Take a breath. :D
It's certainly good to go get pre-approved for a mortgage. If nothing else, this gives you *some* idea how much you can afford for a house. If you're able to put 20% down, you won't have to pay Darth Vader....uh, I mean PMI. If not, then you will. PMI is like the DOC FEE when buying a car. It buys you absolutely nothing.
Go look at houses. How? Feel free to contact any real estate agency. Go with the agent to houses that match what you're looking for. Look on zillow. Feel free to contact yet another real estate agency if you want. Sellers pay agents so you owe them nothing. Take your time and ask questions of the agents.
When you do go into the buying process, the mortgage provider will have a lawyer overlook everything. You could hire your own lawyer or pay the bank's lawyer to also represent you but I've yet to figure out what my own lawyer would cover that the bank's lawyer isn't already doing. The bank's lawyer will search title, which if you get to go along, it's pretty fun and done at the county courthouse (our houses have all been in Middlesex so we went to Cambridge and saw old titles back to the king first hand).
Take your time.
If you look at houses being sold by owner, then an agent isn't involved and won't show you the house. The bank's lawyer can handle the closing. We've done that twice and paid a small extra to have the bank's lawyer represent us. You also wouldn't have to personally go to the closing as you'd give the lawyer your POA for this transaction. When we sold our last house and bought another, we closed on the sale in the morning and then started moving stuff and the lawyer handled the buy closing then came over with the paperwork (move from Ashland to Hopkinton so close by).