The Ink Is Dry

Today I signed a ton of papers at the bank.  The sheets and copies and explanations and warnings stacked up.  Eventually they were gathered up and thoughtfully placed into a legal-sized manila envelop.  It was a service the bank provided so I could easily carry everything while my stomach twisted with anxiety. 

Next week I start choosing the siding and shingles and a host of other decisions for the new home that is to be built at Spirit Creek.  Soon the big machinery will be here bulldozing dirt - well, at least moving dust around.   

It was a long haul.  I started talking with Dan the Builder about five years ago.  Each time I would get close to this point, something expensive would happen, or the government would throw a wrench into the works.  FEMA insisted on surveys and flags and elevations and photos and maps to exempt the building site from the newly designated flood plain, which included almost all of the six acres parcel, whether it was 30 feet above the 100 year flood elevation or 2 feet.  I would have been forced to pay the government expensive flood insurance for the rest of my life - in addition to all the taxes, fees, inspections, and blood letting I already pay.  So kudos to me for winning one against the bureaucrats! 

The flags and stakes are still in the ground, well over a year later, waiting for the new home.  I sacrificed my Harley in order to build, but that is a fair trade.  When the winter wind is howling but I am snug and warm in my wonderful new little house, I will not miss the sacred machinery a bit.

Today, my nephew generously offered to help paint, but that is all included in the price of the home.  We talked about interior colors, but that is an easy answer:  blindingly white.  I am going to live in the white light for a couple of years until I am healed of living in a 1970's era double-wide with fake leather beams and, I swear to God, an orange carpet - in the very room where I am sitting now.  At least it is not orange shag.

Oh, congratulations to me, a hundred times over.  I never thought this would come to pass.  But it is at hand.


The building site - taken a year ago this month, looking southwest from the barn.  I look out the window every time I am working at the computer and imagine my new house on this little hilltop.