Day 2

Today we secured that hotel-ish short-term furnished apartment. I made the lease guy sit in the car with me to review and sign the papers because Emerson had fallen asleep in the car on the drive to meet him. Eric, meanwhile, was picking up his new work computer and scoping out his new office. He reported that the computer is "gorgeous" (goes without saying: it's a Mac) and that his office overlooks a dome.

The other big development of the day is that we put in an offer on our favorite house from yesterday. We went back to see the house again today and it was still great so we decided to give it a whirl. This new realtor is a crafty negotiator and during our second walk-through today she was already laying some groundwork for our offer. ("I was looking up comps and couldn't find anything in this area to support your list price. Could you send me some of the comps that you used to come up with this price?" to which the reply was "We know the house is currently overpriced...") So we put together an offer at the realtor's office while Emerson ran around and the realtor sent it over. Let's see what happens! We should hear something back by end of day Thursday. I feel like we should buy a lotto ticket too just to see.

It continues to be about 98 degrees during the day, and it has become clear that Emerson has my complexion: he and I both get quite flushed in this heat. Eric has taken to calling us his "pinks," as in "Just sitting here eating lunch with my pinks," which he said today at Crazy Ray's Deli.

After all this action, we hot-footed it to the beach! Some friends who have a condo on Anna Maria Island are letting us stay there for the price of the air conditioning (thank you!!). We arrived around 6pm after getting groceries on the way. It feels great to be in a relaxing spot, though I am actually back at work tomorrow so it won't really be a vacation, even though I hope it feels like one, at least some of the time.