Despite my silence on the blog, this summer has been anything but quiet. Perusing my planner, I look back over the weeks since we moved and see that we have traveled or had guests more weekends than not. That’s a good thing! And it has meant that we have been kept busy and occupied during a time of transition. But it also means that we haven’t had the chance to really dig in here yet. Last Saturday was our first real day at home in who knows how long. It was such a treat. We slept in and then took an hour to make Norwegian pancakes (think crepes), and watched cartoons while stuffing our faces. We lounged around watching more cartoons. When the itch to do something struck, I finally deep cleaned the house while Chris addressed those sneaky little corners that still had junk in them from the move. Time—we had time! Time allowed us to talk through our budget and post-moving expenses and get on the same page with our church search. Real conversation and connection were able to happen when we let the dust settle a little and stopped doing things. In fact, I intentionally didn’t set any “goals” for the day. I didn’t sit down the night before with my Post Its and write that I wanted to 1) talk about the budget 2) clean the house 3) exercise. Those things just happened anyway because they were all good things that we not only needed to do but wanted to when we didn’t feel “forced” to by the to-do list. My goal-setting, accomplisher self needed a chill pill. And when I took it, we had the most relaxing, happy Saturday—not because we didn’t do anything and lazed around but because my attitude toward accomplishing things shifted (at least for this one day…face palming myself this weekend because it’s been much more of a struggle!). So, to continue the good vibes, we spontaneously decided yesterday morning to run to a craft store and buy canvases and paint supplies. We were going to have an Art Day at home, complete with sweet tea and oatmeal coconut cookies (which we also spontaneously decided to make after watching our ALL TIME favorite show Friday night, The Great British Bake Off. Seriously, do yourself a favor and go watch it). Michael's Crafts is having a Labor Day sale on a lot of their painting supplies so we got two value packs of canvases (16 total!), 12 large tubes of acrylic paint, and various brushes for just over $50. It was a great buy, and we have tons of canvas left over, so I would highly encourage this as a date that keeps on giving. Now, let me be perfectly clear: neither of us are artists by any stretch of the imagination. Appreciate, study, and enjoy, all yes, but execute—not so much. As Chris likes to say, we each have “delusions of grandeur” when it comes to painting. Like, I think I may just be the next Rothko or Van Gough. But then I look at my canvas and realize I don’t even know how to properly blend one color into the next. This became abundantly apparent in my first piece, which I have entitled “Choppy Blue.” To be sure, I like the choppy look. But also be sure that it is there because Chris had not yet looked up a YouTube video on “How to Paint With Acrylics,” in which a kindly professor showed us that we ought to brush the canvas with water before we applied the paint. Such an “ah-ha!” moment. “Yellow Feather Sunset” was my second piece. I have such mixed feelings here. I was concentrating on blending yellow into orange, which I think I did quite well. Then some insane idea popped into my head and told me to swish gold stripes down the middle, something I regretted almost immediately. All my grand delusions of hidden genius went right out the door, and I became very despondent. I decided to mope on the bed checking Instagram and then cleaned my brushes and called it a day. Well, the paint dried and then looked decidedly less gross. So I decided I didn’t completely hate it, and that together with Choppy Blue and Chris’s “White Square” it may just look all right on the wall. At the end of the day, here’s what we turned up with. Not so bad, right? Thankful for okay art, good music and great tea while making it, and the left overs: blue splatters on our dinning room wall which remind me of a fun afternoon.
