Wizarding World

My whirlwind trip was great.... well, productive at least.

The culminating part was really the trip to Universal to see Wizarding World (I know... I'm 29.  So what.).

It was great.  We were only there for two hours before it got way too crowded and way too hot.  We went on the dragon ride (one of them) - which was SO FAST.  Then, we waited in line to go through Hogwarts for that ride.  The wait was around 75 minutes and I recommend, waiting in the "single riders" line.  It cut out wait by over half and really, you can't see the people you are riding with anyways.  The most fun part for me was less the rides and more seeing how well they recreated Hogwarts and Hogsmeade.  Because it really was great.

I took a few pictures of Hogsmeade stores, bought a couple chocolate frogs, and caught a few photos of Hogwarts and the stuff inside.  They had talking paintings and the sorting hat.  I tried to take a tiny video of the animatronics of the sorting hat, because it was pretty impressive.

Here's the photos I got:

 my favorite part of touristy photos - OTHER TOURISTS IN THE PHOTOS... :)

 Hogwarts

 HoneyDukes (Also combined with Zonko's)

 HAHA, this photo kills me.  The girl in the pink was yelling to her friend behind me "can you see me?"

 The line to get into Olivander's was 90 mins long.  Just to meet "Olivander" and essentially buy the same wand you could buy at any gift shop (or the airport).

 Sorry, it was dark in Hogwarts waiting in line.  But the sorting hat was pretty awesome.  Here's the video.  It's hard to see, but the animatronics were kind of amazing.  He gave safety instructions.

I'm glad I could check this one off my bucket list.

Blog Silence

I was going to post an outfit pic today, and then realized that I already posted this outfit here.  So, no need to for a repeat picture since the only difference is the belt.

Today I have to get a ton of work done before I take my tri-city trip tomorrow.

Blog posting will be light until the weekend, when I can update about the purging of the house.

I love attorneys

Did I really just say that?

I guess so.  The meeting with the attorney and my realtor was great.  Bottom line, while it may cost us some money up front, the attorney has a good relationship and a standing contact with someone at our mortgage bank.  This will help expedite our process.

He had a lot of valuable and helpful information to share and we will have the house on the market before I leave for Hawaii next week.

It's definitely not an easy road the rest of the way since short sales are notoriously difficult, but the attorney was confident that we could get this done relatively quickly.

So here's hoping someone puts an offer on our house and I get the heck out of here.  I can't wait to move on with my life.

*I forgot the best news - We don't have to worry about replacing the carpet in the basement.  In actuality, it would hurt us in the appraisal process.  One less thing on my list!!!!

Busy

Busy, busy today.

1. Working with the ex to complete the necessary paperwork for my meeting this afternoon.
2. Trying to work from home while Samson is irritating the crap out of me.
3. Waiting on the contractor to come and fix the walls.
4. Have a conference call at some point this morning.

Good planning Megan.  Just awesome.

Hopefully I can provide an update from my meeting this afternoon since I know my family likes to know.

I'm still finding paint on my hands...

Why is it that no matter how carefully you think you washed your hands and no matter how many showers you have taken, you will still find paint on your hands two days later?

After I posted on Friday, I got a text from the ex letting me know that the bank had approved us for our short sale!  While there are a whole slew of logistical issues with a short sale, the actual approve was one thing we were worried about.  Mostly because we don't qualify in the typical short sale setting - when you are already not making payments on your loan.  Thankfully, the information we put together was enough to give us the go ahead.  We were told to have our realtor handles the financial information still needed and to put the house on the market at a fair value price.  So, YEAH!  Now we can officially get this going.

In preparation, I did a lot of work around the house this weekend.  I painted (as the title suggests).  Mostly just touched up parts of walls that I had spackled months ago and never got around to painting.  And I painted the closet doors in the hallway.  Just a few things to make the place look a little nicer.  The contractor is coming tomorrow to repair the hole in the bathroom and replace a 2x2 square in the basement that is damaged because of the leak.  So after that is done, next weekend I will paint those two rooms and we should be good to go.

I also spent a lot of time packing things up in the house.  I figured, I have to have the POD already and who knows what's going to happen next - I might as well be as mobile as possible.  So I am going to live with the bare minimum.  I am packing all the kitchen stuff that I can.  I have all my books and crafting stuff and dvds packed up.  I packed up majority of my linens and towels.  I'm hoping that I can get most of my things in the POD next weekend so that the house is as simple as can be.  Hey, if I'm going to be paying for the POD, might as well get my money's worth.

We still haven't gotten anywhere with the basement carpet issue.  A coworker told me that Lowe's has carpet pretty cheap and that if you buy from them, they will install for free.  So I have the ex looking into that.  I have a feeling that could be a last minute addition right before I leave for the trip.

So I had a pretty busy weekend, especially compared to some of my recent weekends.  As all of this is starting to come together, I'm looking forward to my family trip even more!

Oh, a special shout out to Melissa and Justin on their two-year anniversary today!  Love you guys.

A House Update - Finally

So things are really progressing.  For real this time.

Yesterday afternoon I left work early to meet with the realtor to discuss putting it on the market.  My ex has submitted our application for a short sale, so he is in charge of staying on top of that process.  In the meantime, I am on realtor duty.

Of course, things aren't always so easy.  I was rear-ended while I was waiting to turn into the parking lot of the realtor's office.  Not really any damage, but several people still think I should file a claim and get my car checked.  Just another thing on my laundry list of activities in the next couple of weeks.

The visit with the realtor was eye opening.  Houses in our direct neighborhood have recently been selling for about half of what we paid for ours.  No joke.  I'll let that sink if a moment....

So yeah.  There's that.  Thankfully, he says that we can get this on the market as soon as we are ready.  He also has a title lawyer that he works closely with that helps with these short sale processes.  Of course, there is some money involved up front ($$$) but it would be worth it.  Also, to get it on the market ASAP, I need to get on top of getting that hole in the bathroom fixed ($$$).  I also need to get the basement taken care of.  We are definitely going to need to put carpet back down ($$$).  And the realtor suggested that I declutter what I can.... of course.  So I ordered a POD system to come next weekend so I can start moving some stuff out of the house ($$$).

Are you getting the picture here?  I suddenly feel like I am hemorrhaging money.

In addition to the house and car, I also now have a 36 hour-three city-trip planned for work.  It's a really long story, so I try to sum it up.  There was a hotel issue in one of our cities we contracted (for 2016), so my boss panicked and wants to send my coworker and I down to do a site visit (again).  Then he figured, while we are down there, why don't we swing by the 2013 city so we can view that site (again) as well.  And it needs to be done now.

So next week, I am  making an unscheduled trip for 36 hours.  The good news.  Since I am forced to make this trip, I added a few extra hours so that we could visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  Yes, I am a 29 year old woman and I'm really freaking excited about it.

Words to Live By

"Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.  Everything else is secondary"

- Steve Jobs (1955-2011)