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!~
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I remember my first and last night in New York clear as day. The first time was in early high school, and the city was just a stop along the way to our family vacation in New England. Despite the fact that it was 11 PM when we arrived at the hotel and that we would have an early start the next day, my dad wanted to take me to Times Square. We hailed a cab, craning our necks to see out the window as the spider web of constant construction, nighttime garbage piles on the curb, and ever-present mobs of people passed by. Apparently when you give a cab driver directions to “Times Square” they take it upon themselves to drop you literally in the middle of it, at the NYPD station to be exact. If you’ve ever been you know exactly where that is: in the heart of New York, and what feels like the entire world. I was then, and every time since then, mesmerized, dazed, and overwhelmed. The throb of lights and crowds and cars and noise and stores leaves you in a state of semi-panic. But it also pulls you in, the sheer liveliness of it so alluring. I’m no F. Scott Fitzgerald or Joan Didion, so I’ll refrain from trying to describe that je ne sais quoi of New York. But it’s no accident that writers flock to the city, marking success by their ability to encapsulate it in words. My friends know that New York was sometimes a struggle for me—it can be a very difficult place to live. But still, I recognize and have slowly come to love that very special quality about this place, that something that artists spend their whole life striving to capture, that life of the city. My dad treated us to Starbucks and we walked around, gazing up and often stumbling into people. A year or two later we would be back, this time on a perspective student’s weekend for The King’s College. More than even the first visit I was overwhelmed (that’s a common word in my dialogue about New York!). I think it was because this time the prospect of actually living here was on my mind. I remember leaving from my parent’s hotel and walking to a little Italian place, along 1st or 2nd Avenue in Midtown. My parents were cheerful and chatty, and all I could do was sullenly eat breadsticks while scooting my chair in closer and closer to the table because about a million people were buzzing around me and bumping me and didn’t even seem to care. Dinner was bland in comparison to the sheer volume of everything going on around me: dump trucks rumbling by, jack hammers drilling, fast city walker and slow tourists jostling for the same side-walk space, beeps, hums, and oh look my spaghetti is here, thanks. My poor little first-child, introverted, cautious brain was about to explode from over stimulation in just the short 2 hours it had spent in the city. God had a lot of growing up to do in me. And he used New York to do that. The people, places, teachers, and churches I grew to be a part of challenged and shaped me into the adult I now am. New York taught me about patience. I can’t count how many times public transit has “ruined” a morning or made me late to an appointment. New York taught me about confidence and courage. I learned about who I was, apart from my family or past. New York made me tough, and reiterated the importance of hard work. This place gave me true friends who have stuck by me through thick and thin. And New York softened my judgmental spirit by allowing me to interact with so many different people from so many walks of life. I came to sincerely value the fact that people can be themselves in the city, because no matter how crazy you may look, you aren’t the craziest person others have seen that day. There is a delightful anonymity here that allows you to blend in and just be—empty space to figure out who you are and what you are going to do with this life. By the end of my five years here I wasn’t so quick to assume, so quick to be discouraged, so quick to throw my hands up in defeat. Slower to anger, slower to despair, slower to fear. The Lord used a place that I would naturally shy away from to refine me, subduing my faults and sharpening my virtues and talents. I can look back and see how maturity blossomed in the crammed subway rides and stressful shopping trips to Trader Joes, where lines for the check out stretched through the store, out the front door, and down the sidewalk. I can see how those tearful confrontations from dear friends—awful in the moment—showed me how to be a better friend and solidified my confidence in those relationships. I can see how being nudged ever so gently out of my comfort zone and into high stress college workloads, and deadline-oriented jobs, and lots of large social gatherings made me better. Being stretched is uncomfortable. But it’s good. The Lord is gentle in the way he teaches us. Sometimes I felt like I could not bear to live in this place one more day; it felt like too much—too many people, too much filth, TOO MUCH. But then I’d go for a walk to the Hudson River and see the sunset and the waves, or find a shady park bench in Madison Square Park, or witness a small kindness of a stranger, buying a meal for a homeless person, and I would be reminded of the Lord’s faithfulness. He was and is faithful to refresh my spirit. Faithful to provide. Faithful to give wisdom and perspective. Faithful to send people into my life. My last day in the city couldn’t have been more different than my first. My heart was calm. I spent the day with my husband, eating a leisurely brunch, strolling the Upper West Side, and then taking a nap in the sun in Central Park. We watched a kick ball game. We bought roasted nuts from a food stand. We pretended to shop at Bloomingdales but were really just looking for the bathrooms. I felt peaceful and at home, one of many thankful to have fallen in love with this place and had the privilege to call it home.
