  We all ended up together at the Brown’s house and then headed for Brooklyn. 

We knew we would get separated in the city traffic, so we were prepared.  I arrived first and unloaded Mom, Elaine, and the stuff from our car.  Dad saved me a parking space up the road and I had my first try at parallel parking.  Let’s just say that when you looked up the street there was one car sticking out farther that the others, and it was mine!

Pastor Bickel & his son Josh, Pastor Hayden & his son Chris, and a man named Ted came from Beth-el to help us unload.  Ben’s family came from Pittsfield, Mass. to help also.  Ben double-parked the moving truck and everyone made quick work of unloading.  It was very humid, and we don’t have a/c in the apartment. 

At one point only the piano was left in the moving truck.  Several big vehicles, including a school bus, had managed to squeeze their way between the cars on one side of the street and our double-parked moving truck on the other.  When a second school bus came, he just set the brake and sat there waiting for us to finish while the line of cars behind him grew.  Good thing we were almost done!

We spent Wednesday unloading boxes and trying to make sense of things.  The church people at Beth-el have so stocked my cupboards with paper goods, food, cleaning supplies, and toiletries that I had to get real creative to fit everything in place.  What a blessing!  One more way that God has provided for us…

My parents left on Thursday morning headed for a campground in Maine.  Ben and I spent Thursday and Friday unpacking the rest of our belongings, organizing, reorganizing, and cleaning.  By Friday night everything had a place, everything was clean, and all of the boxes and trash were removed.  New York City recycles, and I have a lot to learn there!  Things I used to throw away now have to be rinsed out and saved.  It’s a challenge to remember, since I have a 27-year habit of doing it the other way!

There have been challenges…the refrigerator wasn’t working when we arrived, but now it has been repaired.  The hot-water handle in the kitchen sink stripped out, so Ben has to fix it.  The walls are plaster, with brick behind them.  Ben broke several drill bits figuring out how to hang our pictures on the wall.  We were given a window a/c unit, and we are buying another one today. 

Our apartment is actually quite large for Brooklyn.  I have discovered that I was very spoiled in my Virginia Beach lifestyle.  My apartment not only boasted several walk-in closets, but also the convenience of air conditioning, a washer and dryer, a dishwasher, a garbage disposal, and a reserved parking space.  No such luxuries here, but I am adjusting and loving it!  It was refreshing to get rid of another box of items we don’t need, in addition to ones I sold on the tag sale and through Craigslist & Ebay. 

This has been a long story, but the gist of it is we are very blessed.  There is no better place to be than in God’s Will, and we know it is He who has led us here.  Step by step He has opened the way and provided the needs.  We know that He has a job out there for Ben, too.  My mom also wrote the moving story from her perspective, and she has a lot of great photos to go with it.  (I was a little too preoccupied to get any pics).  You can read her story here and here.

Stay tuned for a video tour of our new home!