Okay, I'm going to rant about the house today. Those of you who are sick and tired of reading about the house, you have my permission to leave now.

Matt and I went by the house yesterday after work. We even left early, at 4, in the hopes of catching Donald on-site. When we got to the house, it looked like not one blessed thing had been done on it. Not one. We asked some guys working in the street whether Donald was around, and they said they didn't think so. We walked down to the model house and talked to the slimy realtor-guy on duty whether Donald was around. He told us that Donald routinely leaves around 3 or 4. So much for him being a supervisor.

We head for home, and each breath I drew was more angry and frustrated than the last. By the time we got home, we'd decided to come in to work late today so we could go out to the site and actually catch Donald. And I had decided to call Nancy when we got home. I did. She got on the line all perky and happy and then got very quiet when I told her how furious I was. She had me wait while she called Donald. Boy, am I glad we have a cordless phone. I was pacing like a caged lion. Which describes pretty well how I was feeling: caged, trapped, de-fanged and de-clawed and with nothing to do.

I reiterated for Nancy that there is no other solution: We must move during the last weekend of August. She stuttered and stammered as if she hadn't been told this before. Then she promised to make Donald call us immediately.

I made Matt talk to Donald. I was still getting angrier and angrier with every passing moment.

I'm still angry, writing this. Can you tell?

More lies. We had been told that the drywall would be up by Friday, but Donald told us it takes four days to put it up. He told us he could have the house ready to close by the 30th. Not good enough. Matt explained to him very calmly that people were coming from all over the East Coast to help us move the weekend of the 28th, and that the very latest we could possibly close was the 27th. Matt suggested that Donald have his crews work overtime. More lies: Donald said they already were. (We have yet to see a worker out there after 4:45, except for the vinyl siding crew, who stayed until 5:30 one day. This does NOT constitute overtime in my book.)

I've never been so proud of my husband as when I heard him say this: "We've been told all along Don't worry, it'll be done on time. Don't worry, it'll be done on time. Don't worry, it'll be done on time. And yesterday they started to waffle. Well, it's too late. It's way too late to change it now."

Finally, after much more hard-nosing on Matt's part, Donald agreed to have the house ready to close on the 27th. But I don't really think it will be done then, either. But if they try to move it again, we'll be moving it to the end of September, and demanding that Gabriel Homes reimburse us for the cost of our September rent. (I don't think they'll actually do it, but we'll demand it anyway.)

We've learned some valuable lessons from this. We are never, ever again going to build a house. Or rather, if we ever build a house again, we will tell them that the deadline is actually a month or six weeks earlier than we actually want to move. When we want to move at the end of August, we'll tell them we want to move in mid-July. And we'll build exactly what we want, instead of building something brand new with plans for later conversions. We want a den instead of a garage? Well, dammit, build the den instead of the garage! We want a deck on the back? Build the deck! Window seat in the nook? Do it! But mostly, I think, we'll stick to pre-built houses. We will, in the future, be using a buyer's broker. We wind up paying for the broker one way or another; we might as well have one who's actually on our side. And we will, by all that's sacred and holy, insist on penalty clauses for delayed contracts.

We decided a few days ago, actually, that the stress with this is much, much, much worse than the stress of planning our wedding had been. At least with the wedding plans, if we discovered something important that hadn't been done yet, we could do it. At least with the wedding plans, if something went wrong, we could try to fix it. Trying to build this house, our hands are tied. We can't do anything but go out and look around (and according to our contract, we're not even supposed to do that) and wring our hands and complain to our realtor and whine and worry. Oh, yeah, and write checks. We have nothing with which to threaten them - we can't fine them, or withhold anything, or even take our business elsewhere. Nothing. We are completely helpless. They agreed to the 27th, but they don't have to hold to it - all it would take is one late delivery, and they wouldn't have the house done. No matter how hard-nosed we are, we can't move into the house if it isn't finished.

I'm so angry at this point that I'm beyond cursing. I'm even beyond acting angry; I laughed and talked with K.T. and Kevin last night when they were over to watch Crusade. I enjoyed the Crusade episode. I smiled and chatted briefly with Jeremy when he came in this morning. The anger is slowly becoming part of me, and I can only hope that it will fade when this ordeal is finally past.

The worse part is that I'm afraid that this will sour the house itself for us. We were so excited about it. Our house. We would smile and bounce at each other and squeek "House!" We had plans, immediately after closing, of going up into the gigantic master bedroom and rolling around on the floor. Ours! I'm scared, now, that all this frustration and anger will reorient on the house, that living in it will only be a reminder of how frustrating these last weeks were, and we'll resent it rather than revelling in it. That the sense of playfulness and joy will have gone out of it.

I think that's why it's suddenly become so terribly important to us that we move on time - that we actually have this moving party. We have to associate some good memories with the house right away so that we can actually enjoy it.

But that fantasy I mentioned a while back, about kicking Nancy out of the house as soon as we've finished the closing? Now that the closing date has been moved, it's no longer a fantasy. Now it's a plan.