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So much has happened in the past month that the actual move seems light years in the past. Between then and now we have:
And that’s just scratching the surface. Depending on the day all this transition is either really fun and exciting or really overwhelming and not fun at all. On the not-fun days I find myself missing New York and New Jersey. Missing not exactly our circumstances from this period of life but the concept of comfortable. The past week had me in a particular funk: disgruntled, easily annoyed, irritable, and despondent. Flipping through my phone (the worst possible solution to these problems, I might add), I realized that I hadn’t looked at a single picture I had taken from the moving weekend. I had been avoiding looking back on those high-stress, crazy-out-of-the normal few days, full of so much hard work and change that you collapse in an exhausted puddle of dusty clothes in the middle of the barren, finally cleaned out kitchen and simply refuse to go on. The thing is: moving is just so hard. It doesn’t matter if you have the absolute best friends and family helping (like we did!), plenty of time to get everything done (like we did!), money to be able to afford the necessary vans and boxes and food for crowds, etc. (like we did!)—it’s just a difficult thing to do. Now, I held it together really well. We had fun. Music was blaring. Pizza was consumed. All boxes ended up fitting into the UHUAL. Holes in the wall were spackled and tubs were cleaned. Cats were not lost. It all got done. But it only got done because of our amazing families. I kid you not, Chris and I regularly stop in the middle of cooking dinner or driving to church to remark that we have such cool families. Both sides so selflessly served us this month, as they always do, and we think they are just the best. The week before the move was mainly full of me packing boxes, the turtle in the race to the finish line. One. Box. At. A. Time. Later in the week my mother-in-law and the youngest Svendsen siblings came to the house to help deep clean. I remember this being one of the token panic days, so close to the end (we move in two days!) and yet not looking anywhere near to being done, junk oozing from every nook and cranny. Thankfully, Bethany and Aiden’s cool composure under pressure helped calm my nerves (below: keeping calm and carrying on). The last few days before the move also included a run to Ikea for our new kitchen island and a few bookshelves as well as a very relaxing, fancy dinner with the in-laws at an amazing steak house (where I promptly forgot to take a single picture). Day 1 Chris and I take the Intentionally Relaxed Approach when it comes to moving day. Morning of, we walked to our favorite diner for one last Nutella and strawberry waffle and then visited the local florist on our way home to get flowers for our landlady who lives downstairs. After this slow start our helpers began to trickle in, and long story short, our whole life was crammed into the UHUAL and trailer by 10pm that night. Day 2 North Carolina and New Jersey being so far apart, there was simply no way we could load the truck, drive south, and unload all in one day. So, we spent the night at Chris’s parents’ house after everything was loaded and again decided to take the next morning slow, sleeping in and enjoying a yummy breakfast before honking our way down the road. The morning was filled with coffee and tears. Highlights of our driving day include Eloise being a boss navigator, Chick-fil-a for lunch, only being able to travel 60 miles an hour the entire trip because of UHUAL limitations, the never-ending drive because of said speed restrictions, singing along to the full Hamilton soundtrack a total of three times, and a late night Mickey Dees stop for breakfast sandwiches and yogurt parfaits in the middle of no-where North Carolina. Arriving at the new home at around 11 p.m., we grabbed the keys and then headed to a nearby hotel to partake in such simple luxuries as mattresses and running air conditioning. Day 3 LAST DAY OF THE ORDEAL. By this point we were exhausted but also ready to be done with the whole thing. The need to be done outweighed being tiered, and we dutifully rose for the 7:30 alarm, meeting my excited and more-refreshed family who had driven from Virginia the night before to meet us. While the boys and some new friends from church unloaded the truck, my mom and me grabbed biscuits from a local favorite—Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen—and coffee from Starbucks for everyone. Coming home an hour later, piping hot beverages in hand, we were shocked that most of the truck was already unloaded. The process is so much quicker on the unloading side of the equation! Amy and Kate went to fish in the pond behind our house while the adults put together furniture, cleaned the kitchen, and unpacked boxes. We took lots of breaks and even went to a second hand sporting goods store in the afternoon. This kind of casual is good for me. There is no way I could ever get close to being done—catching up to “perfect”—on a day like this. Best to just let go and enjoy being with the people you love. We ended the day with a Mexican dinner at a festive restaurant and an early to bed—the first night in our new home! As I said above, moving is totally exhausting. It drains your physical, mental, and emotional strength. It makes the normally little things—like missing an exit or not getting quite enough sleep—seem like life-shattering events. I woke up Sunday morning, the day after we had officially unloaded in North Carolina, having a complete meltdown. I kept saying over and over, “I just can’t find the thing. I just can’t find it.” “It” being literally anything I could think of. Brush, a pot, tissues, my jeans—everything was haphazard and I had absolutely no clue where anything was. Moping around in sweatpants, I dragged myself from room to room, sprawling out on the floor and crying if I was unable to locate something immediately. It sounds really funny to me now. I’m more rested and things are in order again. But for these couple of weeks they weren’t, and that’s okay. I put on my big girl panties and just kept swimmin through the boxes. And I’m thankful to report that I now know where all my pots, tissues, jeans, and brushes are. ~SNEAK PEEK OF HOME!