like a phoenix rises from the ashes

...so does our house rise up out of the ground. ok that is a bit melodramatic, but in my about 2 minute research of the very reliable internet on the origin of that phrase, i have learned it is sometimes used to mean "learn from your mistakes" and "pick yourself up and dust yourself off and keep going". i could and might write a book on learning from your mistakes, and nobody has dusted themselves off more than chris. it also refers to ancient roman funeral pyres, but we aren't to that stage of the project. yet. i wouldn't totally count out the probability of us pushing something out into the middle of the pond and setting it on fire.

so we are finally coming OUT of the ground, instead of going into it. whoo hoo!

as i understand it, the block work is about half way done at this point. the continuous wall of block in the right corner, is the beginnings of where our bedroom will be. my mother told a dirty joke about hallways while she was inspecting this part of the house. if you know her, you probably know the joke. if you don't know her, well you are better off not knowing the joke.

a close up of the bedroom. and no, i am not telling the joke.

i am honestly flabbergasted that this piece of trash continues to remain on site. chris must have some sort of special plans for it later.

the littlest building inspector said it all looked good to her. she can't be trusted tho. she had a bag full of halloween candy and a pumpkin headed flashlight. so she probably wasn't totally on task.

obsessive? who me?

while we are all anticipating an exciting house post soon, here's a little of what i do during the times i am waiting to see progress. which is often.

i could look at color samples all the time. i look at the fan deck no less than say at least 5 times a day. pure joy to me.

do block layers work with umbrellas?

i am pretty sure they don't. which means nothing is happening at the job site right now. there is block on site, so that is good. but i am ready for the house to start coming OUT of the ground, as opposed to going in it. which thus far is what is happening. of course, all of this is completely necessary, so i am told.

all of the footings have been poured, and there is such a maze of re bar and string that we could probably host our own halloween type maze thing out there. which is a thought. also notice, gasp there is some trash out there in the middle of the house site. if it wasn't like some sort of agility course out there, chris would have had that picked up before it hit the dirt good. he is adamant about a clean site. i am surprised he hasn't been out there with some sort of pole contraption to hook that box and get it out of there.

people have told us that the hardest part of building a house is getting it started and getting it finished. and what i hear out of that is the hardest part of building a house, is building a house.

b.l.t. and i wanted to put our initials in here really bad. but we restrained ourselves as we may have gotten into some sort of trouble. its strict out here i tell you. strict.

one step ahead of where we were before we took 3 steps back and started over

so now we are actually ahead again. for a day or two. enjoy it while we can i say. i am sure the dosey doe will start again soon.

so the footings have been dug, and rebar has been installed.

this is for the garage. but the same idea applies for the rest of the house. i do not understand any of the words i just typed, or what all this stuff actually does.

i do know that this is the view of my driveway as soon as you turn off the road.

and that now we are in compliance with the building inspector. the big one. not the little one. we will never be in compliance with her.

i realize these aren't the super exciting house shots you may have been expecting. but in my defense, there isn't a heck of a lot to take pictures of at this point. chris and i are considering boxing matches on friday nights to determine key elements. we will charge admission. for example: chris vs. jamie in the kitchen cabinet match. then we will have good pictures to post too. its a win win for everybody. except the loser of the boxing match. so, chris. i am very determined to get what i want.

in light of recent events

we do not regret to inform you that we can no longer accept opinions at the job site without at least two of the following: 1) a specific request 2) a monetary contribution 3) a donation of back breaking labor out of the kindness of your heart. if you do not fall into two of these categories, then we cannot accept your opinion at this time due to a system overload. we are not working to get this glitch repaired, so please be prepared to hold onto your opinion for some time, or until you qualify under the above restrictions.

on a lighter note... i just ordered some fabulous fabric. ok ok, i have sort of a fabric addiction and buy it for no apparent reason. but i do have a project in mind for this AND i have had my eye on it forever! it is vintage french ticking material. which is what they used to make mattresses out of. i am under the impression this DOES NOT come with bed bugs tho, in case you were worried for me.

also, we should hopefully (keep your fingers crossed) see some progress this week, and if so i will post pictures from that. i know you are hanging on my every word here. but i think bo summed up the progress thus far the best in the following recounted conversation:

bo: "mama, i want you to put those pictures back in my room that you took out the other day."

me: "maybe when we move to the NEW house we can put those pictures in your NEW room."

bo: "mama, that is not a house. its just a dirt pit."

i mean, you really cannot argue with that kind of logic.

