Strange Days, Indeed...

So, I'm driving home yesterday, and I hear the familiar backbeat of some hip-hop/rap anthem coming from a car nearby. Not so unusual, right? I look in the lane to my left and just ahead of me, and there is a tricked-out black Hummer H2, looking all "fly" and "gangsta". Fits the stereotype perfectly to find that such a vehicle has the windows down and the rap music booming for EVERYONE to enjoy, whether they like it or not.

Typical, right? Nope.

I turn my head further to the left directly beside me, and there is a white Lincoln Town Car with a late 40's-early 50's VERY white guy driving it with the windows down, and the hip-hop groove wafting from his open windows.

Shows ta go ya...just like books and covers, you can't always judge the music lover by the car.

How firm a foundation?

I recently got a call from our builder to schedule an appointment with us for our "pre construction meeting". I was a bit taken aback by this, since we were previously told our new house wouldn't begin construction until there was a contract on our current house. Apparently the builder made a unilateral decision to start construction on several houses in our new subdivision. You'd think we'd be happy to see our new home start going up, but we had planned on having extra time living with the in-laws to save up more money for a larger down payment and some other incidentals involved with setting up our new home. Alas, that was not to be.

Jamie & I decided to run by the site on Sunday afternoon to see the foundation slab which has already been laid. For your education and entertainment, here is Lot 114, with a foundation for our house firmly set in concrete:

Jamie modeling the slab

While walking around the foundation, we noticed something disturbing -- we're no experts on home construction, but it appeared to us as though the back part of the foundation wasn't big enough to include the sun room option we had picked for this model of our home. That's a BIG deal to us, since the size of the main living area (including that sunroom) was one of the biggest selling points on this house for us. We mentioned this to the salesman on duty (who, by the way threw up some lame excuse about his phone going out on him as the reason why we never got the message he was SURE he sent us about our home construction starting -- yeah, right), and he assured us that he would have the person in charge of overseeing the construction call us on Tuesday. That is TODAY 05/27/2008. I'll let you know if/when we hear from him and what happens. Jamie & I are starting to get a little wary of this builder, since this isn't the first time we were told one thing had had something different happen regarding this home. If you read this, throw up a prayer for us that God will make things work out, or else give us a peace about moving on from this situation and waiting for something else to happen on the new home front.

UPDATE: 05/27 5:10 PM: Knowing the track record of the salesman at the sales office for our new subdivision, I decided to take it upon myself to call the construction supervisor to check on this, since I hadn't heard from him as promised. As I suspected, he knew nothing of my concerns about the foundation (the salesperson apparently had NOT contacted him, as he said he would). The construction supervisor checked out the foundation and called me back within minutes of our first conversation. He verified that the foundation does indeed include the sunroom, so all is well with that. That's ONE thing, at least. Check back here for more updates in the saga of the home build as they come in!

Show them the way that you feel...

This weekend Jamie & I have tickets to see the incomparable James Taylor at Chastain Ampitheatre. With the tragedy of the Chapman family still firmly in everyone's minds, I'm reminded of some of the words one of JT's greatest songs:

Just shower the people you love with love
Show them the way that you feel
Things are gonna work out fine if you only will
Shower the people you love with love
Show them the way you feel
Things are gonna be much better if you only will

Steven Curtis Chapman's manager has set up a blog for people to show their support and condolences to the Chapman family during this trying time. Take a minute to go to "In Memory of Maria" and show them some love. While you're at it, show some to someone YOU love today, too.

Pray for the Chapmans

I have no words, other than to say this: Pray for the family of Steven Curtis Chapman today. Read why here.

Oh no, THAT'S not a scam...

I got this email in my in-box today from someone who saw my listing at BuyOwner.com. (The name and email are x-ed out by me):

Visitor Name: xxxxx
Visitor Email: xxxxxxxxx@gmail.com
Property ID: ATL29197
Comments: I would like to make an offer of 160000 on this house. If you are interested please let me know so we can setup an appointment to look at the house. thanks

Uh huh. A sight-unseen offer via email on my house of 25,000 below my asking price, coming from an anonymous free email account (gmail.com). Yep. I'm gonna take THAT one seriously....NOT.

Perseverance

I don't have the words to express how appropriate this video is to my brother's life right now, and how proud I am of him for being persisent and faithful in steadfastly pursuing God's vision for his life in the middle of trying circumstances right now...and I don't think you could find a more perfect illustration of this concept than this video post at Ragamuffin Soul: "You Play The Next Chord".