The Joy of the Cheek Cramp

I'd never heard of a cheek cramp before I met Betsie. In fact, to be honest, I actually mocked Betsie during college when she used to collapse on the bed laughing, holding her cheek, and squealing "Cheek cramp! Cheek cramp!"

And then one day, I got one too. I don't remember exactly what brought it on, but I'm pretty sure it was Betsie's fault.

This weekend I made my way to New Hampshire to celebrate Betsie's 30th birthday (it's not til next week, but this was as close as I could get). We've been friends for over a decade now-- am I really getting that old?! -- and we still laugh until the cheek cramps come.

If you haven't experienced a cheek cramp yet, don't think I'm crazy. Just know that it means you have not yet laughed hard enough.

I recommend remedying that, and as soon as possible.

:)

Can't Fight the Fire

"When you're a writer, you just can't turn it off," said Ryan, a poet/waiter that I work with at Alice's. "It's not always a good thing; but you can't turn it off even when you want to."

I found myself nodding in agreement.

I write all the time in my head. Sometimes it's to my detriment.... Like today when the homeless guy started pontificating about my great rainboots (I mean, he was right... I just got them, and they are pretty amazing, but still...) and I couldn't bring myself to walk away because all I could think about was writing about this bizarre conversation.

So yeah, I agree with Ryan. If you're a writer, you can't turn it off- it's just a part of who you are.

I'm finally beginning to embrace this about myself.

You've Found Home

"How's the new place?" asked Julianna yesterday. (It's been the Most Popular Question since our move last week.)
I love it.
"That's great! Is it cozy?"
So cozy. The only problem is.... I never want to leave it. I just love being there; it's hard to psych myself up to leave for work!
"Sounds like you've found home."
Yeah, I think I have. And I've been looking for it for a while. It feels pretty amazing.

I (heart) NY

It's famous now. The "I (heart) NY" t-shirts are everywhere you look at tourist traps around the city.

It's an easy way to tell tourists from residents: if they're wearing such a t-shirt, they're definitely from out of town.

I'm not a tourist anymore. But I saw a store full of those shirts the other day, and all I could think was "I (heart) NY, too!"

I love the hustle and bustle on the sidewalks.
I love that the public transportation is amazing.
I love that you can walk down the same block everyday for a month and still find new places you hadn't noticed before.
I love that I encounter people from all over the world here.
I love that friends are always excited to make NYC their destination.
I love that cultures collide right here in this city.
I love that my new apartment is three blocks from Central Park and that, if I wanted to, I could lose myself in the park and forget that I even live in one of the biggest cities in the world.
I love that I live in one of the biggest cities in the world.
I love that I don't want to forget that I live in one of the biggest cities in the world.
I love that my brothers live in and near New York.
I love that the NYC radio stations are the same ones I grew up listening to (how are those DJs still around?!).
I love that I will never be able to explore every nook and cranny of this city.

So yeah. I'm not a tourist anymore. But I (heart) NY too.

Bienvenue a The Chateau!

Here are a few photos of our new place to hold you over til you come visit us in person!!



After climbing five flights of stairs to the sixth floor, you'll be especially thankful to reach this resting place at the top-- now affectionately known as "The Chateau"!









My new room (so small, yet also really cozy and great). Great sign, right? :)









Our living room! Perfect for entertaining, which we've already had the privilege of doing multiple times in the five days we've been here!!!









Hopefully that whet your appetite to see it in person! Please come visit us at The Chateau soon!!

The Extravamovinganza

I'm sitting at our dining room table-- listening to Chopin and basking in the sweet memories of yesterday. Is it really possible for Moving Day to be fun?! Yesterday was-- yet another reminder of God's goodness to us throughout this whole moving process.

Our moving team showed up just after 9am. We had to move on a Friday, so we were worried about finding enough people to help us. But Steve was off that day, Ellen and Tim took off, three of the bussers from Alice's agreed to help, Josh came over, Alex took off work and came down from Connecticut, Candice and Chris used one of their vacation days and came up from Philly, and Chris was working from home and came over to join the crew as they carried our belongings up six flights of stairs.