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. I found myself walking north up 5th Avenue, towards the Park. It was Wednesday, very cold, and by 12:30 had already been a whirl-wind day, the kind of day where it takes you about five minutes to close out all the tabs on your work desktop before heading out to lunch. With unusual decisiveness I had made up my mind to take a long lunch; my mind needed a good airing out. As I walked hurriedly, fur hood pulled close around my ears, I almost ran smack into two girls I used to know at college. Running into people you know in the middle of the city is always a surreal experience. Many an author and movie and song pay tribute to New York's ability to hide you. This feature has its darker side, but it is also one of the things I love best about this place. You can walk happily along without any pretentions; no one cares what you are wearing or doing. Happily alone in the swirl. It shouldn't surprise me by now--I run into people I know all the time. Having lived here almost 5 years (!), I am bound to know a good number of faces. But still. To take a moment to brag, other's I've run into include Karlie Kloss, Taylor Swift's bestie. It was in the West Village, and she was on her post-Sunday-brunch-jog. Her neon Nike sports bra was fierce. At just about this spot--5th and 43rd-- a few years ago I also came across the cast of Glee while they were filming. It must have been in the winter because all I remember is that my hands were freezing when I tried to take a picture. But by far, the coolest person I have run into is Leonardo DiCaprio. Spring semester of last year, hurrying to class, head down like a true New Yorker, avoiding eye contact and buzzing past the slower lane of walkers who insisted on taking pictures of One World Trade Center from every angle. A curb approaching, I glanced up and spotted a very ugly, ragged looking man walking towards me. Dismissing him, I eyed his companion: a leggy, tottering blond with a smirk and a latte (not from Starbucks). "She's just the type Leo would date," I thought. Honest. It dawned on me. I was so close I could have touched him, which I did. Just joking. Instead I ran all the way to school, yelling to the security guard and all fellow students my good luck, and finally collapsing in a tizzy at Student Services, where Laura and Kendall helped me hyperventilate. (EDITOR’S NOTE: It must have been when he was filming The Revenant. It was his greasy beard that was so off-putting and veiled his otherwise lovely appearance). I was so flustered that I didn't have the wherewithal to snag a picture. Apparently in the time between freshman and senior year my celebrity-sighting-response-skills have decreased. Below, taken a few months after moving to New York, my shot of the wonderful Hugh Jackman, caught exiting a play on Broadway. I had just left The Million Dollar Quartet, and he was coming out of some talk show. I got him to look in my direction by screaming, creatively, "HUGH JACKMAN----LOOK AT ME!" But I digress. Despite the desperate cold, the city looked fine this week. Clear, brilliant, and fast. On my lunch breaks I ate yummy left overs at my desk, then darted out for brisk walks, sometimes on Park, sometimes on 5th, and sometimes even all the way to 3rd. I discovered a lovely French patisserie on a side street near the Library. Delightfully, a macaroon shop opened across the street from work. An old man gave up his seat on the train for me on Friday, so I got to read my book and it was a treat. Another day, a sweet stranger and I shared an inside joke on the train when I made an "I give up" face at the pushing throngs and she thought it was hilarious. And to top it all off, I have--all at once--some amazing food in the fridge: roasted butternut squash soup with apple, curry, and bacon; spaghetti with creamy meat sauce; and homemade tikki masala. It's been a good week. Here's to the next, in which I will try to remember the little things I have to be grateful for. It's not going to be the red season for much longer—that's the first thing making me blue. We went into the flagship Yankee Candle store here in Williamsburg yesterday, and as I was sticking my nose into every single Christmas scent I started tearing up because "everything is almost over." One in particular ("Frosted Magic Forest," or something like that) smelled exactly like the boxes my mom used to keep Christmas decorations in. Pulling those boxes out of the attic, stacking them on the dining room table, cracking open their lids and letting the mothball and candle smell trickle out—these are some of my favorite memories. I always have a huge letdown after Christmas. It's the curse of letting yourself get very involved, the whole "love hurts" phenomenon. Christmas for me is the time to be a kid again; I refuse to check email, hardly look at my phone, and try as hard as I can to recapture the imagination I once had, when the nativity set came to life and the cranberry sprigs in the Christmas tree were my North Pole Fairy wands. The imagination part gets a little harder every year. Now the few days leading up to Christmas morning look like laying around the fire sipping coffee, playing far too many strategy games, and talking, talking, talking. It's such a blessed time for our family, especially now that Ben and I both live away. It's the once or twice a year when we are all together and we can re-ground in a more meaningful way than the catch up on the phone. Leaving this is hard. This year in particular. Ben and my mom left yesterday for a month-long mission trip to east Africa. Ben is our happy guy and, well, it's just weird to not have mom in the house. I'm mainly feeling sorry for myself (we only got four days together!), because I really am excited for them and so proud of what they are doing. Ben has done an incredible job as the leader of the team, coordinating a group of peers from his college and planning a sports camp and VBS in partnership with a local church. My superstar mom is going along as the leader emeritus, providing adult wisdom. They both have such a heart of service for other people, never batting an eye at any inconvenience, big or small. It's certainly blue to not have them here during my last few days of vacation, but it is a joy and privilege to have a family who constantly encourages you to love others better. Their absence has made the house empty this morning. It's very, very grey (as it has been for the past two weeks, another major cause of the blues), soggy, and quiet. Growing up with a large family makes me wary of the quiet. Happiness means a constant rumble. I haven’t written since Thanksgiving, and barely read, the two markers, I'm coming to find out, by which I judge my failure or success in the Well Rounded Department. I have the excuse that work between Thanksgiving and Christmas was extremely busy and any free time was filled with holiday prep, but I'm tired of making excuses. There are so many things I want to change this coming year. Do you know that I have basically failed to exercise my entire college career? I'm serious. My excuse here is that living in New York necessitates an active lifestyle, which is certainly true to an extent. I do end up walking at least a mile or more a day, but for five years now that little, pathetic excuse has kept me from kicking my butt into gear. My one major New Year's resolution is to make exercising a routine in my life in 2016. Other goals include: 1. Actually writing. Keeping this blog going. 