Good FORM!

After my whine, I am here now to meekly report that they did something! We only got to see it in the dark, but tonight we saw something tangible- the form that outlines our house. Eventually it will be filled in with concrete to form the foundation, but first they have to put in the pipes that go under the house.

Our first impressions are that the house is big, and very close to the neighbors.

Tomorrow we are going back to take pictures. Yippee!

One step forward, Two steps back

We remain frustrated about the seeming lack of coordination and progress at our lot, but there has been another change. We got dirt.





Unfortunately, we also got the next lot's dumpster, and two of our pins are gone. This, we are assured, is no big deal, happens all the time, and they'll move the dumpster when they need to get to our lot. I was hoping that by now we'd have a form- the outline of the house they use to put in the plumbing. The lot that we were supposed to be ahead of already has a foundation.



I know that I'm whining! WHINE! WHINE! WHINE!

He's a Senior!

I thought y'all might like to see Bishop's senior pictures. I offer this as proof that time flies.

We've Been Pinned!

I guess this means we are going steady. They've put stakes in the ground on our lot with measurements that show where the dirt should be made level. They call this "pinning." The back of the lot doesn't need much to reach the mark, but the front of the lot does.

Located sort of in the middle of the lot is a pile of dirt that has grown grass and weeds over the months of sitting idle. There is a nest of mud daubers in the side of the hill. Hopefully, nobody gets stung when they flatten it out. We tried to clean up as much trash as possible to keep it from becoming part of the landscape.

So far tonight, Brad has suggested that we drive out twice to see if they dumped our dirt and leveled the lot.

We have some exciting blog news. Ned and Stephen have started a blog, too! Go and see, go and see! http://www.stephened.blogspot.com/Now you'll be able to see two houses being built. Our advice: patience is a virtue. Of course, we can't seem to take our own advice, so take that with a grain of salt.

Today was my first day as the teacher. I taught an introductory lesson about Media Literacy in a build up to persuasive advertising techniques. It went well, but I was tired. I spent so much time last night needlessly stressing and worrying that I didn't sleep. I'm sure this will get easier the more I do it.

In other news, everybody seems to have settled into school just fine. Charlie likes a lot of things about middle school, like having chorus twice a day and changing classes, but he doesn't like middle school gym. Who can blame him?

Bishop's job at Publix is going well. He's working just enough so that he doesn't feel overwhelmed. Most of his shifts are short- just three hours. This is the perfect teen job. After he finishes paying us back for the door that he broke, (yes, he broke the front door), he can start to save for his insurance payments and get his driver's license.

Mitchell is digs art, but hates drama. He's the kid who is never happy with his electives, but usually likes his academic classes. Did I tell you that he got a perfect score on the reading FCAT last year? That's pretty amazing.

Fourth grade is going well for Olivia. She's enjoying being the only one in the family at her school. For once she is not somebody's little sister- except that Charlie had all of her teachers before she did. She has learned how to do a front flip at gymnastics. She can nearly fly.

Hopefully, next weekend we'll have pictures of a form- the outline of our house in wood. Maybe it will even be plumbed and ready for the foundation to be poured!

A Start Date

It seems frivolous, of course, to fret over the start date of our house considering the many people left homeless by the hurricane. Now people are being re-evacuated from Texas ahead of Rita.

Last year, Florida was not so lucky. This year it seems that the storms are just brushing us. In this image the lines all split to form a storm-free zone over the state of Florida.



Crown Weather is the best place to get hurricane updates.










Now for the frivolous: Our sales agent called with the first of his weekly updates. They are supposed to pin our site and begin leveling it with dirt starting next Monday, September 26. Yeah! Ten days or so after that, they should pour the foundation.

Monday happens to be the same day that I take over full time in my internship. I teach from then until December 2nd. We have several students at our school who lived in the hurricane zone. One student was trapped in her attic and then air lifted out of N.O. Another student's uncle was in N.O. after the storm when the bottom floor of his two story (luckily) town house flooded within a matter of 15 minutes. He was lucky to have a car parked in a garage a few blocks away that was not flooded, but he had to swim back through the contaminated water for several blocks to retreive his keys to the car from his flooded house. Of course it is devasting to lose a home, but it is the everyday relationships and routines that are the real loss.

It is raining Rita here. That's a big storm.

More Delay

The good news is that we don't need to worry about putting the house on the market until January. The disappointing news is that the start has been delayed because the site survey had to be redone. Ergh, grumble, moan and scream! September 23rd has been offered as a possible date that things might get started.

For those of you who said that this would take at least a year, it looks like you were right. But that does not make us happy. It would be faster to buy an existing house at this point!

If 9/11 made us examine what it means to be an American, then Hurricane Katrina makes us examine the meaning of home. Nobody knows more about the new meaning of home than Slate writer, Blake Bailey, who lost his brand new home in New Orleans just days after moving in.

Our new home is still in our heads and, hopefully, on some papers in an office someplace. We hope that those papers will soon move to the front seat of the builder’s truck, but if not, that is alright. Even if our house is delayed by the needs of those affected by the hurricane, we will be fine because we already know the meaning of home. Our current digs are crowded at times, yes, but home because it is filled with our favorite people.

Tonight we went to the lot to cleanse it of bad mojo (Brad’s word) by walking the perimeter of the lot with a lit smudge stick given to me by a brave woman who is redefining her personal definition of home. While we were there we met two neighbor cats. Also, we found four shiny, lucky pennies on the back of the lot. Those we buried at the four corners of where the house will be so that the builders and workers will have luck as they work on our house. Of course it is all nonsense, but it made us feel better.

Book Recommendation: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd