No pool yet ...

A steady downpour on Friday drenched us, followed by bits of rain over the weekend. Thankfully, our home excavation isn't filled with water -- it actually looks remarkably normal, if a bit more muddy than previously. The rebar for the foundation was delivered Friday and it's gradually going in. In theory, concrete will be poured this Thursday.

At our site meeting this morning, we learned that PGE wants to charge us $6,000 to run electricity from   the adjacent property to our main connector. Sigh. This is one of those costs that we had no idea would crop up. Another surprise cost is the septic pump, which is not standard but in our case is necessary to pump from the tank to the leach field, which sits higher than the tank. We keep thinking we're well set to avoid all the extra costs inherent in building that we've been warned about, repeatedly, by everyone who knows anyone who has ever built a house (after all, we've already made most of the decisions and priced out just about everything), but we've been hit by two big surprises already. What other fun surprises are in store for us? Fingers crossed, nothing major ...