Pant. Pant. Pant.

Well folks, if Tuesday was a gorgeous spring day, then today was summer. It was still gorgeous, but it was hot today. It's 10:30 pm and it's still 80°F in the house. It sure doesn't feel like March. But the worst thing about it? Boob sweat. There. I said it. Now on to other things.

I got my filling fixed at the dentist today and made impressions for a night guard. I'm a bit dubious about the night guard thing after doing the impressions. The forms they put in my mouth were huge! How, exactly, does one sleep with that in and not drool all over the place?

So we made final decisions on windows, the front door, and all other exterior doors today and they have been ordered. And I'm stoked about that. We came in under on our front door allowance, but went a little over on the windows and doors. But not by much. And in the long run it will be worth it since the windows we upgraded to have better insulating capabilities.

So it occurs to me that I haven't yet told you when the house will be finished. The house should be finished late-August–mid-September.

We hit a bit of a budgeting glitch before we started the house. We'd been told we could build the house for $XXX,XXX, but when we went back in January the price was $XXX,XXX + $25,000.

The first bid had been reached working from the original house plan and some vague ideas about what we wanted, and by January we had refined the house plans somewhat, had a better idea of what we wanted, and the cost of raw materials had risen. We had a bit of a freak-out moment at the thought of another $25,000, but after talking it through, we decided we still wanted to move forward.

Knowing we were concerned about the cost of the house, the builder suggested a way we could possibly save some money on the build—let the builders showcase our home in the 2011 Parade of Homes. The housing market has been slow and the builders weren't planning to have a house in the Parade this year. And the timing of our house was going to be close to the parade.

In return for letting the builders, subcontractors, and vendors showcase their work and products by placing our house in the Parade, we will likely receive discounts or upgrades from various vendors along the way. The granite vendor has already agreed to a 10% discount, and we received about another 10% off the windows and doors.

It's a win-win-win! The builders get to promote their work, the vendors can promote their products, and we get to save some money!

The only downside of having the house in the Parade is that we have to delay our move. The Parade of Homes is the first 3 weekends of October, so even though the house will be completed in September, we can't move in until late October. Well that, and other people will be traipsing through our finished house before we even get to see it!

We had already tentatively agreed to be in the Parade when the builder called to say that Frank Betz, the architect who originally created our house plan, had submitted the same plan to have them build a spec home for the Parade! In the same neighborhood we're building in, no less! The builders were concerned that we would be upset.

I actually thought it was funny. And I also felt my choice of plan for our house was somewhat validated—I knew the architect would want one of his best plans shown as a Parade house. As far as I was concerned, as long as the homes weren't going to be sitting right next to each other, I didn't have a problem with it. Besides, we've altered the plans a bit, so they wouldn't be identical.

The architect ended up backing out. But it was still funny.