We spent this past week waiting for a phone call that, of course, didn’t come. The next step in our loan takes us backward a couple of steps. Our application has been resubmitted to a loan officer, who will refer us to another loss verifier. Part of the reason is the estimates are coming in almost 1/3 higher than the original loan was approved for. So, go back a few squares and wait for another call.

Waiting for another disaster approval doesn’t mean we haven’t been taking care of the property because we have. This week, our contractor had an engineer up to grab soil samples in the location of the new house. We are still waiting for the building plan approvals, so I doubt we’ll be able to get much more done until those hit my mailbox. Without the actual building plans, we can’t get the basement plans done.

In the meantime, we had a set of steps and a rock wall to move if we wanted to save the materials. Which, of course, we do. Yesterday, we gathered a few of our younger family members and moved blocks and rocks.

We still have more stones and blocks to move, but we’ll get a little help from our contractor and his dirt-digging toys. Some of those rocks have been buried under the soil for twenty years or more. It would have taken us way longer with a shovel than we were willing to put in. Especially after we moved two trailer loads of the stuff out of the way already. Once the house is in place and we know our landscaping needs, we’ll cart them back and put them to use.

But for now, it’s “hurry up and wait.”