Another Day, Another Builder

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Well…we are back to almost square one.  Since the first builder we were looking at going with apparently has no desire to build our house, and has an extreme aversion to following up with potential customers, we are done with him. We have managed to get drawings out of him, but no price.  The drawings took 3 weeks more than what he said they would, and the price was supposed to be to us “by Thursday or Friday”…which was last week…and we are still waiting.

Seriously…we haven’t even signed any paperwork with this man yet…does he want our business??  Apparently not.

So, back to square one-ish.  We interviewed another builder, Jason, that we met on the Parade of Homes.  This time we took our awesome realtor, Ryan, who asked all the good questions and knows lots of stuff.

We showed Jason the plans from “Mr. I Don’t Want To Build Houses For People Man”, and told him this is the concept, now make it your own.  Jason basically said, he can build us our house, and do it for our budget, but we will need to be prepared to make some hard choices on some things to keep it in the budget.

I like this man already!!  A realist!

We told Jason we can handle that!

And the best part…he is going to let me have my Ikea kitchen!!!!!!!!!!!  SOOOOOOO EXCITED!!  I have always wanted an Ikea house…and I get to have one!  Sweet!

Ok…more on the Ikea kitchen in future posts…back to the builder meeting.

Jason went through the estimated timeline, and was very honest about a realistic timeline.  He said that he was not going to be able to get to working on the drawings until Tuesday, due to stuff already in the pipeline.  This was ok with us, at least he told us up front.

Well, Saturday rolls around and Ole has a question about some temporary housing that Jason was talking about at our meeting, so he emails him.  Low and behold….Jason found some plans he thinks will work for us and wants to set up a meeting this week to take a look at them!!!

Ok, lets count…Saturday, Sunday,  Monday, Tuesday….4 days before he said he was going to be able to START working on our stuff, Jason has stuff he wants us to look at!!!  How refreshing!  Someone who wants to build us a house!

Ahhh…I feel better about this already!

Quilt Along Sneak Peak!

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I am very excited to announce I am participating Ashley’s Quilt Along over at Mommy by Day, Crafter by Night.

If you have never been over to her blog, do yourself a favor and go check it out!  Quite simply…she rocks!  Ashley has a plethora of super creative projects on her blog, most of which are on my to do list!

When she announced her quilt along I was so pumped!!  I have been talking about making the girls some quilts for their beds, what perfect timing!  Plus the zig-zag is just too cute!

Step one – 5/25:  Gather your supplies.

Being a tightwad frugal person, I shopped around online to find my required fabric.  JoAnn’s came through again!!!  Score, 40% off specialty quilting fabric!  I had decided to only make one quilt, for cost purposes.  I got all the fabric I needed for  $60.09, including tax and shipping.  I did, however, forget to order the batting for the quilt (I was far too excited about the fabric!)…so that needs to get ordered tonight.

My box-o-fabric arrived Monday in the mail!

Isn’t it too cute!!!?!??  Morgan was super excited and wanted me to start on the quilt right away…lol.  The patience of a preschooler is amazing!

I have to say, the fabric looked way better in person than it did online.  I was a bit nervous about ordering online.  Being a perfectionist, I want everything matchy-matchy.  So I ordered all the fabric out of the Heidi Grace Fabric- Ticklebug collection to ensure they would go together.

Heidi Grace Fabric- Ticklebug Main Pattern

This one (above) has to be my favorite fabric out of the four!  It has “Sweet little girl” written all over it!

Heidi Grace Fabric- Ticklebug Allover Dots Yellow

Heidi Grace Fabric- Ticklebug Tossed Floral Pink

Heidi Grace – Ticklebug Allover Floral Dot Green

I got to work cutting out my 42 – 10×10 inch blocks.  And then decided…I’m going to make two quilts instead of one!  (Shhh…don’t tell Ole, I ordered more fabric to use as the two quilt backs when I ordered the batting.  I had a 50% off one item coupon, 8 yards is one item!  So I saved a boatload of $$!)

