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The Good News
1. We have a building permit! Well, we have permission to pick it up, as soon as we know who's going to be doing the building.

The Bad News
1. The city determined - post-fire - that the two fire hydrants at the ends of the street are too far away from the houses in the middle of the street, so a new fire hydrant must be installed in the middle. Guess who gets to pony up for it?
2. The house is going to cost more money to build than it was insured for, and we'll be lucky to be able to do it for the total amount the insurance paid for the structure plus all the contents. Oh joy! The kids and I were just planning to come up with a few cheap used things or give-aways anyway, but my parents will be left with a brand new house and no furniture except what little they managed to salvage from the fire - all of it damaged and possibly not worth restoring.
3. Still waiting on one contractor who was asked to put in a bid. Considering we had hoped to get the bids in 6 weeks ago and be breaking ground before Christmas, this is not a good sign. My mom is totally stressed out because there appears to be no way we're going to get the house built so that we can move in by May 2, 2007, and none of us can afford to pay for the rental house, let alone a rental house full of rental furniture, plus 6 storage units full of smoke/fire-damaged stuff. We can't replace the rental furniture because we have nowhere to put anything that we would be replacing, and we can't exactly "unrent" it a piece at a time. Personally, I think any contractor who is so slow getting a bid in that he places us in this situation deserves not to get picked. That, or any rental expenses incurred past May 2, 2007, can be picked up by the contractor. Then again, I'm not in charge.
4. The storage units were burglarized, and all of my dad's tools and related items salvaged from the burned-out basement - plus a few silly things like some unburned packages of macaroni & cheese and powdered eggs that were saved from the food storage - were taken. My parents are just sick about it. I'm thinking I need to amend my statement on reality. First it was: Life sucks. Then it became: Life sucks, and then your house burns down. Add to that now: and anything of value that's saved gets stolen.

The Positive Spin
1. We're all alive. The rest is just whining, and unimportant.
2. All neighbors living by a new fire hydrant will get a nice break on their insurance. Woohoo!
3. If everything gets stolen from storage, we won't have to pay for the storage units come next May.
4. If they don't have anywhere to sit down or sleep, my parents don't have a good excuse not to go on a mission as soon as the house is finally built.
5. A very kind neighbor offered to let us live in their basement until the house is finished. We're thinking we'd like to keep them as friends, however. Alternatively, maybe my parents can go on that mission on May 2, 2007, and the kids and I can live in a tent in the backyard. That might make the contractor work a little faster, and I can practice my "formidable homebuilder" skills. Hunter likes camping, and I could take a crash-course in outdoor cooking skills. Besides, we're usually in Davis county, living out of our car 5 to 8 hours-a-day during the summer anyway. It could work.