"I've never seen such a big moving team," Alex said to me. "You are really lucky.... really blessed."

Yes, blessed. Not only did this team show up, but they were beasts about moving! The truck was packed in an hour. An hour!! Josh even had time to count the many many china plates that were lining the staircase (over 580! and yes, we had to take down the ones that were low enough to be affected by the furniture....). Ellen stayed behind and helped me clean the apartment and put the plates back in place, while Gretchen and Steve drove the truck-- with the stuff and the helpers in the back!-- over to Manhattan. Just as Ellen and I were finishing up, Tim called--

"I don't see a moving truck yet; where are you guys?"
Oh! They should be there soon; they left here about twenty minutes ago.
"Wait, where are you?"
Ellen and I are cleaning the apartment; we'll be over as soon as we finished.
"Wait. What? I'm in Brooklyn. You guys are done already?!"

And so Tim drove Ellen and me over to Manhattan. We got there just as they opened the back of the moving truck (turns out it takes a while to drive a 24' truck through Manhattan!). And the amazingness began. Correction: the amazingness continued.

I'm not sure how no one passed out after making all those trips to and from the sixth floor (no, there isn't an elevator). I'm not sure how everyone stayed good-natured. And I'm really not sure how they managed to get that leather couch (yes, the one we'd claimed from the Brooklyn sidewalk back in August) into our apartment. But I do know this: I could not have asked for a better moving team.

1:22pm, and we were finished. Completely finished. They'd unloaded everything into the lobby and then brought it up to the sixth floor. Once it was into the lobby, Gretchen took the truck back. By the time she made it back to the apartment, everything was inside and we'd already rearranged the furniture at least six times trying to find the optimal layout. We thought we were going to have to lose the futon, but we finally found a way to make it all fit. The guys assembled our beds, moved furniture around in our rooms to make sure we could fit everything, and provided comic relief throughout the whole process.

For dinner, we walked downstairs to Joy Burger Bar-- which is a) just below us and b) possibly the best burger joint I've ever been to (translation: deadly)-- and ordered burgers to bring back upstairs. A few more friends joined us, and we spent the evening hanging out, laughing, and watching Social Network.

I didn't know Moving Day could be fun, but it was. At one point I was so exhausted that I excused myself to lay down for a half hour. But after ten minutes I gave up-- not because I wasn't tired, but because I could hear everyone having fun in the living room and I didn't want to miss out!

So this morning, I am still tired. But I am also still happy. As we drank coffee at our dining room table this morning, Gretchen said "I just can't get over how good God is to us." And that's exactly it-- from start to finish in this whole (what could have been awful) moving process, God has guided, directed, and provided for each detail. We have an apartment now that we can use for showing hospitality to others-- for sharing the love that Jesus has shown to us.

To whom much is given, much will be required.

So here goes! Lord, you have given us much. So, so much. Help us to bless others as you have blessed us.

How Sweet It's Been

When you walk across the Brooklyn Bridge (which is probably one of my favorite things to do in NYC), you'll be greeted by a sign that says "Welcome to Brooklyn. How Sweet It Is." It's Brooklyn's motto, and it made me smile all sorts of smiles when I first moved here just eight months ago (just?? has it really been eight months?!?!).

But tonight I came "home to Brooklyn" for the last time. My room is almost all packed; I am sitting on the edge of my bed, surrounded by boxes and suitcases and a little pile of the last-minute things I'll need tonight or tomorrow morning. Tomorrow I am moving to Manhattan.

Ever since I was little, I've wanted to live in New York City. When I moved to Brooklyn, I told my brother "It's cool; I mean, it's kind of New York City. But I can't help but feel like I'm so close and yet still so far away from living my dream." Well, here it is. A dream come true. Literally. I'm pretty psyched.

But don't get me wrong. Brooklyn has, indeed, been sweet. This Pumpkin has grown a lot in Brooklyn. It's been a bit of the painful kind of growth (ah, growing pains....) but also a bit of the fun kind of growing-- like when you ride a bike for the first time or learn to tie your shoes and have inklings of So this is what it's like to be a grown-up even though you're really still young and have so much more growing to do.

