So, I was sitting outside smoking, thinking about everything that’s been going on in my life. S. and I have just returned from a road trip to Kansas City - not by choice (the travelling bit) but by “encouragement” from the job. It’s Summer Regionals time again, Ladies and Gents.

Thursday night was interesting enough, with Stephen and I drinking enough for several people combined. Luckily there were no Career Limiting Moments, but even the travel staff were asking how the “party couple” was the next morning. Eh, even puking in the bushes in the front of the Fairmont Hotel is fun when you’re that drunk.

Summer Regionals were the same old shit. Awards I didn’t win, meetings I was attending half-asleep, naps taken in the afternoon. The only difference between this year and every other year is that there were no lakes to boat on. I do have to say, however, that nothing beats Kansas City barbeque.

Now that I’m home, I’d hoped I’d be a little more relaxed, but it’s like I was gone four days and have to catch up on a hundred. Much to our delight, our home loan was approved without the contingency of having to sell our house first! We were more than a little relieved, because if we’d had to keep that contingency on the loan, we’d have had to sell our current house in three weeks in order to keep the earnest money we put down with the builder. Otherwise, zero.

Our credit - no, I’m sorry, my husband’s credit - turned out to be the big problem muddying the works, the butthead. First of all, he and credit just don’t mix. He apparently experienced the whole “Woo! I’m 18 and have lots of credit cards!” thing when he went to school, and CompUSA was his very favorite. Except, wait. When you buy stuff, they actually expect you to pay it back. There’s a foreign concept. 30 days late, 60 days late, 90 days late. Woo! Then when he went back to school for the zillionth time last year, his dad agreed to pay his bills while he studied. Except, well, the Paying Bills on Time gene is as slightly defective in the Deken line as the Get to Places on Time gene, so loans for Stephen’s two cars (don’t ask - it’s a “family helping family” thing) and various and sundry credit cards are marked as late 30 days off and on from the middle of 2003 to the middle of 2004 (when S. got a job). At least his dad had an excuse - three boys in college. Stephen, however, is just a loveable but irresponsible pain in my butt. If delinquencies were marked in red, our credit report would be simply bleeding to death.

Luckily, my score - though not where it used to be due to the worst market in recent history (2002) - boosted his a bit and the bank took pity on us and approved the loan. Thank God. Thank GOD! Talk about nerve-wracking.

Yes, let’s talk about nerve-wracking. This building-a-house business is for the birds. Perhaps if I were a creative it would be easier, but damn! When you think in numbers and aren’t sure if navy goes with black, there are problems. Plus everything is in the minutae. I have to pick ceramic tile (that all looks creme or taupe or beige - figure out the difference there) and then pick out the GROUT COLOR! There are only nearly 20 of those.

Don’t get me wrong - it sounded really cool when we first started. But then the perfectionist in me gained reign and now I’m what I would consider a Display Rat. I’ve been haunting the displays for this particular builder for days. One of the salespeople got worried about me and came looking for me when I was in their design room for two hours without coming out.

Currently I’m fretting over the color of the kitchen cabinets. And yes, I am saying “I” an awful lot. S. has already given me his color choices and his ideas. He has certain leanings and has told me what he doesn’t care about. Those are the things I’m obsessing over. Choices, choices.

For example: we sat down at the design table today with 272 countertop samples, sized about 3″ x 4″, like oversized playing cards. He took half and I took half, and we dug through them, culling out which ones we didn’t like. Then we switched piles. If both of us didn’t like them, they were completely out. If he didn’t like them but I did, or vice versa, they were back in. Then we kept trading the piles back and forth until we came down to six - four greens, a blue and a light taupe-ish cream-ish. Now! The kicker is that, since we can’t decide between spice (dark) and wheat (medium) cabinets, we have to compare these countertop samples to EACH cabinet color. Great. Some worked with one, some worked with both. The blue, we decided, didn’t work in our kitchen, but would kick ass in someone else’s.

This is what I’m dealing with right now.

Oh, the one thing we had decided on was carpet color. Until we arrived at the display homes today to find they’d changed carpeting lines altogether, and the one we’d settled on was gone.

Before Friday (our “deadline” day) we have to decide on countertops, kitchen cabinet color, lights for the kitchen, lights for the breakfast room, kitchen and breakfast room paint color, ceramic tile type/color, lights for the powder room, lights for the hallway, and a chandelier for the dining room. That’s just the first floor. I’ll spare you the rest of the gory details.

But hey! We know that the roof will be “Weathered Wood.” (We just can’t decide if we’ll get 20-year, 25-year, or 30-year architectural shingles.)

Headed for the looney bin at record speed,
michelle