Today is going to be a good day! Last week was one of those weeks and I mean a real doozie of a week….mostly regarding the house so I do need to put it into perspective that this house is only a house and that it should not overwhem me the way it does. Yet, I let it. I think combined with balancing work and parenting, the house tilts my balancing out completely out of whack when things continue to go awry. Scott and I have worked incredibly hard to try to keep the builders moving in this tough economy to meet our deadlines (I won’t get into the details here) and with that, we also have found additional challenges. The thing is I really am trying to put all this stuff in perspective because in the grand scheme of things, it really isn’t that important. I’m such a darn perfectionist and I don’t know how to get around that. To explain a portion of my week last week and why today is a good day:
Last week, I went up to the house to meet one of the people on the infamous “Landscape & Design Committee” for our particular neighborhood in the Woodlands. I might add that I already went into the meeting with this lady with negative feelings because they denied our landscape plan because a) we didn’t have enough natural areas b) our plan didn’t have enough mulch (because they like mulch more than grass?????), and c) we didn’t have enough screening plants along our iron fence to create privacy from the neighbors. Meanwhile, our neighbors have none! Ok, so my heart is starting to race already so I’m just going to calm down here before I finish. I explained to her that I wanted clean and elegant with boxwoods, cypress trees, flowers, etc. and she basically said I had to incorporate their rules into my aesthetic….no negotiating. They are strict. So it then gets worse. We have a 1 acre lot and it is heavily wooded. I had our landscape architect keep a massive amount of trees (70+) but wanted to clear most trees in the middle of our yard for front and back so a) you could actually see the house, b) we could have grass that grows and c) we could have a yard to play in. On our plan, we kept 70 trees which is a lot. She told me no tree can be cut down over 6″ in width without approval (approval means dying, diseased, crooked). That is when I had it! I was done…over it. I nearly started crying or maybe I actually did among my emotional state of pregnancy. I can’t remember but I was so defeated. Can you tell I’m still not happy about this? I need to let it go. I’m working on it. Writing it out is therapeutic. It may take me writing it out 10 more times. So much for my dream yard… moving on…
Update: More Good News Monday – I just spoke with someone from the committee and they are going to let us remove some trees because we have such a wooded lot. That’s progress!! I’ll take what I can get.
So then I walk into the garage and see all our tile is delivered which I immediately noticed was WRONG! Oh man. I special ordered a ton of 16×24 tile because I like the really large antique tiles that was supposed to look like this in color and texture:
but what we have sitting in our garage is 16×24′s that are brown, holy, and scratched up to kingdom come. I called the dealer I had been working with in panic and she came up to the house right away and agreed it wasn’t the right stuff. Dilemma: We needed the correct tile now because it is being installed now. I can’t wait 6 weeks for another special order.
Here comes the “Good Monday” news. No, the landscape approval team didn’t just go away. That would be Great news! I went to the warehouse where my dealer (whom I ordered the above mentioned tile from) keeps materials to pick out a few slabs because another dealer I work with broke the ones I had picked out (yes, another dilemma I’m working on….there are lots but I’m letting those slide under my radar as not important) and I asked if I could look at leftovers of their tile in the warehouse. We dug a little and she came up with some stuff I was less than excited about. I started walking to the back and digging and found this gorgeous tile in 16×24′s but there wasn’t enough. However, underneith it was 2 huge crates of the jackpot! It was the exact stuff I originally ordered but was in a Bordeaux/Versailles pattern rather than 16×24 and I didn’t care. They had exactly enough. It was a MIRACLE and I mean a miracle. I said tag it. It’s beautiful! It was meant to be! Today is my day! Maybe it’s not 16×24′s but I’m not going to complain at this point. I just feel elation.
I’m so excited that problem is fixed! Now if I could have all of our house dilemmas work out that way, we would be smooth sailing. It definitely wasn’t this difficult or stressful the last time we built a house or maybe my mind is just reacting to this process like it does the pain you endure when having a child….your mind magically erases it after the fact.
On a fun note, I took Avery to Schlitterbahn yesterday. We had a blast!! I needed a buffer to get my mind off all this non-sense and if anyone can do it, it’s Avery. She just has the best time when there is water involved. I didn’t bring my camera. It was just the two of us while Scott stayed home to work on a list of things the inspector deemed necessary before we close on this house we live in right now. He was feeling ambitious!
