Missing our Sales Rep.

The one thing I miss about advancing from the contract phase to the building phase is the one on one time with our Sales Rep. We really lucked up with her! She is so darn thorough. She made our concerns her own. I appreciated that. It really is a special relationship you develop because you are entrusting your vision and dreams to someone else. With our sales rep, we were in good hands!

The Lumber Has Been Delivered!

Basically this is our house!

And this is our garage:

...and this is the basement where we will be chillaxin:

Tee always tells me that I am a visionary..LOL

I Hear A Symphony!

Today, I'm feeling sentimental because our new tenant OFFICIALLY took occupancy today.  We cleaned the heck out of Wyman Way. I don' t even think we lived in it that damn clean! New washer, dryer, dishwasher, toilets, carpet, doors, locks and all my flowers I planted last year are blossoming beautifully (compliments of the Census 2010 side hustle). Now -- this tenant BEST PAY HER RENT---- ON TIME!

In other news.  I have adjusted well to the couch/ love seat because it really isn't a full size couch which is part of the problem.  The cat and I have settled in to our new abode only because we both know how temporary and rent free it is.  What we HAVEN'T adjusted to, is the freaking symphony of birds that gather on the ledge every doggone morning at 5:55AM to tweet-a-lee tree top.  These ghetto ass hip-hop birds have now re-mixed their once serene hums into a aggressive battle song early in the damn morning that's tweeted in the key of the CHIPMONKS.  Can someone say IRRITATING... just wake me up by scratching a chalkboard why don’t ya??  Can we get some birds that have a little BASS in their tweets? Can we get a conductor bird that can get this ensemble together? I'm just saying....

How many more days until settlement???

Divine Intervention

Those Ten (13) Commandments have now been turned into our foundation.

Hallelujah!

The Ten Commandments

Ok... I'm not gonna lie...when i drove past the hole and saw this, I thought perhaps in their digging, they came across the long lost 10 Commandments.  Do you know how rich I'd be if this really was the 10 Commandments? And, it's right around Easter too...I could make a killing.  There's more than 10 here so actually, i can make a few more rules up. I mean times have changed and I'm sure God would have a few more to add like:
Thou Shalt Not Raise The Cost of Gas Up
Thou Shalt Keepeth the Eyebrows that the Lord God has given thee
Thou Shalt Not Wear Open toed shoes an let the second and third toe draggeth the ground
I'm just saying...

Then I realized it was nothing biblical just the pieces of the maze to make the foundation.  Forgive me for being a bit delirious, staying at your parents can do that!  I've been praying for divine intervention!

Moonwalker

I told Tee, I wasn’t going to go past Tall Woods Way until Friday but with what I went through last night, I just had to check things out to make sure they don’t have an idle moment, if not you may as well call me the moon walker, and every time I see a moon bounce I think I’ll cringe.....

I guess mom and pop felt for me when they saw the bed frame impression on my face yesterday morning so they searched high in low for a low-cost/no cost resolution.  From the dark whole of the dungeon otherwise known as the basement, out came AERO BED!  Dad raves about this option.  “Put this on top of the pull-out” he says.  “You’ll feel like you’re sleeping on a cloud”, he says.  More like I’m sleeping on the MOON…and freaking moon BOUNCE!!!! That’s exactly what it felt like!  I’m not a kid so I do not get a kick out of sleeping on a moon bounce!   I had to stay in the middle because if I leaned to one side, the other side would tilt up.  I lay in the middle like the human hotdog in an inflatable plastic bun.  I was all sandwiched in…it made me feel dirty like I was asleep with a blow-up doll. Ew!

HELP ME!

My neck, my back.....my neck and my back!

One night with mom & pop and I'm in route to Lowes to get me a shovel, a nail gun, paint brush, and whatever else I need to help out on Tall Woods Way.  I absolutely can NOT take it.  Can't sleep near either of the parents as nightly snoring is more like nightly roaring! SO, I'm downstairs on a pull out bed that is more like one little Cotton swab stretched over metal framing.  My neck, my back...my neck AND MY DARN BACK! My face has a grate impression on it like I have been sleeping on the streets of DC over the metal steam grates or something.

There has to be another solution!  HAS TO BE! How many days until settlement again?

Foreman coming through!

Tee warned them when they said they wanted us to be super involved and communicate more then often through this process!

It may be a hole in the ground to you but it’s the hole that we will call home in 60 days or so... Yes, 60 days.  That just sounds ridiculous to build a home that's supposed to last forever in 60 days.  WTH??? I'll be driving by every day to make sure every body is doing what they are supposed to be doing, --as if I know what that is. Either way... let me go purchase my hard hat! “foreman coming through”!

Tenant woes are OVER!

April 8, 2011

Just when I thought the tenant pool was all dried up and I was contemplating raffling the house off...haha funny but serious, now i have 3 people who want to take occupancy right away.  I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to move out.  As if that isn't enough good news...they moved up excavation to this weekend. 

