Hello folks, some exciting news: we moved! When I bought my first house way back in 2007 I thought I’d stay there for two or three
years, sell for a profit, and then move on to the next one. That’s the way it works, right? HA! The housing market crashed, the job
market was super-scary, and so of course things did not play out that way. I ended up living there for almost 9 years. It was a
great first house and made for an easy-to-maintain bachelor pad, but in those years I gained a wife (complete with cat) and a dog, so
long past the point where we exceeded the capacity of living bodies, clothes, furniture, and junk, we decided to say goodbye.

It was a harder goodbye for me than Amanda. I shed some tears while looking out the back porch one last time. Amanda was checking
her watch, ready to move on to bigger and better things! That was totally understandable – this was going to be our first home together
and there’s only so much that can be done to de-man that house, despite her attempts with welcoming decor and lavender painted bathrooms.

We had looked in Apex, Cary, and even closer to Pittsboro, thinking it was time to leave Raleigh. We looked at a couple dozen houses,
missed one or two that would have been great homes (the buyer’s market is tough!), but our patience paid off and we ended up moving not
very far from where we used to live, yet somehow much more convenient to places we seem to go to often. I won’t post the address here
(feel free to email me if you’d like to update your address book) but we are a little north of Crabtree Valley Mall now. Here’s a picture
of the front of the house:

We’ve been here for nearly three months now and we are pretty well settled in. Fortunately there isn’t much to repair/renovate/etc. as a
lot of work had been done by the previous owner. A few small things here and there but really just routine house maintenance. I do
look forward to working on the landscaping in the back yard in the Spring, but even that is fine as-is. I won’t brag on it anymore before
something unexpected pops up!

Aside from the everyday things like work and sleep, the house-hunt process has consumed nearly all of our 2016. We started getting serious
about moving in early January, so we got a storage unit to de-clutter and made many trips over the next few months. We also painted our
kitchen cabinets white and got new shaker-style doors to freshen them up. I bought a paint sprayer to do this, which worked fine for the
doors since I could paint outside, but spraying already installed cabinets inside was a huge mess. It makes for a nice clean coat but it
was a lot of work and took weeks. The doors also came unfinished so I painted front and back with 2 coats of primer, 2 coats of paint, and 3 coats of polyurethane, sanding between each coat. I had to carry these doors from the porch to the back of the yard to avoid having
paint float all over the house and neighbors. I even wore a path in the yard around the painting station! Having a proper workspace for
this kind of work is essential. I’m not sure I’d do it again but the end result was worth it as far as making the house more appealing
for buyers.

We also painted pretty much every room in the house, and the bathroom cabinets at our Realtor’s suggestion. I was skeptical at first but
black bathroom cabinets were a nice touch. Our carpets were in bad shape so we had those replaced as well. We could have gone on and on
with upgrades but this was a good stopping point so we finally got the house on the market and fortunately it sold quickly. Then came all
of the paperwork for both selling and buying, and of course the big move. In addition to adjusting to a new place, it’s also been weird to
go from working on that stuff every waking moment to… not doing all of that. But we’ve managed and we’re very thankful.

Finally (and completely unrelated), yesterday was Mike’s birthday, so Happy Birthday Mike!