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.

We were right on schedule.

I love the Internet! Really. I think it is the coolest thing ever! I am in awe of so much knowledge and discovery at can be found at my finger tips. When I was pregnant with out last child, I lived on Pinterest. It literally kept me sane. There is something so comforting about escaping into another world and discovering what everyone else does with their pallets. I will never just throw out a pallet again. It must first be reviewed and admired for its potential as coffee table or green house. And trust me working where pallets are a daily visual is like a drug addict working at Rite Aid.

So it was clear where I would spend my time when I wasn't packing. Or cleaning that space in the oven between the glass door that you can only get to with a metal hanger expanded to look like Captain Hook's anorexic hook. THE INTERNET.

First thing first- we needed to be out there for people to find us! Sell this house. I wanted analytics and tracking and social statistics on who was looking at our posted home. And I found it. A site that had our house posted on it, featured even. If you scrolled down to the end of the post, there was even a count of how many views! Holy shit, that's what I was looking for. STATS. So in typical Amber fashion, I went on it three (or ten) times a day to decode the best times of day to look at stats and a find the most popular days for home shopping. The site had every one's home that was also for sale so I had equal access  to the competition. It was like crack.

I also got weekly updates from our realtor's assistant. She sent cute emails on Wednesday complete with a :-). If she was late I got nervous. Were they trying to find something to tell me?

"Sorry, no hits this week, but don't worry".  Yes, they were.

Because we got little traffic. We insisted on an open house. As a past retail manager I understood how important it was to get out there in people's faces. Use social media, balloons and fresh flowers flanked with grandmas cookies. NO ONE came!

Finally we had a showing and the response was great, they loved it...we were their second choice. What? Why? As if!

Weeks go by and again nothing. Aging in typical Amber fashion I had concluded that all we had read about the market was true and we were doomed. We were not going to sell this house. It had been an enormousness of 45 days. I may have been a bit dramatic.

I had planted my St. Joseph. Said my prayers and promised to tell everyone how thankful I was for his help when he gave it. I really hoped he would find a family who would love our home and grow with it as we did.

In typical Ryan fashion, he made it into a bet. If we sell within the contracted six months, he would get four weekends in a row for golfing. If we didn't sell, I got 24 hours out of the house- out of contact to do with what ever I wanted to do.

We had a showing. We got an offer. really Ryan? Right again?

64 days. We were right on schedule. I love it when a plan comes together.

And so the process began.

There was an unspoken, OK maybe even spoken, understanding that we would move in five years. Even though we had just moved into our first home. It was our Five Year Plan. Live in our first home, our starter home, then find a larger home in the town we preferred. We just needed to start out some where. Is it wired that we were planning our next home  as we were settling our new first home? Sounds like us. Not that we aren't happy with what we have. We are. We are very blessed and buying our first home was a giant accomplishment. But we knew that it was a sensible stepping stone to get to something more.

In that home we grew our family and grew as a married couple. We transformed from a young couple to a full on family of FIVE! How did that happen?

It was no surprise when one casual night we decided that to stay on our schedule we'd need to clean up a few things around the house and form a formal plan. We confirmed our shared schedule and wish list for the new house and began our mutual obsession. Here's my hint: if you as a married couple are going to make a similar decision, it is imperative that you are both at a similar level of commitment and care about the exact opposite details. Mutual obsession, clear boundaries and exact opposite roles of responsibility.

HGTV could not keep enough new programing to keep us fulfilled. If it was about selling, buying or remodeling- we not only watched it but took detailed notes and could dictate the program. Our four year old was running around yelling, " I just want brick!" -she too was turning into a rehab addict.

Subtle changes were completed around the house and it was ready for the market. A funny thing when you think about it. Putting a house on the market. You don't know who is shopping. You leave your home open and ready for strangers to walk around JUDGING you. Seriously the hardest thing for me to deal with. fresh flowers were on the table for each showing and I cleaned places that I never had before because did I mention- someone was coming to my home to judge me! Oh and look at our home to see if they could settle into our space. The one that we were ready to cast away. We would pay to get out of it, why would anyone want to pay for it?

And so the process began.