What $900 Looks Like

This is rebar.

Hello, Mr. Rebar. Nice to meetcha!

The topic of rebar is not an unfamiliar one, as I married into an excavation family and dinnertime conversations at the in-laws usually center around machinery and construction and other foreign topics that I don't even try to understand. But seeing as I normally tune out such manly men discussions, I couldn't have told you what rebar actually was to save my life. The word could have meant anything, from a joist to a tool to [insert a fancy machinery term].

Raise your hand if you think rebar reminds you of a candy bar. Something chocolatey and caramely and ooey gooey with lots of nuts and some nougat thrown in. 

Mmm...nougat.

Rebar.

Nougat bar. 

I think I'm noticing the similarities. And getting hungry.

The day this load of rebar showed up on our property with a $900 price tag hanging off of it, I just about gave birth to kittens until P.C. explained to me the utmost importance that rebar (not nougat bar) plays in our home-building future. To put it in layman's term, this rebar is what holds the concrete frames together while they pour the foundation and walls. It basically keeps your house from looking like this: 

So on Sunday, while the weather was still nice and warm, P.C. and John spent the day smoothing out the land and preparing it for The Laying of the Rebar. 

By Monday night the concrete men (I'm sure there's an official name for them but I can't be bothered by such trivial things) began painstakingly placing the rebar into concrete footings. (Sorry for the poor picture quality; daylight was fading fast.

And then by Wednesday morning after a thunderstorm was completely diverted around the construction site, (thank you God!), the house looked like this:

Coming soon: The Walls!!!

A Really Big Hole

This is what the land looked like last night:

As of 11:15 this morning, this is what it now looks like:

We started off the ground breaking ceremony by re-measuring the area that the house will be located. 

Then we (I) brought up the backhoe and the digging began!

Don't I look good driving that?

The first scoop....

And the second...and the third

Mmm....I love me a man on a tractor

Especially when he's mine!

We took a break to check out the view from what will be the front porch.

Then Buster (Adam's nephew) and John (Adam's dad) showed up to do something manly that involved lasers and a lot of beeping. 

Then I looked up in the sky and this guy showed up: 

And then as the evening grew to a close, God showed up.

Amen.

The Plan

"We can make plans, but the Lord determines our steps"
-Proverbs 16:9 (NLT)

Last night we broke ground on the land (pictures to come soon!) and as we were wrapping things up for the evening, P.C. asked me while we were in the bathroom brushing our teeth, "Are we sure we want to do this?" At the time I had a mouthful of toothpaste and couldn't really answer him too well except by mumbling a sudsy "mm-hmm", but it got me thinking about all of the times I've made plans in life and God has had a totally different agenda for me. When P.C. and I got married, I wanted a bigger house. Right then. No. Matter. What. I struggled internally with what others had, and envied their situation in life. It took a long time for me to understand that God has a specific rhythm for our life and if we get too focused on our plans, we miss his timing, and life can turn bitter very quickly. As one devotion I read put it, "we are not flowing in his rhythm when we figure we can help God birth his promises with our own reasoning."
So before I revealed the blueprints for the house, I wanted to share that even though P.C. and I have painstakingly measured out step by step what the next year will consist of, God is the ultimate conductor of our orchestra. He plays the music and we dance to it.

So lets tango! Here is the floor plan of the new house. 

The stairwell from the laundry room goes down into a walk-out basement that will eventually be a garage/bedroom/bathroom/living area. For now will be P.C.'s man cave, complete with a four-wheeler, a trike, a wave runner, and too many r.c. airplanes to count!

The front view:

Think sage green, not army green. P.C. isn't completely sold on the color yet, but I'm sure he'll come around eventually.

And finally the top view:

Enjoy! (I know I will)

Our Little Piece of Heaven

This is home.

Notice the open sky

the rolling hills

the majestic mountain tops

the way the sunlight shines through the trees

and the cell phone tower off in the distance that you get no reception from whatsoever.

This is where I belong.

This is home.

The Story of Us

While this blog will be mainly focusing on the house we are building (and because I can't resist myself, a little bit of baking and cooking and gardening and crocheting thrown in), it is also a story of P.C. and me and our life together. But to spare you all of the details of how we met (on a cold evening in December 2006) and our (very!) short engagement and first few years of marriage, I thought I'd  timeline it out in list format because a) I'm a geek that way and love lists, and b) it relieves me from getting into all of the boring, unsexy details of married life that nobody ever seems to talk about. Like who fights with who over leaving the shower curtain open, and how you lay awake in bed at night hoping that at some point the other person will stop snoring so you can finally get to sleep (both of which I promise are not me).

We begin our story.

December 2006- I meet P.C. through a mutual friend one night while visiting Branson. We date for a few months until....

May 2007-I decide to move to Missouri to be closer to P.C. and also go to school for a Bachelor's degree in Hotel & Restaurant Management. P.C. proposes in June and we are married November 17, 2007 (and the snoring begins).

2007-Knowing that the 1 bedroom duplex P.C. built many years ago is getting too small for us (and the children we want to someday have), we begin considering building a home. Our first thought is to build another duplex on our existing 11 acres and rent out the other half to supplement our income. But after a while we knew that we wanted more privacy. And since the rest of our land is too rocky to build a house on, we begin the house-hunting. We spend hours upon hours traveling across Missouri looking at acreage and houses and giving grief to realtors. 

July 2010-On the way back from visiting family in Nebraska our realtor calls us and tells us about a 5-acre plot of land that just came up for sale. The moment we arrive in Missouri that night we check out the land and make an offer on it. A week later the bank accepts the offer and informs us that as soon as the paperwork goes through, its ours! 

August 2010- After a lot of soul-searching and contemplating our future and family values, I realize that the restaurant business is not for me. So I take the plunge and return to college for my degree in Early Childhood & Elementary Education, to be completed in December of 2012

December 2010-Still waiting on the bank! They finally finish the paperwork but try to double charge us for realtor fees. We counteract and the process starts all over again. *le sigh*

March 2011-Come to find out, our signature was missing from one of the many documents and was the cause of the hold-up. However, in the process of waiting on the bank, P.C. and I come across another 5-acre plot of land that is significantly cheaper and with a much better view and better soil. So with the first offer still hanging in the air, we make an offer on the second land with another bank.

April 2011-Our offer is accepted on the second plot and the paperwork is processed! The land is ours! On the same day that we become owners, we are informed that the offer on the original plot of land has come through, and would we like to buy it? No thank you!

October 2011-The floor plan is finalized (and will be discussed in detail in another post) and the house is staked out on the land. Breaking ground is any day now!