2. Actually reading. 3. Being content where we are. Chris and I are SO ready to begin the med school phase of our lives. Many of you know the story, but the short version is that Chris' senior year of college saw a heart and future career change from law school to med school. By the time Chris starts med school (Lord willing) in the summer of 2017, it will have been a three-year endeavor just to prepare to get in. He has been plugging away at all the prerequisite classes that he never took in college, fitting in clinical hours, initiating and working on research projects, and being an all around star. God has taught us so much about trusting his timing, even when it seems to be taking too long. My prayer is that Chris and I finish out our time in New York well, that our choices will enable Chris to flourish as he prepares to take the MCAT in May, and that as we begin to apply to schools this summer, we will hopefully trust in the Lord's plan, knowing he has the perfect place picked for our family. This was supposed to be a post about my Christmas blues. I think I misidentified the weight on my heart when I first sat down to write. I'm not sad so much as expectant and a little nervous. I've enjoyed such a wonderful Christmas season that letting it go and facing the real world again feels daunting. The next few months will be a lot of hard work—my job is stressful, Chris works full time and basically takes classes full time (it's a miracle), and now we are adding hard-core MCAT study into the mix. We are longing for the warm weather of spring and the start of a new adventure. I pray for faithfulness in the mundane. Faithfulness empowered by the Holy Sprit and allotted to me by the moment, not even by the hour or day. Many days it feels like I can only fathom being faithful in the very moment I am in, not even able to consider being gracious on the commute home or cooking dinner with a smile. I pray for joy to season moments. I pray for a heart of love for others that overpowers my love of self. I want to look up rather than in. This year was a year of growth. Chris and I came into our own as a family. We got fired up about debt-free living and implemented a sound financial plan that is helping us save and spend wisely; we started figuring how to run a home and started our first full time jobs post-college; we celebrated our first anniversary and bought a new car. The year went fast. It was hard. It was good. On this grey end-of-year day, I speak one of my favorite lines from a great Puritan prayer in The Valley of Vision, “Give me summer weather in my heart.” Sometimes you just have to stop and smell the roses, or, in my case...the kimchi fried rice balls. See, the 33rd St. PATH train that connects New Jersey to New York lets out at Herald Square. The same Herald Square you see on TV every Thanksgiving, the little tuft of open space between Macys and Victoria's Secret, where Santa stops to wave to the throngs of parade-watchers in the bitter cold. I have been all over the five boroughs of New York and have lived here almost five years and can honestly say that this patch of street—from 33rd to 35th along 5th avenue—is the most awful place in the entire city. Awful for the sole fact that it is so mind-bogglingly congested. It does not matter what time of day or how bad the weather—every single tourist that has ever been or ever will be seems to flock to these sacred streets. The problem is that there is more to New York than just tourists. Hello! I am trying to get to work. Take your selfie stick elsewhere please. I spent last Winter and Spring thinking: okay, at least this is as bad as it can get. Piles of snow and slush? Check. Thousands of people blocking my path? Check. Biting winds, 20 MTA buses, and constant sirens? We got this. And then the summer came and someone in the Urban Beautification, Revitalization, and Development Department decided that what the Square really needed was a little TLC. In the form of a food stall village, smack in the middle of the sidewalk. Now, I am the first person to love a good food stall, especially ones that have to meet the extremely high expectations of New York's foodie-hearted populous. But in my day-to-day life, I care more about efficiency than cool factor. I just want to walk to work without needing to strategically plan every step. So, I spent a few months inwardly grumbling, wondering when the food stalls would leave and begrudging the extra crowds they attracted. Now on top of tourists, my daily grind included 1) weaving in and out of lines of people trying to decide what to eat and 2) resisting the temptation to buy alluring snacks at 5:35 when I'm starving at the end of the day. But this past Wednesday, for some reason, I stopped, letting others rush past me on the race to the train. It was already dark, another thing I had hated ever since September. But I guess my newly darkened homeward commute painted a new picture for me. The literal shifted perspective made me notice the twinkling cafe lights hanging from the trees, the smoke curling up from the roofs of the stands, and most of all the smell of the kimchi fried rice balls. Pausing for two seconds to take it all in, I became a tourist in my own city all over again. It’s really beautiful isn’t it? New York is a world of extremes. Sometimes it’s the best place on earth. It’s New York, the gateway to the world, and you cannot believe you have the privilege to be living here. Other times, it’s the most inconvenient, crowded, expensive, strange place you’ve ever been and you can’t believe you were insane enough to think you could live here. I think a true New Yorker is the person who can honestly say “I love it and I hate it.” The key is just to make sure you keep falling in love with it every so often.
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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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