7 Weeks

So we got our closing date yesterday. It was not the news we were hoping for. December 21st. In by Christmas, but only by the most technical of measures, as that is the Friday before Christmas and no one will be around to help us move. I feel like Christmas is sort of ruined for us and especially for Stella, although I realize Stella is too young to care about it. But the thought that we have 7 more weeks here is quite depressing. We've been here 12 weeks so far, so I guess it's much less than that, but still, it's not enough less. Sigh. Tim put a counter on his blog and it's 48 days. We should have listened to the builder. He said it would be 10-12 weeks from our pre-sheetrock orientation which would have been just a little after this date. Our salesguy was the one who kept giving us completely unrealistic estimates. I guess we must be one of the last groups to close before the end of the year. We were hoping for earlier since there are already people living there and they are supposed to be closing 7 houses a week from now on. I guess the hold-ups with the inspections and stuff pushed us back and other houses have rocketed past us. If they stick to this date, and Tim tells me apparently they are contractually obligated to finish it by 12/21 now, although I would not be suprised if it gets pushed back, our house will take about 9 months and a week from the date we signed the contract to completion. This surpasses what we thought was the slowest house building process in the world, our KB Home, which took 7 months. By comparison, they were speed demons. Of course, in Newmark's defense, KB did already have roads when we started.

In other news, we opened last night and other than a wine spill during one of the blackouts, things went off without a hitch. I did invert a few words and I didn't have one of those acting moments where the muse takes over and you really are on fire like I did Thursday night, but it still went well. The 8 people who were there really enjoyed it. Now I'm ready for tonight, when we should have quite a houseful since we're having a party with free beer afterwards. Nothing draws them out like free beer. I just hope folks get out and see the show. I'm really nervous with how much we've spent, especially since our rent went up by $900. I just hope we make back most of our expenses!