Big news

I woke up at 6 a.m. on Tuesday, much like I did on Christmas morning as a child. Don't government offices open insanely early? Maybe I can find out the bid results. The agent said he would let us know as soon as he knew about the bid, but I wasn't going to wait for him. I found the HUD bid results Web site for North Carolina on the Internet, so I logged on to check.

My heart sank.

It said the house was now open to public bidding. Did we not bid enough? There's no way we didn't bid enough. Can we afford to bid more? Is some investor going to swoop in and buy OUR house?

I had to get away from the computer, get my mind off the house. I went to the gym and took out my aggression on the treadmill. I couldn't get it off my mind.

There's no time to obsess about this house, I told myself. You have to get ready and go to work. Make yourself useful. Stop obsessing!

By the time I had the house off my mind, I was at work buried in my to-do list. That's when I got an e-mail from our mortgage broker about our underwriting approval (do I know what that means? no.). Snap. I was back in my obsession.

I checked the bid results site again.

A bid was accepted. The bid was for the same amount we bid. What are the chances someone else bid and won with the same number we submitted?

I called Brad repeatedly, trying to get him out of bed so I could tell him the news. But Brad is a heavy sleeper and he works a later shift, so voicemail was my best bet. After I told him, I started the phone tree.

Brad was in charge of e-mailing his side of the family. I called my parents, my aunts and my brother. Then I called our agent to be sure it was, in fact, our bid that won. Is that a little out of order? Probably. But obsession does funny things to an otherwise rational brain.

Lucky for us, it was our bid. We had 48 hours to submit our sales contract and an earnest deposit or it would be relisted to the public.