I'll come back to visit this borough. I have to-- the Best Coffee on Earth is sold at a store in Cobble Hill, just a few blocks from our current apartment (and we could only buy so much today to take with us). And the Promenade will forever be one of my favorite spots from which I can see the Manhattan skyline and the Statue of Liberty while walking by the water. Yes, Brooklyn has it's charming spots, which I fully intend to visit again.

I never would have guessed that I'd live in Brooklyn. But I'm glad I did.

Goodbye Brooklyn. How Sweet It's Been.

Uprooting the Pumpkin

I took the pictures off my wall tonight. For the second time this week.....

See, I started to take them down a few days ago; but I don't do well with bare walls. So I put them back up. I know, I know. I broke a cardinal rule of packing-- don't unpack anything. And never, ever put things back up on the walls. But I just couldn't help myself.

I'm leaving my curtains up though. Ostensibly it's so that the sunlight doesn't wake me up too early tomorrow morning. But really we all know the sun doesn't come up that early in the winter. I'm enjoying that one splash of color that's left in my room.

Almost all my boxes are packed. I just have the few "Miscellaneous" boxes waiting for the odds and ends that didn't find a different home. I'm excited for this move-- so excited, in fact, that I've had trouble sleeping the past few nights even though I'm absolutely exhausted (Note to self: Never work eleven days in a row leading right up to a move).

And even though I always hate taking pictures off my walls when I move, I can't wait to hang pictures in my new Manhattan apartment!

"So" what?

"Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was" (John 11:5-6).

It must be a typo. Mary and Martha were probably waiting impatiently for Jesus to get there and heal their brother. If Jesus really loved them, he would have rushed to Lazarus and made him better. He wouldn't have let him die; he wouldn't have let Mary and Martha go through the grief of losing their brother. It should say "he loved them... but when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he had to stay two days longer even though he tried his best to get to Lazarus immediately."

Not only is it not a typo, but it also tells me a lot about my own relationship with Jesus. The "so" is important because it tells me that Jesus knew what he was doing, and he knew what was best. His love isn't separate from his delay in going to them; it's the cause behind it.

How often do I doubt God's love because I don't understand his timing?

And yet, here is a reminder that we don't need to understand; we just need to trust. I just need to trust-- "Now Jesus loved Anne Davies, so he waited to answer her prayer..." Jesus doesn't do things by accident. He doesn't make us wait because he doesn't have time to help us. He makes us wait because he loves us and has a better plan for us than we could have come up with on our own-- because he loves us more deeply than we can imagine or even begin to understand.

I hope pumpkins grow in Manhattan, too!

1567 Lexington Avenue. New York, New York.

Ah, the city so nice they named it twice. I've always wanted to live there. And now I get my chance!!

If you're a faithful blog reader, you know that we "randomly" heard that our dream apartment was available again after we thought we'd lost it. You also know that there were several hurdles for us to overcome to make it all work out. It's been clear in the past month that God had a plan for Gretchen and me to move to this apartment; there's no way all the details could have fallen into place the way they did otherwise. Hurdle after hurdle; solution and provision after solution. Here's a bit of what's been going on in the weeks leading up to now....

Almost every apartment we saw had a broker fee attached to it (this can be 10-15% of the annual rent!) in addition to first month's rent and the security deposit. // This apartment was advertised by the couple moving out; they'd made an arrangement with the leasing agency that they could break their lease early if they found someone to take over the apartment. For whoever took it, this also meant no broker fee.

We saw the apartment and fell in love with it. // The married couple that was looking at it at the same time said they wanted it too, and the leasing agency decided to give them first dibs.

We decided not to look anymore, at least until after the holidays. A week before Christmas, the current tenant emailed me and said the other couple decided to take a different apartment, that Gretchen and I could have it if we wanted. It was available January 1 (a mere two weeks later). // We wanted it, but agreed there was no way we could find people to take our spots in our current apartment and move in two weeks. Especially since both of us were going away for Christmas.

We asked him if he would consider letting us move in January 15 instead. // He said no, he really needed someone in there on January 1.

