Maybe it will make me stronger...

'Strength' can be defined in many ways.... but in the end each person has their own perception of what it means to get strong... Who is stronger - a person who can 'bench' 200 lbs w/o a problem or a child who at the age of four has had two courses of chemotherapy.... while each is a definition of strenght... makes me wonder which one really matters?

To me personally being strong means being able to endure what life has decide to put in my path... I want to be emotionally and mentally strong more than physically.... One can achieve anything in life with a STRONG will.... but often it is hard to distinguish between strength and weakness.... lets say a woman is trapped in abusive relationship for the sake of her children... Is she a strong person for enduring years of abuse in a hope of happier times for her children? or is she so weak that she does not think that she is able to fight past the life she is stuck in... I honestly don't know the answer... to an outsider it is easy to say that she is weak to stay in that relationship but what if it took all her strength to stay there because she knew that it was the best thing for her children...

What about a father who has to choose between the well being of his unborn child and his wife...or a parent who has to choose between the lives of two children.... I think it takes unaccountable amount of strenght to make that decision and then have to live with it forever...or a child who has lost a parent and needs to grow up feeling the void or a parent who has lost a child... how do you measure their strenght? All those situations, I cannot even imagine being faced with... will I have the strenght to make the best decision? I have always considered myself to be a strong woman but just thinking about all the times my strenght could be tested makes me feel weak... I am sure when and if I have to face any such situation... I will find a way to find the strenght that I need... but what if I fail?

It's said that it takes a stronger person to forgive.... So in that instance I am very weak... I don't hold grudges but I choose to forget rather than forgive... but maybe I can start working on that and pray that I may never have to face anything that requires more strength than I can handle...

If you ask me.....

So just having paid our second mortgage payment, I started to think if I would go through a home building process again... the answer is - Not for another 10 years.... Honestly I dont think I have the energy required.....

So back in May 2007, Sibi & I decided to buy our very first home somewhere in the Triangle area in NC.... so as we started searching, we saw older homes, newer homes and older homes that might as well be new homes with all the upgrades that we done.... We liked some but mostly there were one or two things that just wouldnt sit right with us... so we thought that maybe building a brand new house was the way to go... so we look around for the best builders in the area with the floor plans we liked.... and it was not long before we found a builder that had a great floor plan and was considered to be reputable in the area... the winner was Shea Homes at Brightleaf in the Park. We drove around the various neighborhoods they had built, looked at options and asked a LOT of questions... and after signed off on the contract to build our very first home, I thought ' Wow, that was easy. Now all I have to do is wait for the house to be done'. Little did I know what was to come....

Soon we found that it was not going to be a easy process - unless the customer keeps a tab on everything, the builder will find a way to mess things up and obviously not tell you about it.

The 'design rep' we met for consultation was of very little help to us and only gave us information based on specific questions... so if you did not ask the right questions, you were left in the dark. As we proceeded through the building process, we realized one by one all the options that were never presented to us.... After numerous requests to grade the lot lower to have a less steep driveway - today we can barely park our car on it..... I guess its good that we upgraded to the extended garage..... Everyday we would come by the house to find something or other that was not done right or find a shortcut they took that was not really effective... After misrepresentation from their rep on the type of windows we were going to get, we ended up paying for the upgrade and the old windows....and the final kicker is that it took them 6 to 7 tries before correct window was ordered and when it did arrive, it still failed to match what was promised! It baffled us how simple quality control steps were missed by them and how long it took to correct something that was wrong. Every day was a new challange.... something as small as the wrong door hardware being installed to why they had framed three windows in a row at different heights.... it seemed that we would need to overlook everything!

And we did, we were on their case about everything but what really annoyed us was the fact that they had no sense or understanding of communication or customer satisfaction. Their goal was to get in and out and done with the house as soon as possible. We would email them with issues and concerns and would not hear back from them with resolution.... it would be upon us to follow through.... Another thing that really took us back was the discriminatory treatment we got as a young Indian couple going through this process.... multiple times we were questioned to ensure that we would go through with the house and often discouraged from making design changes in order to ensure that Shea would be able to flip the house if our finances fell through... And while we did not make a big deal of this treatment, to be honest maybe we should have.... it seems that Shea believes that their positive treatment towards a certain set of customers is all that they need to sell homes.. Obviously it is not working since they have only sold and completed five homes thus far....

I am to this day wondering, when will the builder realize the importance of 'happy customers'? There is complete disregard not only in the standard of quality delivered in the final product but also in customer satisfaction. Their reps have been deceiving by withholding information, rude in the way they handle customers and finally their project management process has been proven to be completely incompetent with all the mistakes that took place. If someone were to ask me if I was happy with the house we live in, my answer would be yes but I would have to add that we are happy becuase of the time and effort that my husband and I put into ensuring the quality of every little thing and not because Shea did an excellent job building our house. But I can firmly say today that I will not be building another Shea home.

So finally, back to the original question - will I build another home? The answer is YES but it would be by us hiring a contractor and managing the overall process ourselves.