Symptom: the bank won't release money for our building project.

Problem: Ram Jack didn't get a building permit or an inspection as they should have when I hired them to do my foundation repairs last year.

The good news: it's Ram Jack's responsibility to rectify the problem by working with the city and submitting engineering documentation, and they've been cooperative.

The bad news: at least a week and probably more until we get more money for our project.

Money or no money, we're moving in this weekend. Halleluiah.

Speaking of banana pudding, I saw that Geer Street Garden offers it on their menu, and I bet it is good. I might give it a try when I go out with the guys tomorrow night.

In other news, we're making a big push to be moved into the "new" house by Saturday evening when Brooklynne's sisters arrive to kick off the summer season of fun. The project left to do are endless, but I find that having a deadline makes me more focused on the essential work. When beach week rolls around in a couple of weeks, I'll have more time to post some before and after shots.

Finally, long-time readers know I'm a wanna be stargazer, so I was glad to see the winning photos from the Earth and Sky photo contest presented by The World at Night. Here are a couple of my favorites.

We had another full weekend highlighted by more home rennovations, church meetings, and football.

Now that I am a fully-credentialed homeower-plumber, Brooklynne and I finished off plumbing the drain to the new master shower and poured the bedding mortar for the shower pan. If you want to see what we are doing, you can watch this video, which is what we're using to guide us through the process. Our show will be very similar to this, except maybe twice as big.

Besides working on the house, I also attended a meeting detailing our church's budget from last year and the one for the coming year. Last year, due to the economic downturn and a poor year in 2009, we adopted a very conservative budget. The move paid off and the church did very well in 2010. We ran in the black by quite a bit, and despite ongoing economic worries, the congregation was very generous with their tithes and gifts. Praise the LORD that He has provided and we can continue sharing our blessings to further His work.

Finally, the Steelers came through for me. I now have a date with my TV and my favorite NFL team on February 6th. My invitation to join us at the new place stands, so come one and come all! (No Green Bay colors allowed.)

I didn't blog last week because I was so busy with the house, but no fear, the blogging will continue.

We have been making great progress toward moving in by the end of the month. I took the plumbing re-test and passed this time with no problems. I was told that there was not a freely-available code book, which seemed weird to me since the code is a government document, and all government docs are in the public domain. It turns out the guy in the inspections dept. was wrong and you can download a copy here. It even comes in Kindle format.

What else have we done? We almost finished framing the basement (widening the bath, adding a laundry, mudroom, and 2 closets) and we completed the refinishing of our hardwoods throughout the house. We also scheduled our cabinets to go in on Thursday, and we picked out the granite for the countertops, which will go in next week. If we can finish tiling the kids' bathroom and get some painting done by the time the ganite is installed, we will be ready to move in. I am now really hoping to watch the Steelers win the Superbowl on my own TV in my own house. Any local readers who would like to join the fun on Superbowl Sunday are welcome to help us celebrate (provided we are in fact moved in).

Just to clarify though--just because I'm talking about moving in does not mean we're done with the project. we will still have the master and guest baths to finish as well as the guest room, deck, and exterior finishes. My target for those projects is the end of May.

Other updates from the week: I start spring classes today. Yesterday was my first-ever parent teacher conference where we learned that HJ has "advanced negotiating skills" (aka: apt to argue to get her way). I subtly lobbied for more work on math topics and Brooklynne told me I was being too pushy with our 4-year-old. UNC's sloppy performance against Clemson still made me feel better about our game against GaTech this weekend.

What else...? I don't know. More tomorrow.

I went into the Durham inspection office today to take the test you have to pass before you can get a permit to do your own plumbing. You could miss up to 9 and I missed 12. The test didn't ask tough questions (How many inches under the ground does your supply pipe have to be?) and it was open-book... and they gave me the book. Yet I found a way to fail.

In my defense, the code book might as well have been written in Chinese. Durham should really invest in some better writers. Alas, I will try again next week.