Another 3 Weeks, and Little To Show

It doesn't feel like we've accomplished much over this last 3 weeks, but actually looking back, we did quite a bit.

We sat down with our architect for 1 1/2 hours to revise, reduce, economize where we could, all trying to keep with the original vision that Jan and I have, and I think it turned out very well, lost a few things we want, but the majority and the basic bones are still there.  That process of drawing the new revised plans took about 10 days.  Meanwhile we talked to a few other builders and eliminated 2, so we are now down to 2.

So with nothing else to do but wait we found a new to us Vietnamese restaurant, I Luv Pho, that we really enjoyed, in fact we have been there twice already and are looking forward to more visits to explore more of their menu!

This is a lemongrass Bun, served warm

Tasty shrimp tempura

A delicious spicy shrimp salad

And a more traditional Bun served cold with shrimp,
BBQ pork, and an egg roll, yummy!

We met our friends' Diane and John for a nice visit over lunch.

And we've been cooking here as well, an Asian inspired lamb shank, unique for us and very, very good, and home made pizza.

We even decided to get away for a few days and went back up to Talona Ridge in Ellijay for a change of scenery and to visit Karen.  No, no pictures, unfortunately.

We also had to move sites here in Winding Waters.  When we were making the initial reservations we were told we could only stay in the premium sites on a monthly basis until Memorial day, then we would have to move to either a classic or preferred.  We picked what we thought was a very desirable site on an end, pointing north so we'd be in shade at HH, very important here as the summer heat arrives, but unfortunately it turned out to be a poor decision.  It was right across from one of the dumpster locations, so people banging on the doors and garbage trucks coming and going at all hours, and I do mean all hours.  It was weird, the garbage trucks even came often in the middle of the night 0115am, 0300am, as well as other times throughout the day.  Another thing we missed was we were between three dog pen sites, yes they have several sites that have a small dog pen installed, and what we found was people figured since they had a pen, they could just leave the dog or dogs, even had one neighbor with 6 dogs in theirs while they did what ever, just letting them bark to high heaven, and then since they face the park's dog runs right across the road from us, it was quite a cacophony many times.  Then the final icing on the cake was it was also on the direct route from the area of the park that has long term working people in it, and we think every single one drives a loud diesel truck.  Then add in the fact it was also the quickest way to the pool and water park, and it seems that every kid now has an electric something, scooter, bike, things we couldn't even identify flying by at a hundred mph.  A perfect storm as it turned out, but now we have moved to a preferred site, a little smaller, but still quite large, near the back of the park, away from the dumpsters, dogs, and the loud trucks, it's almost like we're here all by ourselves, wonderful.

So latest update we have submitted the revised plans to 2 builders, one, the one that came in so high initially to see if our revisions really did the job, and another builder that is building the house next to us.  We have had many encouraging talks with him, and gone through several of his houses including our neighbors, so we still have our fingers crossed that we might hit pay dirt in the next week or so and be able to get the show on the road.

Quick Update

I just noticed that it has been a solid 3 weeks since I posted, no we didn't disappear, it's just we feel like we are in purgatory.

As I mentioned we had a nice visit from our son Jason and Joanne, showed them the land.

After our plans came back and we sent them to our prospective builder the first estimate came back much higher than expected, enough that we had to question the whole project:-(   We were in a bit of a funk, and told ourselves we needed to take a deep breath, let some time go by, digest it, and then sent it out to 4 other builders.

Meanwhile we decided to take care of our tire issue, so we ran up to a great place in Dalton, GA, Southern Tire Mart to get new tires for our steer axle and had them move the old steer tires to the tag so we could get rid of the 2 tires that had timed and worn out.  We did some more figuring and determined we had put about 70,000 miles on those tires, so not bad:-)

With all the time we are sitting around waiting, we managed to find a few new, to us, restaurants, one a pizza place in Cartersville, The Mule House, which has a very unique and delicious brussel sprouts appetizer and quite good wood fired pizza, definitely added to our list.  

So where are we now, Jan and I have sat down and worked hard to save money on the build, downsizing, altering, taking out some of the extravagances, you know, like running water, to see if we can't make this manageable without changing the complexion and feel of what we want.  Only time will tell, we knew when we embarked on this change in our lives that we might not be able to do exactly what we wanted and knew there would have to be compromises along the way.  Turns out that it might be one of the worst times to do this.  Our plan now is over the next week or so is to get back with the architect and change the plan to incorporate our savings ideas and add in any he can come up with, resubmit it to our prospective builders and see what we can come up with, otherwise........who knows.