Daniel J Isom

As I enter my final year of my 30s, it feels like a good time to reflect a bit. I wrote a similar, yet incredibly long winded, post entitled  Turning 32  back when I turned...32. I don't think this will be nearly as wordy, but it's a stream of consciousness type post so we'll see. Unlike 32, I've started to feel my age. So if you were to ask me the question "Do you feel older?" today, the answer would certainly be yes. It's not a bad thing, it's not that I feel like my body is breaking down or that I see the world in some significantly different ways. My life has just transitioned so much since that last post, especially in the past 2 years or so.  Going back a few years, I'm so thankful for my weight loss journey and being able to mostly keep the weight off since. Had I not done it in the first place then I think mornings would be harder, but I still feel pretty good when I get up. I've been in maintenance mode since the end of COVID and have ...

June was another mixed bag of results. Baking seems to be the real stronghold of the things I want accomplish. There's always seems to be time for baking. I did do one more blog post in June compared to May, but we didn't play any of our challenge games. Finding balance across these three things continues to allude me. 1)  Write at least 2 blog posts each month Shared a bit about Darebee , the fitness website I've been using to get in shape. Celebrated our One Year Housiversary . Also celebrated 10 Years of Marriage . 2)  Complete the 10 x 2 Board Game Challenge The school year is now over and yet not a single game one of our challenge games got played. Maybe July will be the month where we hit our stride and start knocking plays out. Right now we have to average 2.5 plays for the remaining 6 months of the year.  3)  Bake at least 2 different baked goods each month June was a pretty good month for baking. It had some high highs and one train wreck. I started the mont...

Christine and I get to celebrate a second anniversary this week. Two days ago, I wrote about our  One Year Housiversary , and today is our 10 year wedding anniversary. Getting a new house for our nine year anniversary was pretty great, but really it was just how the closing date worked out. For this anniversary we were planning on taking our first vacation without the kids, but then COVID-19 derailed those plans. Originally, we were going to eat our way around New Orleans. I think we'll still do that next year, unless we come up with some other place we'd really like to go. Enough about future plans, let's get back to the last 10 years. We got married June 12th of 2010 at St. Rose of Lima Church in North Syracuse, New York. As I wrote in a brief post entitled,  8 Years of My Shit , we: sold our house in New York, moved to Delaware, bought another house, adopted two cats, and brought three children into the world. Since then, we adopted another cat, sold our townhouse, and...

Today marks the one year anniversary of our family moving into our current house. I can't believe it has already been one year. If you read my most read post,  Buying and Selling: A Real Estate Story , you know that I was hesitant to leave our townhouse and wanted to wait until right about now to start house hunting. I'm glad Christine pushed me into going to look at new houses. It's not just because we wouldn't have been able to buy this one, more importantly, it's because it helped set us up to be in the best financial spot we've ever been in as a couple. By buying a house that had a space for my Dad to move in, he was able to step in and provide daycare for us. That opened up most of my net salary and allows him to be in our kids' lives everyday (despite them driving everyone mad).  Living in a new home comes with its ups and downs, but it's mostly been a blessing to have this new space. We have had a few minor home repairs that have come ...

We've been in Delaware going on 8 years this August. Roughly a year after moving to Dover, we bought a new build townhouse in Smyrna. Our current home has served us well, but since moving in our family has more than doubled in size. We have more than enough room for everyone, but the set up of living on three floors is less than ideal. Coupled with not having a suitable yard for the kids to play and the congestion of the streets in our community, we felt the need to look for a single family home. Not only did we want a single family again, but I even suggested moving out of state for a change of scenery. After some very serious discussions and looking at the costs to leave Delaware, we ultimately decided that we'd stay...for now. Christine and I would like to move when the kids get out of school, but that's a post for another day. For the past two months we've looked at homes in Smyrna online and even went to see some in person. I wasn't really that interested...

I live in a neighborhood that will eventually have a Home Owner's Association (HOA) run by the residents. Because the neighborhood has not been completed yet, a management company currently runs the HOA. They, along with the developer, make and enforce the rules. As far as HOAs go, ours isn't too bad when it comes to restrictions. There are a lot of normal things like the houses have to similar colored vinyl siding, trash cans need to be kept out of sight, and you can't have trailers or boats in your driveway. Our HOA dues are dirt cheap for what we get. We currently pay $278 a YEAR for: a pool, landscaping of common spaces, entrance maintenance, plowing, and lawyer and administrative fees. I would pay $278 for the pool alone. That cost will go up a bit because of a pool attendant we've decided to keep, they turn people away who aren't from our neighborhood. In my opinion, it's worth it because outside people getting into the pool was huge problem since it o...