I have enough of these four fabrics to make two quilt tops.  The only thing I would need more of is the quilt back, which can easily be a solid, and therefore much less expensive!  I ordered solid cotton quilting fabric in Natural at $5.99/yd regular price (which became $2.99 after the coupon, saving me $24…SCORE!).  There are some spaces of an off white looking color, so I think natural will work well.  If not, it’s on the back and I don’t have to look at it!

Step Two – 6/6:  Cutting Fabric

Psych!!  You will have to wait and see how I cut up my blocks until the next quilting post!

Head over to Mommy by Day, Crafter by Night and get the supply list and quilt along with us!

Garage Sale Weekend

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I don’t think I have the personality for hosting a garage sale.  I’m far too impatient, I don’t like to haggle, putting a price tag on all my stuff gives me an anxiety attack, and I don’t like people messing with my things.

So why did I have a garage sale again???  Oh ya…I’m cheap and if I have to get rid of my stuff, someone better pay me some money for it!

I’ve been working (seriously) on cleaning all the junk out of my house for over a week.  Simply put…we have too much crap.

Most of my problem is I have an attachment to the Cheerleading sweatshirt from high school.  Why??  No clue.  It really doesn’t make sense, even to me, but I have the need to keep my stuff…all of it!  I have all kinds of stuff from when I was younger…way younger.  In fact most of it is at least 15 years old.

And my husband has the exact opposite need.  He has the intense need to get rid of it…all of it!  (Opposites attract right?)  He is slightly unsympathetic to my intense need to keep everything.

Now by no means am I a hoarder. Far from it.  I put my sweatshirt in the sale, no one bought it (thank God), score!!  I just feel that it makes no sense to get rid of stuff you could possibly use again!  One day I may be cold…and I may have every other sweatshirt I own in the wash…and I will need that 15 year old sweatshirt from high school!!!  LOGICAL RIGHT!!!?!?!?!  It may be a relatively big “what-if” statement…but it could happen!

Anyway…off my soap box.  (I didn’t win the keep everything battle…but I’m not bitter.)

The last 2 weeks have been rough for me.  I have been a giant, walking ball of stress!  The pressure of deciding what goes, what stays…ugh.  Lord knows if I left it all up to my husband it would have ALL gone.  I do need to give him some props though…he has put up with my extreme crabbiness and hasn’t kicked me out (thank you honey).

We got all the big junk in the garage last weekend.  And over the course of last week, cleaned out the smaller stuff.  Most of what needed to go was the little baby toys.  And a lot of other toys.

What amazes me is how kids can amass so much stuff.  It’s not like they have jobs, money, the drivers license, and the vehicle necessary to go to the store and buy all this junk!  How do they get it?!?!  Sometimes I wonder if they have superhero powers and they can materialize the toys by thinking about them!  If so, they need to materialize me some crafting supplies!!

Well, long story short, I never did price everything.  Despite my aversion to haggling, I decided pricing everything was a far worse experience to endure.

Saturday turnout wasn’t too bad, and I managed to sell most of my big things.  We made about $200.  Which is the best garage sale I’ve ever had.  I’ve never had to sell furniture before, so that helped.

Sunday, however, was mostly a bust.  Open from 8am – 2pm, I had customers at 12:30…right after I decided it wasn’t worth it anymore, and started to pack up.  Figures.  I would have started packing up at 10am had I known it would draw people!!

We have the couch and the love seat left, 2 totes of baby clothes/supplies, 1 tote of stuffed animals, 3 diaper boxes full of miscellaneous stuff that just needs to go to good will or somewhere out of my house, all the adult’s clothing we started the weekend with, lots of shoes, and some other miscellaneous things.

I went from an overflowing garage to a half full garage.  So not bad.  But I just don’t think I’ll do it again. Which is what I said last time…oh well!

Do you find hosting garage sales as awful as I do?