~ I must be a true pessimist—I always assume the worst. The great thing about being a pessimist is that you are often pleasantly surprised. The world isn’t always awful! How wonderful! This first week in North Carolina has taught me just that. Because I hate “CHANGE” (I always blow it up in my head like that), I assumed that a big move like this would most likely be de facto bad. My instinct is to think that because something changes it inherently overwhelms any good that might come along with that change. Certainly, our whole daily rhythm has been torn apart, exacerbated by the fact that we aren’t actually living our new “normal” yet. Chris has a FULL schedule with his MCAT prep course and won’t be slowing down until after the test. In the meantime, I won’t begin working full time (more on that in an upcoming post!) until the end of July, so I’m just here hanging out, enjoying some non-stress time, and managing all the “life stuff.” Things are very different, but it’s all new and exciting. We love being in a wide-open space with trees, woods, and biking trails. We love our new home and how it perfectly remedies some of those super annoying things about our old place (we now have a washer and dryer and lots of closets!). We love this location and the opportunities and friends to be made here. Don’t get me wrong—I know we are still in the honeymoon stage. I’m sure there will be days of culture shock or sadness. But they haven’t hit yet, and I shouldn’t even assume, come to think of it, that they will. See, in the midst of what is turning out to be a happy transition, I’ve found myself feeling guilty for being happy and carefree. I’ve felt as if I’m not being authentic with my friends when relaying primarily happy news; the pessimistic worrier in me starts telling lies: “Life is too good—something awful must be around the corner.” “Why is God giving us these blessings?! Something’s up.” “Oh well: it will all fall apart soon enough.” It’s as if I am actively seeking out something to worry about in the absence of more difficult life circumstances and “legitimate” worries. But when you get down to it, all these worries boil down to unbelief, to a stiff hand of control that won’t let go. If I don’t get too happy, life won’t disappointment too much. The past two years have been really tough, and yet through it the Lord has been so close, teaching me more and more about joy that transcends circumstances. Now, when our circumstances are happier, I still need to be taught about joy. About how to have joy free of doubt, free of fear. My prayer is that the Lord can use the refreshed and joyful me for purposeful ministry, and that I would be able to see the good of good times. Because this week has been a good time. Our moving weekend (also in an upcoming post!) went so smoothly. My family was able to come help, and we were also blessed to have some new friends from a local church meet us at the house as well. They made us feel so welcomed right from the get-go. My wonderful mom stayed with us for a few extra days, and together we unpacked, ran errands, did loads and loads of laundry, shopped for lights and nails and spackling putty and all those moving necessities, ironed curtains, and ate chocolate pastries at Panera. She’s pretty cool. My new job has already been such a blessing and has enabled us to step right into a community. From welcome gifts of homemade jam and tulips to after-church conversations and lots and lots of restaurants recommendations, Chapel Hill has been treating us well. And to top it all off, I’ve had a burst of energy which has enabled me to do tons of little things like researching the DMV and NC license requirements, scouting out new grocery stores, joining a gym, and learning to drive on the highway by myself (ya’ll, 5 years in the city with public transportation, no hating). From the little things to the big things, I’m thankful for and in awe of a week of provision. This post is a long time coming, and I mean a longggg time coming. So long I don’t really remember when we started thinking about, planning, or working toward it. I do remember junior-year-of-college Chris starting to doubt his plan of going to law school. I remember him feeling worried about a desk job, and feeling trapped. I remember a particular walk along Battery Park City on a cool evening where I asked him if he had ever thought about going into medicine. He said it was strange I should bring it up—our Dean of Students had recently asked him the same thing. To my great surprise—and I think his too—we both took the suggestion seriously, and started researching options. In the months that followed there were many serious talks about whether or not med school was doable at such a late point. Because he was so close to graduation and had never planned to go, med school would require not only taking the MCAT but also 2 years worth of extra classes (all the sciences Chris didn’t take in college). After much prayer, and countless talks with parents and friends, we decided to go for it. My dad, an ER doc, was our constant companion, and was able to help us navigate the many requirements needed for a successful application. Chris was even able to do his clinical hours in the ER where my dad works. We aren’t quite at the end of the road yet. Chris will finish his last semester of pre-requisite classes at the end of April and is slated to take the MCAT on June 18th, after which he will begin the official application process. But, we made a huge step forward this weekend! After a successful house-hunting trip in North Carolina we can say that we are officially moving to Chapel Hill in May!!! We signed a lease on this lovely little townhouse in a great location of Chapel Hill, and we could not be more excited. When we started our deep dive into medical school research it became pretty clear to us that while there were great schools across the country, we wanted to stay close to the East Coast and family. We also knew that we wanted to be in a small town rather than a big city; as much as we love New York, it’s time for a change! And, of course, Chris wants to get into a really good program. Those preferences basically narrowed it down to Virginia and North Carolina schools. There are a couple of really great options in N.C.