I told him to please keep us in mind if he couldn't find anyone because we'd really loved it. // He emailed back and said "If you guys are that definite, let's just go for the January 15 date; we'll make it work from our end."

I told Debbie that we had found a place and that we'd be moving out just three and a half weeks from then. // She felt overwhelmed by the thought of finding two new roommates, and in such a short amount of time. I promised to do any legwork I could to help find people (we expressed to her that we didn't want to leave her in the lurch and that we were determined to help find replacements as well).

On Christmas Day, I posted the ad on Craigslist. My thought was to put it up there kind of as a trial run and then to post it again after people would be back on their computers following the holiday. // My email started blowing up. Within the first five hours of posting it, I had received at least ten emails, about 8 of which were extremely promising!

I gave Debbie the update when I got back to Brooklyn the day after Christmas. She felt a lot better, too, to hear that there was so much interest; and we started making plans for when potential roommates could come see the apartment. // By the following Wednesday (just four days after I posted the ad), we had two women lined up to take the rooms!

We were hoping to move on a Saturday so all our strong (guy) friends could help us, but we were told that we had to move Monday-Friday, between 9am-4pm. // Steve has off work that Friday, Tim took off, and several of our other friends are making sacrifices to help as well! Even some of the busers from Alice's are helping us before they go into work that day!

And then there are the "stupid" little details (I am glad to know God cares about the details of my life as well; not just the "big" things) -- we don't have a dining room table. // They are leaving one there. It's going to get really hot on the sixth floor. // They are leaving us two air conditioners.

Now I have to pack. I was proud of myself because I started already, but everyone assures me that having five boxes packed five days before the move doesn't mean I'm ahead of the game. I should probably get going on that.

So the pumpkin patch is moving from Brooklyn to Manhattan. I'm pretty sure this pumpkin will keep growing there, too.

New Year's Resolutions

New Year's Day. Time to think about goals for the brand new year, obviously. You know, New Year's Resolutions. Everyone has them-- even if it's just resolving not to make any.

I've been trying to think of resolutions I can make that I'll actually be sure to keep, but it hasn't been very easy. Am I really that bad at following through on stuff? But it's more that I'm learning exactly how much I can't control the future. I think through things I'd like to do or not do this upcoming year, but almost immediately I realize how difficult (or impossible, depending) it would be follow through completely. (Side note: don't get me wrong; I think it's both good and important to set goals and work towards them. I just mean those resolutions that you're SURE you'll accomplish and will just be disappointed with yourself next December 31 when you realize you haven't. Hopefully that distinction makes sense....)

I'm not gonna lie, it was kind of depressing to think about all the things I would like to do/not do and then to realize how unlikely it is that I would do so successfully. Are there any things I could resolve to do that I'd be guaranteed to accomplish?? Adding "by the grace of God" to the end of each helps, but even that emphasizes how unlikely it is that I'll actually follow through completely.

As I thought about that, I realized that the only real guarantee is God, and that he is the only one who could ever perfectly keep his New Year's Resolutions. So I started to imagine what some of his resolutions toward me would be. It was pretty encouraging to my heart, so I'll share some of them with you here....
- I will love you even when you behave in an unloveable way.
- I will take care of you and provide what you need.
- I will do the best possible thing for you at all times, even when you don't understand how it's best.
- I will never leave you nor forsake you. Even if you feel lonely, I will be there at all times.
- I will give you good things, because it makes me happy to do so.
- I will use you to bring glory to my name. I will let you have the privilege of helping carry out my plans.
- I will listen when you talk to me.
- I will care deeply for everything that you care about-- whether it is big or small, major or seemingly insignificant.
- I will show you what to do when you are confused. I will guide you through all the uncertainties of life, and I will not lead you astray.
- I will talk to you when you listen for me.
- I will give you joy and peace as you trust in me.

Pretty impressive, right? I couldn't hope to make good on any of those if I tried to promise them to someone else. But the best part? God can't NOT keep these resolutions, because he's promised them and he can't lie. And he's been doing them for all of time, so it's a sure thing that he'll keep doing them in 2011, too.

Happy New Year!