Many months ago I felt a dying need to distract myself from our impending move into our new home. A frustration that so many things were out of my hands and I was loosing control over something so important to our family. 

Today I was knocked down unexpectedly and so personally that I felt lost. It was a feeling that I have only felt once since moving into our new home and unexpectedly it's lead me back here to the blog I started so long ago. A place to write and feel out loud. A place where I remember how low I was with doubt and fear. Now looking back, knowing that for these months in between, I grew strong and I found HOME. 

Today, I heard a mother plea for more time with her child. A cry for help to make that happen and immediately instead of fighting for her, I became jealous. Why should she get that time when I don't have it with my own children? Why should she make memories with her child when my children are making memories without me?

Angry at myself for feeling jealously and judgment on her, I grew even more hurt. I was a single mom, I had to do it myself. Sure, it wasn't for a long time but there were days that seemed like they would never end. It was hard. I didn't get a break. I didn't get a pass. 

After calling a friend who promptly gave me permission to feel my feelings and remind me that I am not a bad mom for working full time, she said to me, "maybe you are mad because you don't think you can ask for time off. Maybe you should."
She went on to push me that "me" time is OK and it doesn't make me a bad wife. A day off is OK and it doesn't make me a bad employee. A day off without kids doesn't make me a bad mother. 

I think that I was most upset with myself that I didn't want the time off. I wouldn't take it if it was offered and I didn't understand why I wouldn't grab that time and run. 

So I went back to work. I sat at my desk and started making things easier for other people. Organizing meetings, pulling tasks off their desk onto mine and thinking of the details that I knew no one else had. All listening to music, a soft rock christian station that was gently comforting me. 

Softly, one of my bosses came to visit me in my office and asked if the meeting was hard. "It was", I said. Explaining with minimal words that I hadn't expected it to be, but that it was. Choking a tear (because there is no crying in work), I thanked him for acknowledging that it was a difficult conversation. I then continued to work.

While reviewing our website traffic I noticed a social media post about a turquoise table. I stopped. I watched. I cried. 

{Watch it HERE if you haven't seen this video)

After seeing the  story of how a woman was nudged by God to paint a table turquoise then plant it in her suburban front yard and how it changed her life changed mine. Suddenly, I realized that I didn't want extra time off because that wasn't my calling. My nudge was to stay at work because that is where I am doing God's work. That is where he is working on me. My children are OK because God gave me children who didn't need me there. They are doing his work outside of our home and he is doing his through the people we have entrusted to watch them and teach them. 


With the tears streaming down my face that I had previously tried so hard to hold back I looked around at my TURQUOISE office and prayed, "thank you". A soft whisper screaming praise that in that moment HE reminded me that I am where I need to be even if I don't know why and that I need to support her. She is on his path and we may go about it differently, but we are participants in each other's journey.

My daily obsession

The week of my birthday was quick a week. Usually I am obsessed with dinner plans and getting as much "me" time as I can capture trying my hardest to bottle it for the remaining year. HOWEVER this year a you know, I was waiting for a house. The one day delay didn't panic me. The email saying that two pieces of the house were somewhere stuck in traffic didn't freak me out. The morning they put the house together and there was no crane, half the house was missing and when it did arrive, it was all stuck in the soft dirt of our new driveway- I was fine. I did need to take a breather at one point, not gonna lie. One piece of the house was resting in the back corner and the front, just arrived from traffic, was being pulled down the driveway by a bulldozer. The crane was ready to do its thing. The issue was that the bulldoze didn't go deep enough with the front of the house and the back of the house was too close so there was a little space issue. And when I say little space issue, I mean it all had to be moved before anything could happen. Eek, I had needed some French fries. French fries can fix an anything!

When I returned after my burger an fries (I don't think they sell just French fries, mine always seem to have burger on the side), everything was ready again. Each hour, another piece of the he house was set an we were one step closer to our home. By the time I left we had a house. I returned at the end of the he day an there was a roof and an almost chimney too.

This was the start if my new obsession, nightly visits to the house.

Just days out

I am a bit of a planner. That might be the understatement of the year and not only can I admit it, I embrace it. I think that there is nothing better (OK- almost nothing) better than seeing and planning anything start to finish in my head a million times then executing it!

It's happening. After months of Pinterest planning, our house is leaping off the computer and into a 3 dimensional- PHYSICAL house. I can stand in our basement. Holy crap, how did that happen?

