The waiting game isn't over yet!

Well, we did close on our loan to build our new casita on February 14. However, that doesn't mean we break ground February 15, not even 16! Why you ask- well, it's because we still lack the permits from the City of Houston. Here has been our process:

1) Get plans from architect from house and site plan for the lot (basically it says, on our lot, our house will be here, our garage here, and the driveway here. And we add a few trees here or there.) - this took months and months. We began in November/December.

2)Submit the plans to the City for permits - we did this on January 31.

3)We received only a few of the permits we needed. We had to make some corrections which required going back to a few technically talented people. And we needed to get some letter from the Flood district or Storm drainage. I have no idea what that means. Once we had the changes and the letter, we gleefully submitted yet again to the City on March 7. We're thinking we should have all the permits by the end of the week, right? WRONG!

4) While the plans are still getting reviewed at the City, we can check the status online with our claim number. We see AGAIN that there are changes needed- this time a drainage plan which we need a CIVIL engineer to draw up. We contacted our engineer who is of course, on vacation all week long, but thankfully he gave us a number for somebody. We have yet to call him today and beg him to spare 10 minutes (because you know, in my mind, I believe our stuff is so minimal these experts can do it with one hand tied behind their back and their eyes closed) to draw up our simple drainage plan.

So, meanwhile, we wait and wait and wait. We are at the mercy of the city. At least I have enough to keep me busy. :)