Plugging Away

Life continues in our little corner of the universe. We've been busy with work and such, so there hasn't been much time to update.

Graham is officially on vacation as of Wednesday evening. He had 2 days with students this week, conferences on Monday, and has been enjoying his break so far. He's gathered some more paperwork for the lenders and FHA in regards to the house, and we just found out there's one more hoop we have to jump through and yet another dotted line to sign. Basically, because all the banks shot themselves in the foot by giving loans to people who couldn't afford them a few years ago and have since lost money on those deals, they're trying to prevent such a scenario from happening again. This time it involves a lot more paperwork and a "home ownership counseling session" we have to attend. Joy of joys! We're expecting it to be a lot of "pay your mortgage on time" and "don't avoid phone calls from the bank", etc. All we need is to get a piece of paper signed stating that we went to the session and we're good. Unfortunately for us, we can't just get the paper signed, we actually have to attend this stupid thing. Figures that with one more hurdle, we'd come across someone with ethics who won't just sign the paper and send us on our way.

Had we known about this session a week ago, we'd have gotten our act together to attend this week. We found out earlier this week and were only able to get our paperwork in today. That = suck. So now we have to fill out another few papers and meet with them *hopefully* next week, but likely the week after (Graham is going out of town, and according to the paperwork both of us need to attend the session). So...we basically have 7+ days to get a little more paperwork together if and when the bank calls (and we've been warned--they will call). It's not that we've done anything wrong, it's just that everyone and their banker wants to be sure they don't get stuck with a billion foreclosures again, so because they weren't responsible enough to say "no" to people who couldn't afford a loan, we have to prove we're responsible enough for them. Totally backwards. Why aren't these banks being forced to attend sessions on saying "no" to potential customers, eh? Figures that the homeowner-wannabes get yanked around.

But, things are still progressing and when we have news we'll definitely share.

In other news...Graham is going to Minneapolis for a few days next week! He's attending a science teacher conference and is flying out Wednesday and returning Saturday, just in time for Halloween. He's going to have fun attending science experiement sessions, etc., and I'm going to have fun eating girl food! I'm going to make all my favorite foods that he can't stand during the time he's gone, and that means pasta with cream sauce, broccoli cheese soup, and cheese stuffed chicken! WOO HOO!

This weekend we'll try and update with new photos and trust me...when house stuff happens, you'll know.