I actually meant to post stuff up about our vacation not long after we got back, but then there was craziness, which I will get into later.
The trip went very well. The 12 hour drive seems shorter every time we make it. We dropped off Mercury at Jenna's to be babysat for the week. He _hates_ the car. Phineas on the other hand got over it fast and spent the entire ride sleeping in his litter box of all the places. On the way home
he whined at first, but got over it.
We got to do all the stuff we wanted, as well as other unexpected things, we did get in touch with everyone we wanted to and got to hang out with everyone at least once.
(Link to pictures). We only had one unfortunate run-in with people we knew who we were not planning on letting know we were home, but it was mercifully short and had no fallout (well none that matters or got back to us... I'm sure there was some in theory).
One of the coolest things was that Monday morning we walked across the road to the high school just cause. We had been talking about who we hoped we would run into, teacher-wise. There were 3 teachers in the building that morning, and 2 of them were the 2 we wished we could see! Mr. Cantrell, our 11th and 12th grade AP English teacher gave us both a huge hug and told us he was excited when he got our wedding announcement and spent a good 15 minutes chatting before he remembered he was supposed to be doing stuff, lol. We also bumped into Mr. P, the art teacher. We also found Charles' senior art project on the wall still and discovered
something eerie about the accompanying piece done by one of our friends.
Aside from that, it was just chilling we people and running around doing all the same stuff we used to do when we lived there. Not much has changed in 3 years (except my favorite Chinese restaurant going out of business. Damn you, economy!)
Anywho, there's been a plenty keeping me busy this last week. For one thing,
I graduated. The ceremony was this Sat. and I
got my tall hat, 2 different medals, my ACF certification cards which address me as "Chef Megan," and I found out I graduated Summa Cum Laude. woot.
The other thing that's been keeping me busy is that we are actually house shopping. We got preapproved for a rather sizable loan and started looking last week. We've been putting off bringing this up until now cause I felt like I wanted to be sure things were going to really happen before I started telling people. However until we get a bid accepted on a house, I probably won't bring it up again. The entire process is like a giant roller coaster of emotion. Having the money is such a tiny part of the process. Then wading through five billion houses and driving out 45 minutes to look at them, making bids, waiting to hear back, etc. is all very tiring work. You get really excited about a place and put in a bid only to find out that just that morning another bid was accepted while you were dotting the i's and crossing the t's on the paperwork. You get angry and depressed all at once until you find another house, only this one has _7_ bids on it already and despite it being exactly what you want you have to assume it won't happen, but you bid anyways and tell yourself "I will _not_ get my hopes up. There is no chance we have the highest offer" Except that you know that every house after this will just be disappointing because it's not the other one. Way too much emotion involved in this that we hadn't been prepared for. We thought, hey it's a buyer's market and there's billions of sellers out there desperate to make a deal. Except that Obama's stimulus is working too well and the market is now saturated with buyers, lol. Which is another reason we are in a hurry: now that we're in the market, it really looks like this thing is going to turn around soon. You know the cliche stories about the crazy brides at the wedding dress sample sales? It feels like that, but with houses.
But don't worry, one day we will actually win a bid and I will post. Unfortunately today is one of those "waiting to hear back" days which drive me nuts with the impotence of my position. I need to start doing something to take my mind off it, like work on my D*C costumes or something.