(Duke, East Carolina, Wake Forest), apart from our top choice, UNC Chapel Hill. Even though Chris hasn’t been accepted yet, we really feel God moving us toward Chapel Hill this year. We know He has a plan for the perfect school for us. In the meantime, we are going to move to the area we love, establish N.C. residency (yay for cheaper schooling cost!), and trust the rest to Him. Risky? Maybe a little. But not really. The worst that could happen would be a move to a better place in a year, having saved money in 2016 by not living in the New York City metropolitan area. Exciting? So, so exciting. Last night as we drove down Franklin Street on our way to the Mediterranean Deli (which has changed our lives; so much delicious), we talked about how strangely comfortable we felt here. Like this is where we are supposed to be. Compared to looking for apartments in New York, this past weekend was a joy. After driving down late Thursday evening, we grabbed coffee Friday on the way to our first appointment of the day: a 10:00am total let down. But our spirits were high. We saw several apartment complexes, had lunch at a Mexican place, and showed up to our 4:30 appointment with our front-runner: the two bedroom townhome in a wooded setting about 10 minutes from downtown. It had everything we were looking for and more. The landlord was accommodating, jolly, and obviously cared for the home. It took about 30 minutes to decide on the place while lounging on the UNC quad sipping iced tea. And that was it. We had a celebratory dinner at a sushi place, and the landlord swung by our hotel the next morning so we could all sign the lease. That left us Saturday to chill out and explore the area. This included mural hunting, antique shopping, eating at cafes, cartoon watching, gym exploring, tulips, sweet tea, baklava, biscuits, and lots and lots of walking around our new town. It’s a little surreal to be leaving our New York. I’m sure there will be lots of tears and some second-guessing. But we feel confident that this new stage will be worth it. We love that Chapel Hill has a small town feel combined the conveniences of a thriving University town. And we love that this thing Chris has been working for is finally coming to fruition! Thank you to everyone who has supported, prayed for, and encouraged us these past few years. You have helped make this new beginning possible! The most shocking part of being an adult is how quickly time flies. I cannot believe we are already in the third month of the year and so soon moving away from New York. Nostalgia is kicking in hard core. The last few weeks have involved 1) Chris and I re-working the budget countless times to see if maybe we could afford to live in NYC as students after all (surprise: we can't); 2) deciding which neighborhood of the city we will move back to in 10 years, and 3) researching how to buy Bryant Park bistro tables and chairs to take with us. Back at Christmas it seemed like ages before we could actually get going with the move. Four dreary months of winter seemed intolerable. But, as always, being a pessimist has paid off when those four dreary months weren't so dreary after all. In fact, February was full of amazing fun, as per the usual, since both my birthday and Valentines Day are crammed into this wee little month. My birthday is February 5th, so that first weekend was full of cake. My mom surprised me with a spontaneous visit, and we ate at an amazing little restaurant in midtown east called Bea. Other than lovely conversation, cold walks, and pink presents, the visit also included funfetti cake baked by my chef hubby and a trip to the Bronx Zoo. Valentines Day marked the coldest day of the winter: 3 degrees. What we had envisioned as a day sauntering around the city turned into a hurried shuffle from one food establishment to the next. First stop: Starbucks. Second: M&M flagship store in Times Square. Third: Fossil, because, Fossil. Fourth: a casual Italian place in Hell's Kitchen: Bocca di Bacco. The food was excellent, but I was especially keen on the bold wall paper in the bathroom and am now considering it for a future home....Fifth: the Bank of America building indoor atrium. Sixth: back to Starbucks. Seventh: underground mall at Rockefeller Center and the amazing Masion du Chocolat. Seventh: back to Bocca di Bacco to retrieve the bag of Valentines M&Ms I bought in Times Square and inadvertently left under my seat. All in all, a fabulous albeit disgustingly cold day. The rest of February involved lots and lots of work. Every author in the world seems to want to submit his manuscript right now. However, despite the extra hours spent at the desk, I was still able to commute home in the daylight many days, as it is now light past 5:00 o'clock. It's a big deal, you guys. At least once a week Chris and I have a catharsis moment in which we marvel at the sun. To top the month of, I spent the lovliest weekend in Boston with some of my favorite girls in the world. This weekend involved lots of laughing, lots of walking in the cold, the movie Brooklyn (see it), history, sight seeing, coffee, Harvard, more coffee, car trips, Taylor Swift, talking about emotions, and words of affirmation. March is now in full swing, and it promises to be quite a busy few weeks. Apart from the regular day to day, I have some over-arching goals for the month that hopefully will help us as we move into the end of the semester and the move. Time runs away so quickly, and it's easy for me to waste it--by setting goals before the month even begins I can gauge and utilize my down time effectively. (****Otherwise I decide that every night I deserve to soak in the tub and watch Friends re-runs. Every. Night). So without further ado, our March goals are: 1. Register for the MCAT.