Which one are you asking about? I have about five going simultaneously ...
It came to our attention that we will be leaving in a week for Miami (wedding 2 of 5 plus extended vacation). When we booked our tickets back in April, we figured we should make good use of the trip since the distance we'll be traveling is nearly equivalent to flying across the Atlantic. So we gave ourselves a few more days at our hotel and said we'd decide what else we wanted to see and do in the area after I got done with school. On Monday, we realized that we had nothing lined up yet. This may be a very impromptu sort of vacation.
We do have most of our warm-weather clothing ready to go, which is kick-starting the "exotic getaway" state of mind here despite the chillier temperatures (have I mentioned that it still gets down into the 40s at night?). D and I have both invested in sun-protective clothing so we don't roast while we're at the beach. There is a possibility that we might take a one-day cruise to the Bahamas as well. Stay tuned on that one -- we're looking into the cruise line to see how reputable it is. Beyond that, we're open to suggestions on things to soak up besides sun and frozen drinks. Recommendations, anyone?
On the entrepreneurial front, we did manage to sell the futon (congrats to Buyer No. 3!), which means we have nine square feet of space newly liberated at home. We are also officially registered with Amazon and I've listed the books we want to sell online. Though the likelihood that someone will pay a good price for any of them is kind of low. How do you compete with sellers who list the same titles for $0.01? Fortunately, we happen to live in a city that has Half Price Books. D and I are going to haul our stash there this weekend to see what the store will offer us. If they can beat the average price on Amazon, we'll gladly hand over the goods. Now if we could only find someone who would buy our NordicTrack ski machine -- I have a feeling that it might end up going to Goodwill. We'd like to avoid giving it away for free (new ones retail for $1,000!), so I guess we'll just keep watching the Craigslist "wanted" forum.
Speaking of avoidance, I've been hiding from our realtor. She is
h-u-u-u-ngry! Which is a good thing -- she's worked very hard to send us many listings that suit our needs and tastes -- but we can't get her to stop hounding us about obtaining a pre-approval letter from a lender (her in-house folks, naturally). D and I are going to have to get creative with excuses on why we haven't called any of her recommendees yet. "We'd like to do it when we're both available to chat with them," was the last thing I came up with on the fly when the realtor called me at home from a number I didn't recognize (programmed that one into the phone right after she hung up!). I researched the lenders this morning just to see if it really was worth giving them a ring, and it turns out that both are only local organizations (independent mortgage brokers, not affiliated with any banks per se). One of their websites, in fact, had a ton of broken links, which inspired little confidence. Ironically, the only link that did seem to work was to customer testimonials (all good, of course, but given the context, not so reliable). Maybe I'll mention that when she brings up the lenders again (because you know she will) while we're looking at more houses with her on Saturday.
The real reason we're stalling is that we don't intend to buy a house in the next three months, which, for many lenders, is about the average shelf-life for pre-approval letters. Getting pre-approved means having our credit checked, and having "hard" inquiries into our credit will affect our scores if we go through this process every few months in the next year. Hence our resistance.
What we do plan to do, however, is bring me home to Seattle after the next school year ends, and then we can look at buying in earnest. Yes, we've decided that keeping me in Iowa to write my thesis during the third year of the program will be too expensive with travel and renting the extra apartment, even if I have a TA salary. So, as much as I'd like to teach that extra year for the experience, D and I are definitely planning a permanent reunion for May 2009. I know, I know, "permanent" was what we said last time, but I think we've both determined that we'd rather find alternative solutions to furthering our careers instead of having a third round of commuting.
As for the Plan (i.e., what I'm going to do with my life), the jury is out on that one, and I'm okay with that for now.
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