April 9, 2011
Soooo what I haven't shared is that while we are waiting for the completion of our house...I will be staying at my parents.  AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Yes, I have to scream at the thought.  How many weeks until settlement again???? Pray for my sanity.. I actually think I would rather live in my car-- half of my stuff is already in it anyhow so I may as well just make it official.

SOLD!

OK....so this picture gives me life. Ground breaking is next week.  How-ever will I keep myself occupied until then?  If the weather was good I'd probably have my tent pitched, camp fire lit, and be roasting marshmallows out that micky flicky!...OK BACK TO LIFE...BACK TO REALITY!

House for Rent...STILL

Woosi...What is up with the tenancy business??  I mean yes the market sucks, and yes everyone is looking for a renter but there is supposed to be ooh-gobs of people knocking down my door.  In the words of infamous Antoine Dodson, Hide ya kids, hide yo wife cause the few prospects we’ve had come through here have been CRAPPY!

The first person that looked at the property hyped me up because he sent me an email the same evening to say he wanted to rent the property. I sent the app and 4 days later I get an email saying, he and his wife found another location.  I wanted to cuss him out but I figured someone else may be a little more worthy of my choice words a little later on in this process.

Next prospect was a lady I'd been playing phone tag with who sounded so eager to have a tour. This heifer took me through all these scheduling changes just to send her children and grandchildren because she supposedly broke her knee.   Ok, so much for her. I was thinking that it’s all good because I had three more prospects for the weekend.  ALL NO SHOWS and NO CALLS.  WTH?

I got an email from a lady with a daughter who has 5 kids and a dog. o-O. Thankfully they found another place! This week a really nice lady came by. She asked if there were any other contracts on the property and requested an application. Good thing I wasn’t holding my breath.  Then, another two prospects made an appointment and didn’t show up for it.

What’s with the no shows? Gurrr. This is starting to really irritate me.  We subscribed to every online renting site there is and update Craig's List every three days. I made fliers in English and in Spanish and took them to the Home Depot to the Ese’s. I know there is a tenant somewhere that is dying to move into THIS house.  Just when I think there will be no more, this person will appear.  They will be perfect, and all will be well! This is what I keep telling myself as I clean up again.  I've never cleaned up this much in my life. 

Tonight I’ve come to this conclusion, MOVING FREAKING SUCKS and finding a tenant sucks even harder. 

House Shopping in the Fast Lane

Feb 19, 2011. A sunny, breezy Saturday. For the past few months, Tee was becoming more adamant about a new house.  I was fine.  I really wasn't fine but the process just seemed so complicated that I really didn't want to deal with it. I woke this day deciding that I was going to be a team player and oblige someone else other than myself for a change. So, I researched all the new home sites in our area in our targeted price range. Then I mapped out our course for the day.  The secret is, I figured the sooner we went, the sooner we could get this over with and put this new house chatter to rest.

First stop- Cedar Chase. We enter the sales trailer and met the Rep.  A spunky fellow who kindly told us that the Savoy model would be our best bet in this community but the figures he spit out were not encouraging. There were no model homes in this community so it was quite difficult to make heads or tales from the floor plan. The Rep sends us to another Ryan Homes community in Clinton, MD to take a look at the Savoy Model. Oh and by the way, the homes just happened to be $30k less?  Well, let's just say my initial hesitation about this prospect starts to change into an eager anticipation of possibilities.

Next Stop...SAME DAY.  Simmons Ridge, Clinton MD. Savoy Model.  WOW, we really liked it. And the 30K price difference didn’t hurt either.  I looked at Tee, Tee looked at me, and with one look we communicated volumes.  Here we met a young sales rep that we really took to.  She had a sincere quality about her.  She told us about February's incentives and now I am starting to feel like we may be on to something. Then she recommends a larger house for us; the Victoria Falls.  We hadn't seen it but knew if we liked the Savoy, what wasn't to like about a larger version.  We only had one requirement...2 comparable size rooms for the girls.  Two competitive 15 year olds. CHECK-- it had that. If that wasn’t enough to tip the scale, we also received a stainless steel appliance upgrade.  Ok, I’m all in now!!!

From first stop, to next stop to now..NEXT STEP. The Rep did a cost estimate with us..something I thought would be boring but it was actually a lot of fun.  We were able to plug in all the options we wanted, our wish list so to speak, and the computer would spit out an overall cost.  It was like catalogue shopping just BLIND because we still hadn't seen the actual model. Needless to say, we scheduled a contract signing for Wednesday.

After leaving we were on a high, then scrrrr PAUSE...what the hell??  We moved from 0-100 in 4 hours. I mean we made damn near a lifetime decision in a half of a day.  As we pass the next stop on my house map we decide to check it out. Caruso homes Timberlake. We meet  a middle aged sales rep who's talking fast but I’m keeping up. She takes us to an inventory home..a Princeton. This home was really beautiful and already ready. Now we have what is called..... A TIZZY.

The Princeton in all its beauty, the 9ft ceilings, the 2 story family room, and the overlook into the family room, couldn’t compare to the fact that we were able to design our house from the ground up just the way we wanted it.  The TIZZY was gone. We knew we were on the right path.  TEAM VICTORIA FALLS!