----this goal is actually already completed! Chris is signed up for the test on June 18th, in Chapel Hill, NC. 2. Apartment hunt online. 3. Choose a date to go apartment hunting in Chapel Hill. 4. Book a hotel and GO visit! 5. Meet my March 15th deadlines at work. 6. Write some letters. 7. Research graphic design and blogging formats. 8. Win tickets to Hamilton. 9. Celebrate a special friend and her March birthday. 10.Enjoy my little brother's visit. 11. Keep cooking. Keep writing. I mean, where are you without ambition, am I right? Gotta keep on cooking. (But actually, I feel like it's a huge accomplishment to cook 5-7 dinners a week, just saying). So here's to baby steps towards success. Also, stay tuned this month for my Nesting Series here on the blog! I'll be sharing some of my best home recipes, organizing, spring-cleaning, and homification tips all month long. One of life's simple pleasures is having breakfast with people you love. Not too long ago, I got to do this with my great-grandmother. You need to know two things about her. First, I firmly believe she must have been a red head in her younger years, because she is one of the spunkiest, fiercest people I know. And second, she is 95 and can still get down on her hands and knees to play with her great-great-grandkids. Grandmother has lived through almost all of the major events of the 20th century: she was a young wife in the Great Depression and kept a victory garden during World War II. Her sons served in the military during the Vietnam War. She remembers when astronauts landed on the moon, and the Cold War, and September 11th. Over cherry pie and coffee, on Thanksgiving afternoon this year, she told me about her early life in Kentucky, about not having a car and so hitching a ride out to Illinois when she and her little family decided it was time for a change. She told me about air-raid drills during the wars, about making her own clothes, and about her prize-winning vegetables. In her little home there is a shoebox filled with yellowed newspaper clippings, each announcing a largest pumpkin or sweet potato. When I was little, I would go over to her house to help her can vegetables from the garden. Harvesting, cooking, labeling jars, stacking them by group on the long, sturdy shelves in the basement. Homemade jams--rhubarb, raspberry, apricot, strawberry, blueberry, and blackberry--line the pantry. Laundry hung on a rigged-up clothesline near the washer, plants spilling out of their pots, propped up on ground-level window sills, retro clock ticking away after all these years from its perch on the concrete wall. Working our way around crates and old handmade chairs and straw brooms, we could find Granddaddy's workshop in the darkest, furthest recesses of the basement--ancient looking hoes and plows mixed with sawdust and nails. Finishing pie, stacking plates: Grandmother has invited us over for breakfast the next day. She says she will make everything; I feel bad; we stop at Bojangles for a bucket of biscuits, our meager offering to the meal. When we arrive she has the frying pan on, but hasn't made anything because she wants to take orders: some eggs fried, some scrambled, some over easy. Sausage, bacon, coffee, and those homemade jams already sit on the table, white plates with pastel flowers resting nearby. We wander around the house that hasn’t changed in 40 years. My dad spent his childhood Sundays here--he says that even as a kid, coming here was like stepping into a time machine. Same basement: some of those vegetable soups were probably ones I helped can, the bright red and blue mesh baseball cap, straight out of the 80s, still hangs on a peg by the stairs leading back up to the kitchen. With Grandmother's help we find the Rubbermaid full of my old dolls and little fairy Barbies that I now show Amy and Kate. They are charmed. We find the old Barbie sports car, the quilts I helped wash and stack, and the cars Ben and Sam used to play with.
It's a rare treasure to know someone very old. I may not speak for everyone, but I for one am fascinated with all things historical. I love period dramas, historical novels, learning about the past. It often seems so distant and completely unreal; it's hard to imagine anything ever happening except the very-present now. But conversations with an older person create a tie to the past. These are real people with real stories and memories from a time when things were different. They are living history books, full of experiences we love to watch on TV shows but don’t seem to have the patience to hear in a nursing home room or prolonged chat. When my dad was a young doctor he worked at a little hospital called Edgefield; when I was only three or four he would take me with him on his over-night shifts to visit with Mrs. Hurlong. She and I would prop up with pillows in her hospital bed and munch on trail mix while watching Jeopardy. Around 8:00 my dad would come in and check on her and then carry me back to my sleeping bag on the floor of his room. At the time I mainly cared about the free candy Mrs. Hurlong “shared” with me and the chance to watch a few hours of TV, but now I see that my parents were helping me learn to care about the stories and lives of people not exactly like me. They were trying to help me listen better. Most of the time, I fail. But this particular day I wished we had longer to enjoy the retro rhubarb jam and fried eggs and the conversation seasoned with the wisdom only old age can bring. |
Authorwife to a med student and mama to three under three, seeking the joyful and learning to live by faith. Find me on Instagram and Pinterest or shoot me an email. I'd love to hear from you!
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