MIIIIIIIINE!!!

Today after work, I got to go inside OUR HOUSE for the first time since it was moved onto our acreage. The sections have been attached together and the electricity was turned on today, since the workmen will need it on in order to do the remaining work they need to do. (This meant the electricity had to be turned off on the stove here in our old dump. I can microwave most of the stuff I eat, but I'll need to crawl -- see below -- into my new home if I crave eggs or spaghetti the next couple of weeks.) The steps and skirting have not been attached yet, since the bottom needs to be left open to allow access for the remaining hookups such as water and cable. So to get in, I had to step on a large stone and then get my one leg in, sit down and then stand up. I probably could have navigated the large step if I was younger and in much better shape. It was a painful reminder of how desperately I need to get restarted losing this weight (as if I'm not reminded every moment anyway). The place will look SO sweet once the plaster work is done and the carpeting is laid. I will try to take a few pictures of the current stage to finish up the roll so I can get them developed and posted here!!!

It's HEEEEEERRRRRRE!!!!!!!!!!!

Following is the message that for many years, I honestly never thought I would get to write. I'm really tired and will log off for the night once I write this, but wanted to get it recorded here while it's still Friday, March 23. To back up a few days, our concrete was poured this past Monday and we were told it was likely our home would be delivered today (not meaning we could move into it for a few more weeks, but at least it would finally be here). I had arranged at my job several weeks ago to take this day off work as a vacation day, since I usually try to go to the Northwest Women's Show in Seattle (a fun, huge trade show with hundreds of exhibits of interest to women and lots of free food, product samples to take home, and drawings to enter for prizes) every year and prefer to go on a Friday rather than the weekend since it's a lot less crowded. Today also happens to be payday, and the small company where I work doesn't have direct deposit. So I arranged with my coworker who works at home in the afternoons to meet her on the ferry so she could give me my check, enabling me to deposit it before I went to the show.

Being the nightowl that I am, I like to stay up (too) late when I don't have to get up for work the next morning, so I was up last night till after 3. I awoke before 9 to loud trucks outside and a couple of my dogs barking at the trucks. Still over half asleep, I thought, "Oh, it's the garbage truck" and rolled over. Then it dawned on me -- our garbage is picked up on Thursdays and this is Friday. Could it be.........??????? Though I wanted to stay in bed another hour, I got up to see what was happening, and it was a truck spreading gravel between the now-dry sections of concrete. The 3 sections of OUR HOUSE, one at a time, would shortly follow!!!!

Some timing -- of all days, here I was off work and could have watched OUR HOUSE being delivered, but I would need to leave in a couple of hours to meet my coworker so I could pick up my check. I asked Rex if my check reaaallllly needed to be in the bank today instead of Monday, and he said, as I suspected, that it did. So I asked him to take a few pics with my disposable camera of OUR HOUSE being delivered, since I wouldn't be here. At the moment I needed to leave to catch the ferry, the first section was being delivered!!!! SO......I went into town, to the bank and then to the show, which was fun as usual. When I got back, all three sections were HERE, though the workers will be coming back this Monday to actually attach them together. In the meantime, there's plastic between the sections to protect them from the showers that are remaining in the forecast for the next few days. But I can't believe it's here and I can look out the window at it and know that NOW, at loooong last, it will be just a few more weeks and then I can actually LIVE in it, not just look at it. Pics will be posted here soon, when the roll is finished. My Dream, just a dream till now, is becoming a reality and apparently will BE a reality next month, April of 2007. Plumbers, electricians, carpenters, etc., please work very fast!!!!!!!!!!

Timeline Taking Shape!!

It's amazing to FINALLY have enough happening in this whole process that I can post updates on consecutive days! The concrete wasn't poured yet today as I hoped -- however, the crew was here and -- sorry, I don't know the technical terms for any of this -- measured and installed the wooden "forms" into the site where the concrete will go. I'll post a couple of pics of this stage when my roll is developed. It's hard to explain but anyone who's had a manufactured home installed will understand. It's like four large wooden oblongs in the ground that the concrete will be poured into, and then gravel gets put in around them. Then the concrete has to dry for at least three days. So the current timeline looks like: Monday the 19th or Tuesday the 20th - concrete to be poured, with OUR HOUSE due to be delivered hopefully A WEEK FROM TODAY. We still won't be able to live in it for at least a couple of weeks thereafter till various things are done -- the plumbing, wiring, carpeting, just to name a few. But it will soon be HERE and I will be able to look out my window at it instead of thinking about it sitting there waiting all these months, six miles away. At long, LONG last, the fact is that I can start counting down days to remain in this toxic, forlorn tin can instead of unknown numbers of years, months, weeks. Thank you, God!!! More soon.......

The Excavation!!! Can You DIG It???!!!!

Like everything else in this whole process, this update is a little overdue. We were originally told the excavator would come to start digging out our home site a week ago Monday (March 5). Then Monday became Tuesday, then the end of the week, then "for sure next Monday" (the 12th). This was according to my husband, who has gradually gotten the area cleared out (the two storage trailers moved out of the way, the four - count 'em, four - non-operating cars hauled away for parts, various piles of hubby's mostly unusable-looking STUFF -- some covered with tarps, some not) but had not yet really finished doing so till the beginning of this week. I have not gotten (and don't expect to get) a straight answer out of him as to whether the STUFF not being cleared out on schedule was the true reason for the delay.

I got home from work on Monday the 12th, thinking that "for sure" meant I would see a prepared site just waiting for the concrete to be poured. Any guesses? Right. I asked what was going on and my other half said the crew had a roof to install somewhere and they would be here on Wed. I started to panic, having run out of fingers on my left hand to count the delays in the past week. Another reason for my concern was the 10-day forecast (which, granted, does change every day) that gave only a 10 to 40 percent chance of rain this week and up to 90 percent next Monday, and therefore desperately wanting our concrete to be dry by then. I expressed this in the most tactful manner I could (as in, look, you make darned sure they get here Wednesday - THIS is the week!). I got home from work on Tuesday the 13th, to a surprrise of a different kind. The site had been excavated!!! I asked when they would be back to pour the concrete - "Thursday or Friday", which has now become Friday (tomorrow). I pray that will actually be the case. In the meantime, I took a few pictures of the now-bare patch of dirt which will soon be covered by my beautiful home. I will post them here when they are developed (this is a time it would be nice to have a digital camera I could get along with, but that's not the case).

It still won't all seem real till my house is on our land and I am IN it. But in my head, I have to acknowledge it actually, at looooooooooong last, is happening. I realized today (Wednesday) when I arrived home and looked at the site again, what a pretty site it is, surrounded by trees. It's where we originally planned to build the log cabin we envisioned when we bought our acreage waaaaay back in '92. Little did we imagine back then that the log cabin would never be, and that we would be stuck in our old, dilapidated singlewide for almost the next 15 years. But it looks like, FINALLY, that is all behind us now as we await our pretty, spacious (!!!!!), new 2,100 sq. ft. triplewide. Back soon with more!!!