sweeter things

even though building a house is a terrible, just terrible idea, and i do not know who came up with such torture, there are some perks to it. one of them is this sweetest little bedside table we got for bo's room. she will be getting it for Christmas, so nobody rat me out before then. it makes me quite happy. and i hope it will her as well. how awesome are the little birdie handles?
you can check out the process of making it here Rocky Bella: Before & After: Pink Antiqued Side Table. maybe order something for yourself!!!

another thing that makes me giddy is that they are laying the house out, once again. and as it would not be my first choice to lay it out twice, at least they are working. so everybody keep your fingers crossed that it takes this time. one thing i have decided is that our philosophy on this house will be "throw it up there and see if it sticks". its how we are apparently approaching the lay out. and also how i will approach the interior design of the house with chris. just sort of mention it, see if it sticks. if it doesn't, i will throw it back in a few days. eventually he will hear something so much he will just begin to think it's one of his thoughts and bam the half bath is authentic pink. my other philosophy on this house is from mad tv's "king burger" skit. where you can "have it your way, but don't get crazy."

and finally one last thing that makes me supah happy. is my little design boards. i'm no professional interior designer, so if you are (suzy) please don't tell me i did it wrong. they don't scan well, for instance "clear skies" isn't really white more of a pale blue. but you get the idea....

so maybe the living room will look something close to this. i am going to put it under chris' pillow at night. you know, for osmosis and such.

the opposite of progress

whats that you ask? i don't really want to assign a specific word to it like regress, backwards, backing up, recession, not moving forward, go back, doing something you already did, paying somebody some more money, etc. i will just say it's basically whats happening at the ole job site. i also don't want to discuss the whys of this recent turn of events. lets just say when chris broke the news to me i turned into what i can only assume resembled the love child of yosemite sam and the tasmanian devil. there was a lot of me spinning around, kicking dirt and saying things like "frackin rackin no good lily livered so and so" except i used the real words. oh yea. so its one step forward, ten to twenty steps back. its like the texas two step out there.

the progress thus far looked something like this...

notice chris is scratching his head, maybe that was a sign of things to come....

and the littlest building inspector thinks something seems amiss as well.

ah, oh well. nothing to do now, but to get it done. and so it begins again, for like the second time. i'm not sure how many times you are supposed to start building the same house, but in my experience its at least twice.

big day

you know what happens if you go to the insurance agency, lawyer, bank, building inspector, back to the lawyer and then to a building supply company? this is the exact right combination for the money truck to show up and for you to get a building permit. now the truck will back up to you and then when you go to open the door to get your money, it will pull up just a little bit. and the driver will laugh and laugh. then hes like "ok go ahead, get your money." so you go back up to the truck and he pulls waaay farther up. and he just giggles. and so forth and so on, until you are at your wits end. and the driver then just gives up and gives you the money, or else he is going to have to drive you over to the mental asylum. so this is pretty much what happens. oh and you need to go to the lawyers and sign about one bazillion things. then you can have the monies.


so we are officially building a house!!!! i would be super excited, if i weren't so tired already. it will sink in soon i guess.


so on to the more important things, like appliances. i am getting this particular range based on two things. 1) its a double oven. which is tres importante for being able to cook supper and bake chris' all important everyday batch of chocolate chip cookies. 2) it has a sabbath mode. a sabbath mode people! from what i can understand this means that you can set that thing to NOT OPERATE on sundays. for reals. sorry chris, i'm not sure what the deal could be, but this oven just won't cook on sunday. wow. (correct me if i am wrong on this if you know).

light at the end of the tunnel

when i was growing up my mom used to (what am i talking about? she still does) tell this story about when she worked for the Department of Family & Children Services, in the Child Support Recovery division. it went something like this.... during a meeting with a non-paying father they are trying to set up a plan for him to quit shirking his duties, and in the course of that he tells my mom "miss, i mean its like i keep seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, but when i get to the end of the tunnel its my ex-wife standing there holding the flashlight." we are pretty sure he was dead serious. which makes it funnier. but it is kind of how i feel right now. its like i can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but when i get to the end of the tunnel its really just the light reflecting off the pen im supposed to use to "sign here" for like the millionth time.

i can't focus on the fact that we are going to get a house out of all of this, because of all the other complicated mess that goes with it. i keep jumping through all these hoops and going here and running there, and i totally forget that at the end there will be a house.

a house for our little girl to grow up in. maybe she will remember this house as fondly as i remember the one i grew up in. which coincidentally we got to walk through this past weekend. luckily we are friends with the people that bought it from us some seventeen years ago. seventeen years?!?!?!? wow.

its the best.house.ever.