Technically, we had some of the woods moved or better stated, removed, to make room for the “dream house” and “shop”. The shop is going to be the ultimate man room. It must be completed first so we can store the necessary accoutrements required to have a civilized abode. The dream originated with a small outbuilding. It has been brought to my attention that toilets and tubs take up a lot of room!

There will be 21 doors in this new home. They will not fit in my car until they are ready to be hung.  That will be a lot of possible opening, closing and slamming action! 16 windows must be installed. One is approximately 8 feet high. It is not an item purchased off the shelf at Home Depot. We are building in the country with cows and ducks roaming around. The greatest immediate challenge is obtaining specialty items at reasonable cost, including transportation and freight. So, back to the “shop” – a building was required to store items, in close proximity, to the house building site. Yes, we need a shop. Yes, this is being written by a female with little to no understanding of the future need for a huge tool and man machine storage outlet. The massive trees needed to be run down with a bulldozer. The driveway to the shop had to be cut through. I had to double check to make sure the shop is not visible when I am in the new love nest.

Oncor , the conglomerate mandated to distribute and transmit electricity visited the home site this morning. Much to my dismay, they need 10 feet across to access and lay the required “stuff”, wires and cables to run electricity from the transformer to the the future shop and house. More woods to be moved out of the way. There is no way I can live in a house with no power. God knows what my hair would look like without access to a blow dryer with a diffuser. I knew trees would have to come down, but there’s a lot more trees than even my insane imagination could muster being felled. I had better practice some zen and meditation before the water company and phone company jump on the bandwagon.

The mister and I extensively discussed whether to lay cable for a telephone land line. We do not currently have a land line or permanent residential telephone line. There is no need for one in this day and age. We previously utilized a land line for a fax machine. A fax machine is now an obsolete item in my world now. Everything transmitted from our residence is scanned and emailed. We live in a community that is not technologically savvy. The majority of my acquaintances do not know how to text or have the service on their cell phones. Some are still utilizing regional/local cell phone service which does not allow out of state or long distance calls. Our community is 20 to 25 miles from the Oklahoma border. If they cross the Oklahoma/Texas border – they have no cell service. For resale purposes, we are laying telephone line access because I know this corner of Texas is not going to move fast enough to accommodate the next home owner’s needs. I hope my words get eaten. This is one of the reasons for documenting this process.

Last night, we bit the bullet, Lincoln screamed and I found money where my husband told me he had plenty of it, to purchase the actual plans for the house we have rode hard and put up wet. We have changed our minds and actually picked out 3 sets of plans that were the final choice while scouring the Internet. For the last year, the present set of plans have always been the one we came back to. It is impossible to find plans under 1,800 square feet with 900 square feet for the master bedroom and master bathroom! We wanted a huge screened in porch with high ceilings and a kitchen big enough to store all the appliances I don’t know how to use or know what to do with. Committing to the final, concrete, no turning back, can we really afford this, set of blueprints was a huge deal. It is technically a $1,000.00 bet. Hope we win.

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