Paint Cans and Roaches on Stilts

Things continue to get interesting. For example, Saturday night. I get a knock on the door. Who is it? Oh, it's the police. They ask for some identification and start to write a report. When I ask what is going on, they proceed to tell me that a "witness" on the street claims that someone from this apartment had thrown paint out the window and vandalized cars below. Seriously? I then tell them, "I don't mean to sound like an idiot, but I just moved in two days ago and I don't even know how to open the window. Do you want to come in and inspect?" They say yes and then leave but on their way out, see out of the corner of their eye a huge bag of.....you guessed it, paint cans. So then they knock again, convinced they found the culprit. They proceed to open every single can to make sure it wasn't recently used. I think I was vindicated, but not entirely sure.
Then we have Sunday. Sunday was actually wonderful. I was invited to church by Clay and Lyn Cook. Really enjoyed hearing Tim Keller and then we had a picnic in Central Park. That really was so fun and it was a beautiful day. I stayed there most of the afternoon.

Then this week couldn't begin without some drama. I see the largest cockroach known to man run through our apartment. My roommates said they had never had one in their entire 4 years of living here. Awesome. Somehow I summon the insects. Of course it made it's new home in my room and I literally walked around in high heels every time I was in my room. (Somehow mentally it felt better being higher off the ground than the roach just in case I had to smoosh him.) It also had high heels or stilts or something. It was the tallest roach I've ever seen. But enough of that gross subject. Let's move on to more trouble with the law.
We have our fall retreat this weekend and I was asked to rent a car to drive people. No problem. I can drive a Uhaul through the city, so sure a small car, let's do this. Well, I apply for ZipCar, the one that everyone uses. Yeah......I am denied membership because of my "poor driving record." I don't know anyone who has been denied before. The only ticket I ever got was almost two years ago in a speed trap and I guess the cop gave me reckless driving on top of the ticket. ZipCar encouraged me to try again next year. Sure.....Enterprise, however, was more forgiving.

I don't even have enough time or space to write you all the other things that have happened. Every day I feel so lost and incompetent. I'm reminded so much of how God describes us as sheep and that is exactly how I feel. I'm this bouncy little sheep who's left the normal pasture and is so completely lost. It really is such a comforting fact reading Psalm 23 and John 10 to fully see in a new perspective how Christ is my Good Shepherd. "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand."

New Home, New Life

A lot of people have been asking about how it has been the first few days. Thank you so much for caring. To be honest, I haven't really wanted to post anything since I guess I sort of had this expectation along with everyone else that it was going to be so exciting and amazing and I didn't want to disappoint anyone to tell the truth that it has been quite the opposite. Stressful and lonely are the two words that I would use to describe my time so far. From driving in the city, attempting several times to parallel park my u-haul, moving it multiple times to avoid a $250 ticket, waiting in the car alone for a few hours for the movers to come, movers trying and failing multiple times to fit the sofa in the apt, major miscommunication with people already, I could go on. I guess my expectations were it would be really exciting at first, then get hard, then get better. I'm just having to adjust and realize it has been really crappy at first and it has no where to go but up. There have definitely been some silver linings for sure. Brenda, the policewoman. She held up traffic for me for over half and hour to help me parallel park. I don't really know why I tried so hard since I can't even parallel my Jeep, but she eventually got in the U-haul herself and paralleled it for me. Incredibly kind woman. Then the sofa, while it was a huge headache and very stressful trying to figure out what to do with it, eventually I called the sofa doctor. Oh yes, that is his name. These 4 guys came over and literally took the back off the couch and put it back together again. Pretty amazing.

I think the thing that is the hardest is realizing I don't have friends yet. The best I can say to describe it is living in NYC is like everyone is running a marathon- no one is really going to slow down to teach you how to run and ask you to run with them- you just kind of have to start and I guess along the way, you do make friends and realize you are somewhat athletic. I know the Lord has me here for a reason and I do feel His presence in my life right now, it's just been a rocky beginning to my new life here.