My head is going to pop off

No phone call yet. Well, actually, lots of phone calls but not THE phone call. So I am bound and determined to think about other things. (Yeah, right!) No seriously, I am trying very very hard. The house is coming along very quickly now. We are making decisions right and left, most of them involving how much more money we want to pump into the house to get nice little things. They call these 'design elements'. One design element I have had my heart set on was oak stair treads with white risers. Well, that was going to be another big $$$ so it is gone. Built in wine rack? Gone. Cubbies in the mudroom? Gone. Window seats....you guessed it, gone. We can do all those things later. What we do have is 400 amp electrical service, run underground all the way to the house from the road. That gives us enough power for the house, the barn and the pool. (Can you hear the manly sound of grunting in the background ala Tim Allen???) We have granite countertops, solid raised panel oak cabinets, and many more beautiful things.

The drywalling is finished and the trim carpenter is working on the house. Very nice guy named Kevin. He had some wonderful ideas but those would be........gone. What I don't understand is that things that are drawn into our plans are now costing extra. The window seats have been on the plans from the very beginning. So has the mudroom design. So why is that not included in the price quoted to us for the house? I can understand upgrades for flooring, counters, etc., but things on the plans should be inclded in the price we were quoted in the beginning. Gee, no stress in building a custom home, is there???

I have an interesting story to tell. Back a while ago, when we were first wanting to build a house, we found the perfect spot next door to some good friends of ours. Almost 8 acres of wilderness on the end of a cul-de-sac, right schools, everything. It was for sale so we made an offer. Then the property was pulled off the market because the couple was in a divorce battle. (They lived in the house next door to this property) So we kept looking. Then, 8 months later, it came back on the market. Divorce is over, woman got the land and it was for sale again. We again made an offer, but didn't hear and didn't hear. Turns out woman was in rehab supposedly. Then she is out so we re-make our offer. We think we have a deal but she won't show up to sign the papers and then disappears again. Then we find the spot we are now building on and forget about the other land. Now, after we moved on, she came back to live in the house and finish it (it was not finished on the inside because screwy husband ran off all the workers) She couldn't sell it unfinished, so she moved back in and made a deal with some laborers to trade room and board for work on the house. Then, early last week, the power was shut off for non-payment. One of the workmen figured out how to turn it back on at the power pole and built himself some scaffolding to climb up there. He took the long metal pole for the pool and reached up to pull the trigger to turn it back on. The electricity arced and killed him instantly. Neighbors noticed something burning on the scaffolding and called the fire department. It was only after they arrived and put out the fire that they realized it was a body. I feel so horribly sad for that man and for the woman who owns the house. Such tragedy. I just keep thinking that if she had sold us the land next door she would have had the money to hire professionals to fix it up right away and none of this would have happened.

OK, I am not thinking about the phone. I am not thinking about how over the weekend the offices are closed and we can't get out. I am not, I am not, I am not!