It was kind of like finding out we were pregnant with another child. It's clearly too late to turn back but you wonder if that moment of pleasure was a good decision.  It's years of a commitment. There's a foundation and a plan for a yard and driveway where we will drive up to our garage and get this.... there is even plumbing. At some point someone put in a well and planted their sign at the road as an advertisement. Shit just got real.

This is worst than Christmas Eve

I have never been one to love anticipation. As a child my grandmother helped this by sending elaborate advent calendars for Christmas. Each day we would move the mouse in my mother's traditional advent calendar. It had no bells, no whistles and no gifts. To us kids it was merely the way we kept track of what day it was in order to use my grandmother's advent calendar.

It was no run of a mill advent calendar either. It came in a long rectangle box that had hidden small boxes that dropped like a pez dispenser for each day. Some days there would be money or tick tacks stuck in the small box BUT OTHER DAYS... there would be a number written by hand on a small folded piece of paper. That was a jack pot day. It meant that the gift intended for that day was too big to fit in the box. We would rush to the large sacks sent with our names written in sharpie over the stomach of a snowman and find that number tucked inside. There were small gifts and large gifts, heavy and light. All wrapped in tissue paper- each person their own color to ensure there was no mix up.

SERIOUSLY. Is there any question why I hate to wait??? I blame all adult issues on this annual process of our Christmas count down.

The house "arrives" this week. The week of my birthday where I am usually looking in sock drawers and hidden closet corners for any trace of my birthday gift because have I mentioned that I hate to wait? My husband as caught on and now just has all gifts locked up at work but I still have a need to at least try and discover the mystery. I have no interest in my birthday this year because the next day, our house arrives. It will be sitting on our land- EEAKKKK! And for sure that is something I won't find in a hidden closet corner.

How am I managing with this anticipation you ask? I have started my own little advent calendar. I started with a list of wishes for each new space and have started crossing off the little trinkets and sparkles that will help make our space our own. Delivered to my office. There may not be a burlap bag with a felt snowman but there sure is the sense that something big is coming.

I know it all sounds terribly materialistic but I should mention that gifts weren't the best thing on Christmas Eve. It was our big Italian family gathering, eating and singing praise for the birth of Jesus. It was the one night where we laughed until we crashed then woke up and did it all over again Christmas morning. I can't wait for the holidays and laughter to fill our new home!

I need patience. I need to sweep.

Remember when you were in college you lived in a cement brick building? I lived in one on the island of Guam too. They were built to withstand wind and high turn over because no one stayed for very long. We are living in one now. Ironically it used to be military housing when our local base was operating. I feel like we can be hit by a typhoon any moment now-it's even storm season. This is me not complaining.

I am sure there are very nice people in the apartments around us but I hate it here. The apartment feels dirty and buggy. I think there is a dead animal in our walk in storage closet but sometimes the smell comes from the upstairs bathroom so maybe it's an issue with the venting. Did you hear me just complain about my walk in storage closet and upstairs bathroom, because we have two bathrooms I had to identity the smelly one. In our home we just sold there was no walk in closet even in the small master and one bathroom for 4.5 people. I have no reason to complain, so this is me not complaining.

Each night we quickly check on the progress of the house to see what they have been doing and I am not sure if it's helping or hurting my will to live. Tonight there was a hole next to the house. The dirt around the house had been filled in some and then where the garage will be, a giant hole had begun. If I were getting daily (at this point I would settle for weekly) updates I would have know what was happening. But I don't so I don't- but I won't complain.

There is a sign by the road about water and sewer so I am guessing something happened there too. Nice to know we'll have water. This is literally going to send me over the edge. Between my dirty, living out of boxes apartment and the lack of daily updates- I might burst. At least the walls will wipe clean easily.

This is me not complaining because I know that it hasn't taken long to get to this point and it won't take long to reach the end. I know I need patience and I know I need to sweep.

A foundation footer is perhaps one of the most critical aspects of the house. It's almost always the first building element that contacts the soil that the house rests upon. 

Our footers were pored today. On our family walk around the lot today we admired the work of our amazing strangers. They cleaned things up and then put concrete in wooden forms that outline our home. EEEKKK! We can see it. We pointed out the view of our daughter's window that she'll grow up looking at when her first boyfriend calls her and she sits on the phone listing to him breath. (Unless that's so old fashion and she peaks at him through her Google Glass.) And the view our oldest will look upon - watching the driveway because he's so nosy that he must know who is coming and going always.  This is where they will form their vision.

