And We're Back

Well we survived the long trip, and haven't had a single fight in the last 48 hours, so a big huzzah to Jacob and I!  Seriously.  If you think that's easy, try riding in a car with one other person for two days.  Honestly, it's not fun.  Really, the trip wasn't that bad, and today I was able to sleep a lot.  Now that I think about it, that probably contributes to our lack of fighting more so than my sparkling personality.  After all his talk when we drove to Colorado about how he didn't want to listen to the Hunger Games and how it sounded horrible, Jacob got totally hooked on it.  We started listening to it on the way down to Houston, the first time I took over driving.  I was already a few chapters into the book (I had been listening with my headphones), so when I was driving and playing it for both of us, I figured I would encounter some resistance from Jacob in the form of obnoxious comments and constantly pointing out plot holes.  After about ten minutes, though, he started asking questions about Katniss and the other characters, and I knew I had him.  He tried to be pretty sly about it for awhile, and we'd only listen to it when I was doing the driving.  He would always be like "well since you're driving, I guess you get to pick..." but then he was totally sucked into the story.  Today when we stopped in Fargo for gas and lunch, we had been listening to the story, but I turned it off as we got close to the stop to get my coat on and start gathering the trash to throw away.  The second we got back in the car after getting the food, Jacob goes "okay so let's get this started.  I'm anxious to hear what happens next."  I hadn't even put my seat belt on before he had the book going again.  Well well well.  Look who's actually enjoying a book.  Without giving anything away to those who haven't read the book (READ IT), Jacob asked several questions at the end, and I'm pretty sure it won't take much to get him to listen to the second book.

We stopped in Bismarck due to my bladder's inability to hold 30ish ounces of liquid.  Thankfully I made it to the bathroom without wetting myself, and when I came back to the car, I traded off with Jacob--he went to the bathroom while I walked the dogs around.  After a minute or so, some car pulled up beside me and parked on the side of the building.  This strange woman got out and started talking to my dogs, which obviously creeped me out.  She leaned up against her car, just watching us, so I was like "okay boys, ready to get back in the car????"  I put them up, got in the car, and locked the doors, but the weirdo got out a cigarette and continued to watch us while I nervously ate a clementine in the car (I needed something to make myself look busy!).  I was relieved when a sheriff pulled up beside the lady.  They talked for a bit like they knew each other, and then the cop drove off, so her attention was turned back on us.  Thankfully before I opened the door and told the freak I wouldn't hesitate to cut her, Jacob came back and we drove off.  I have no idea what was going on with that lady.  It's not like she was really doing anything, but it was still very uncomfortable.  That must be what strippers feel like, except they at least make some money when they feel violated.  All I got was that gross feeling you get on your hands after you peel an orange.

We hadn't been home for very long when Jacob got a call from our builder, asking a question about our kitchen cabinet and drawer hardware.  He was at the house, so we just headed over to meet him, and while we were talking, I took a couple of pictures.  Most rooms look pretty boring since they're just empty rooms, but here are a couple of rooms that are more that just painted walls and carpet:

The downstairs guest bath.  I'm not sure why the toilet looks like the kind you find in a daycare.  It's a grown-up toilet for full size people.

 The kitchen!  The pantry door has a glass insert, which is still covered up.  That's why it looks so funky.  Our realtor was clueless that I was taking pictures, so I couldn't get any shots of the breakfast area (to the left of the kitchen) because she was just standing there.

So far, I'm really happy with how things have turned out.  I'm extremely pleased with how all the lights look (I'll try to take more pictures of the lights in the next couple of days).  Also, I am really really happy with how the cabinets and trim look.  After all that crap the builder, cabinet maker, and realtor gave us about using white and the stupid comments like "Do you have kids?  Do you plan on having kids?!  Good luck keeping that clean!" they all keep saying how awesome it looks.  No dur, dude.  Houston's got it figured out, okay?  Whenever they mention how great everything looks, I can't help but feel overly pleased with myself for ignoring their advice.  Color me extremely smug.

As of this morning, Jacob and I were under the impression that closing on our house would be January 5th.  As in 2 days.  For some reason, despite the quickly arriving date, we've been given no specifics as to the amount we'll owe at closing, nor do we know what time or at what location closing will be.  Me personally, I think those are important details that should be communicated at the very least from our realtor.  Obviously she doesn't feel the same way.  On Monday, Jacob emailed our realtor with lots of questions about closing.  When we got no returned email today, he called her and left a voicemail.  Naturally she didn't call us back, so picture me shocked (not really) when we walked into our house this evening to meet our builder, and heard our realtor's voice coming through the speaker phone, talking to the builder.  Oh, so your phone does work!  He hung up with her and then talked to us and about ten minutes later, our realtor walked through the front door.  You guys, the look on her face was so priceless.  She obviously didn't know we were going to be there, and would rather continue to avoid us.  Personally, I struggled with not laughing aloud, because I knew she had to feel awkward.  She followed us around as we walked to the builder, and when we were done with him, she began giving us lots of excuses about why she hadn't called us.  She even said to Jacob "I got an email from you yesterday, but I don't know what it said.  I couldn't read it on my phone."  She even said it like it was Jacob's fault that the email wouldn't pull up on her phone.

Well, honey, maybe you should just call him then.  You think?  Just to check and see if maybe that email pertained to the CLOSING WE'RE SUPPOSED TO HAVE IN TWO DAYS.   I swear.  She didn't even acknowledge that Jacob had called her earlier today and left a voicemail, which would normally only slightly irritate me, but nearly had me clawing the skin of my own face since she was carrying her phone in her hand, taking every call that came to her in the thirty minutes she was with us.  If you're just going to screen our calls, guess what?  You don't deserve the 3% you're about to make on the sale of this home.  Such a load of bullcrap. 

While talking about closing, Jacob mentioned to her that we still didn't know how much we owed at closing, which shocked her.  She told us there was no way we could close in two days since the only form of payment they accept at closing is a wire transfer, and those take three business days.  She couldn't believe the people from the bank had not called us and given us our statement of the money due at closing, and that they had let it get this close to closing without giving us the information we need.  Wait, there are people in this town who are terrible at communicating and don't care about their customers?!  Fancy that!  Pot, meet Kettle.

Our builder is going to be out of town until next week, so closing has been pushed back until next Thursday, which is fine because he's still going to let us move in when the van comes this weekend.  I'm actually starting to get sort of excited about moving in the house, but whenever I think about how our realtor acts around us, I can feel my blood pressure rising and I want to smash things.

Well I guess it's off to bed.  No offense to the baller people I work with, but I REALLY don't want to go to work tomorrow.  I just want to sleep in until like 3pm and watch the last Harry Potter movie that came two weeks ago from Netflix.  I still haven't had the chance to watch it, and that's just not okay.