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.
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