Friday, February 29, 2008

Houston...WE HAVE A CONTRACT!

We are


Jump...



Jump....



Jumping for JOY!!!

After much fretting, worrying and wringing of hands, we have a contract! We should be closing sometime around the 26th. Well, as long as everything goes well with the inspector. Doh! something else to worry about..but for today we feel like...

THE KING OF THE WORLD!
or at least king of the dirt pile...




Sunday, February 24, 2008

I smell change in the air ...

What's that I see on the horizon?




Is it?

Could it be?

YES!

Ladies and Gentlemen, work may NOW COMMENCE! The facilites have arrived!


This is a view from the very back corner of our lot. Great view huh?

Last week we were waiting on the soils report to come in. Charlie is having his company engineer the slab. We finally got the report and then the engineer at Charlie's company called him and said that he couldn't tell if the Geo tech was using the 1996 protocol or the 2000 protocol and depending on whether .........

What I heard was "Bill doesn't like the soils report and doesn't want to do it."

That was about the time steam started shooting out my ears. I don't know if you can make this long story short, but luckily Charlie knows a "guy". And by Friday evening we had a drawing of an engineered slab.

Then "Voila!" Saturday morning, Port-A-Potty!





Saturday, February 23, 2008

Just in case you thought I was joking...




Real live Tiger cubs! Can you beleive that? I really didn't believe it myself when they brought home the flyers. Then I wasn't sure whether to let them do it or not. What if nobody else let their kids take a picture with the tiger? Or worse, what if every kid in class had their picture taken with the tigers and mine didn't? (You loose a lot of good information by sitting in your car in the carpool lane instead of chatting at the doorway.)


AND...I have a very exciting new update to share. It will have to be tomorrow though, because when we went to visit the dirt today, I forgot to take my camera!
Stay tuned ....

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

House Building 101


Our lot.




Me and my Mini-contractor after the dirt was delivered.



Me and my Mini-contractor after the dirt was smooshed.
(Your intuition is right, if you keep tuning in you might learn something really technical about house building.)





My Mini-contractor makes a lighting suggestion.





We Lobby for our cause over pasta.




Mr. Moneybags and his overly hammy co-hort.




Friday, February 08, 2008

Blog? Do I have a Blog?

Hadn't written a thing in so long, I couldn't remember my password...

We've been at Mom's all this time. Her computer connection is SOOOO SLOOOOWW.
How slow is it?
I'm glad you asked.
It's so slow that by the time I get logged on to the internet, I can't remember what I signed on to do. I get temporary amnesia anytime I'm sitting in front of the dang thing. Charlie brings his laptop home at night, but by then I'm too tired to think.

I'm too tired to think because it takes a lot of damn energy to sit around the house and not have a damn thing to do and not your own house to do it in. There I said it.

No. We still don't have a house.
Nope. Not even a frame.
Uh-un, not even a foundation.
Ace and I still go out every couple of days to look at the dirt.
The dirt's still there.

We actually closed on the construction loan last Wednesday. We finalized the lighting plan and I changed my mind about brick three times. I've bought all my plumbing fixtures on ebay. (Don't tell my builder, I'm gonna spring that one on him at just the right moment. That moment being when he tells me something else I want is gonna cost me more money. "Oh no it won't! Because here's your plumbing fixtures. So move that money over to the appliance package! Bitch!)
I'll be blogging in the "stream of consiousness" style until my brain returns sometime this summer, after I move into my house.
I've been to Lowe's and am marking out my plan to undercut him on the lighting package as well. Hey, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do, he gave me two thousand bucks for my appliances. What am I supposed to do with that? He's definitely leaving me with too much time on my hands.

I find myself living in the twilight zone when it comes to the kids schools. The twilight zone where John is on the A-B honor roll and Peaches and Melee' are having their portraits made with live Tiger cubs. And where I spend an hour and a half of every day dropping off or sitting in the carpool lanes. There is a 5 minute window in the morning that if you are out the door before...smooth sailing, 5 minutes later and you're screwed. I have to go an entirely different way or risk having to sit through the stop light 5 times before I can proceed to the bottle neck at the elementary which I have to pass by in order to get John to Junior High first, then turn back around and return to the cluster ** that is the elementary school construction zone. And that is with my mother taking Melee' to the Intermediate. Me and my hoity toity suburban are a significant contributing factor to the problem of global warming. And my hoity toity suburban is staying filthy all the time because I live in the country where there's dirt everywhere, and even if you took the car to the car wash, it wouldn't matter anyway because the first county road you turn down (and they're ALL county roads) is going to get red dirt all over the car anyway. Plus we're making special trips out weekly to VISIT the dirt, and get the dirt on our shoes, and track it back into my white and tan truck, and hopefully it all falls off there instead of waiting to come off when we get home to mothers.

We're in Houston this weekend for Zoe's birthday party. We thought we'd have a nice relaxing weekend in our very own space. Till I checked the email and saw we have a showing tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. and an open house Sunday afternoon. Everybody keep your fingers crossed for a full price offer. Momma needs a new pair of matching stainless ovens.