The Story of My Christmas Socks

I don't have many traditions. The ones I have I take seriously because they mean something to me. My Christmas Sock tradition has been going on for over a decade. It started off rather impromtu but became something I had to make sure I did annually.

It all started when I was 12- being born on Christmas Eve makes for some interesting birthday parties as a kid. This one was done as a kid version of a murder mystery party, meaning no one died but there was some mystery of some sort. Anyways one of the gifts I received from a friend of mine was a pair of Christmas Socks with $10 in quarters in each sock. I thought that was pretty cool and being as my actual birthday was only a week after my party, I decided to wear them on the 24th, and ended up not taking them off through all of Christmas day. They got washed, put away, and forgotten about.

The next year, I had found them in the back of my sock drawer because I'd failed to do laundry for a while. It was a couple weeks prior to Christmas and I set them aside, thinking it would be cool to wear them again.

I then (at the ripe old age of 13) decided to do it every year, for no apparent reason at the time. I came to appreciate the nostalgia and the reminder that my family is larger than my bloodline.

This is the same pair of socks I've been wearing every December 24th and 25th for the last 13 years.

I think they're still in great shape!

The holidays are all about family, friends, and appreciating what you have. My Christmas socks gain more importance every year. Appreciate the little things everyone, and have a Merry Christmas.

Construction Planning - Our New House Volume 2

Early last week I had a Construction Planning with the development's Head of Construction, Howie. We went over about 10 different versions of the floorplan below. Building a house is nothing if not an info dump that takes hours of meetings to sort through.

Our Magnificent Floorplan

I never thought I'd be concerned how high a power outlet was, or whether or not a Truss would keep the recessed light over my sink from being mounted dead center. This was just the tip of the iceberg of details Howie led me through.

Exterior colors was a fun topic. We couldn't have the colors of the 2 houses to our left, 2 houses to our right, or 2 houses across from us. Luckily only the 2 to our left had been built so we had a wide range of colors to select from. Our house will be Cactus colored with "Dark Knight" shutters and door. Contrary to the Batman reference "Dark Knight" is actually a dark blue color. I'll still call it Dark Knight because it sounds awesome.

The exterior elevation (what the front of the house will look like) is shown below

Isn't it Gorgeous?



Contrary to the seeming small looking exterior, the house is quite spacious.

Another fun topic was the elevation of the ground surrounding the house, what grade our yard and driveway would be and where the easements are. Thankfully all the utility easements are in the front, so should anything need to be fixed, they would just destroy the front yard and not have to mess with the fence I'll be installing for the dogs. It also means that in the back we can build right up to our property line.

Building stuff on our land is also an interesting process; we'll first need Homeowners Association approval (yawn) and then a town permit. Thankfully the town hall is walking distance from our community so that should be nice and easy.

Now, we wait. Our foundation will be poured in March/April and we'll close in August. Until then, one final paper signing and check is all we'll do until then. It's nice to know that (at least until closing) all the paperwork is out of the way and the house will be built! We're really excited and can't wait until the start of construction!

Having a House built is lots of (paper)work

3 months ago we wandered into a community up in Volo, IL (look how far!) because we want to buy a house. Obviously we didn't think we could buy a house at all because even with FHA and 3.5% down, where would we get the $? Who loans 20ish year olds a couple hundred grand? Anyways, we meet the nice sales associate (knowing full well she wasn't getting squat from us since there was no way we could afford it right?) and see some homes. We really fell in love with it but figured we couldn't swing it. Nice sales woman says "well trying to get approved won't hurt will it? We can always arrange something now for later!" Yeah right!

Well she was right. Through some miracle of coincidence, happenstance, whatever, we got approved and were able to swing the down payment. BAM - end of September, we're under contract.

So now the fun has begun! We've selected all our options!

Kitchen (also includes a shot of our hardwood that runs through the living room, dining room and kitchen) -

Bathroom -

We also selected fixtures which I didn't bother to take pictures of but they're awesome nonetheless.

Options are fully selected as of now, and all that remains is a construction meeting next week to lock down outlet placement, exterior colors, and get a start date. We're taking delivery of the house in August of 2012 to coincide with our lease being up and that seems to work perfectly with the builders' schedule.

For now, we're the proud owners of a mound of dirt, pictured below -

I have this awesome idea to do a time lapse since once they start construction we'll be up there almost every week. We'll see if I follow through or if this will be the one picture of me going "look at my land! It is ripe for planting!"

More house updates to come!