So our pile is now the smallest of a structure that will grow into a large dream come true. (Too sentimental? I can't help it, I'm gushy.)

Good thing Barbie has spectacular taste!

Where did the pile go? In a flash the pile of timbers sitting where our house was staked out with corner pink ribbons was swallowed. Literally, it was there Friday night and on Saturday night, it was gone.

Have I mentioned we are obsessed? It's like the time laps movie that we watched nightly for 6 months was happening on our land and we had front row seats. So of course we again pulled the kids down to the lot to see the Saturday progress- did you know they work on Saturdays? I felt so bad that they were taking a day away from their own homes and families to help create a place for us. How humbling! If I had their address I would send them all a balloon. (Cause who doesn't love a balloon? They are fund for all ages. It always becomes an Olympic volleyball that transforms you into a bon-a-fide athlete- even if you're three.)

Earlier someone had told us that the hole would look small. AND IT DID. Start panicking. I didn't think that we were building a mansion. I know that there are limitations but it really did look like we would need to move Barbie's furniture in to ensure there was room for us and our stuff. Good thing she has spectacular taste!

REVIEW & CONFIRM- done

There's a whole in my bucket... It keeps playing in my head over and over again. We got the call on Friday night that we needed to REVIEW THE LOT PLACEMENT. Ummm, OK. As soon as I Google what that means. What does one look for to review the lot? And really what would happen if I said it was off?

After a rush dinner at the Nines, we tromped all three kids to the lot and REVIEWED THE LOT. We walked around the pile of trees stacked up in the center of the clearing. Turned our heads side to side as if the side of the pile would shift or look different if we squinted. Yup, the lot looked fine. It was a dirt clearing filled with lumber in the middle of the perfect wooded lot. And with a quick call to confirm, it was settled.

That's how you REVIEW THE LOT PLACEMENT.

Panic postponed until further notice

My email to our realtor and builder was short and sweet today. "When should I panic?" I was happy to find a quick response with "not yet".

I knew there would be things that would happen along the way. This process of building a home was new. We don't own the land. We won't see the house until it is almost complete and standing on the land we don't own and I have to hope it all looks like my Pinterest board on faith. Good thing I am a faithful woman. 

But the news that the land that we didn't own may have some "paperwork" issues threw me overboard. I was so stressed out that I literally couldn't pee comfortably. Don't ask. So it was a valid question of when the real panic should start. I didn't want to start too soon. Premature panic isn't good for anyone, it just turns old and annoying. Too late and it seems like you don't care. I needed a signal. Smoked signals or a bird call-cah-cah, cah-cah!

The issue other than the obvious was that the entire budget was finished. The floor plan, the garage, the counters- all based on this lot. If it was no longer an option, we would need to start back at the beginning. THE BEGINNING. 

While trying to ignore the unraveling of my sanity, I was interrupted by my sweet, always right husband with a text, "shit just got real" caption above our driveway. Our new driveway on the land we don't own for a house that lives on Pinterest. But only the driveway was real and had an excavator on it and trees were gone. It was the start. Panic postponed until further notice.

We were prepared and ready...just clueless.

I do not negotiate. I will pay more money so I don't have to make eye contact with you...unless it is something I really care about. But I wanted out of the house. I was ready to give them the pick of my well groomed litter- one of which could read and one that was too young to speak yet. Boy, Girl, the pick was theirs. So, we let our realtor do the work and since Ryan is the money guy, I searched Pinterest.

I had a house to build! Back in January, 34 days before the house went on the market we had a meeting about where we would go once our house sold. We wanted to build. Remember, our mutual obsession began a year earlier and we loved the Internet. That meant that we knew of every home for sale or that sold in our area and in surrounding states! We hadn't found anything that fit our five year old vision for our next step. We knew what we wanted and we knew what we were willing to pay. We were prepared and ready...just clueless.

I had a new mission. Ryan was going to get his four weekends of golf, I was going to get my house. The one I had pieced together from Pinterest. My first assignment was to pick out my cabinets. I immediately downloaded the cabinet catalog and began to build my 3D mock ups of  our kitchen! And since the kitchen was connected to the house I made various mock ups of the entire house.

I love the Internet.