Wow, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? I’m not even apologizing this time. I am going to try to post more, which should be a little easier because things are about to change drastically for The Rileys… We’re moving into the next chapter (remember, I promised this back in April) and it’s going to be a big one. Long story short, we’re packing things up and moving back up to Northwest Arkansas to be close to family and in an attempt to enjoy life at a little slower pace than living in Dallas allows. We’ve really missed the area since we moved away 7 and a half years ago (wow) and always toyed with the idea of moving back eventually. After Madi was born, it became pretty clear that she needed to grow up near her extended family (and we need babysitters!), but it was always a question of when. This past year a lot of things have fallen into place and really shown us that now was the time and this is what we are supposed to do. Here are some examples…

As I wrote about earlier, we put our house on the market back last Spring, thinking it’d take a while to sell and that after it sold, we’d weigh our options and see what we ended up doing. Well, the house sold in one day. Talk about a sign. The last time we drove through the old neighborhood, there were houses still for sale that were on the market before ours…

As another sign, the way it ended up working out, my company is going to let me take a step down from management and keep working as just a regular old senior web developer and work remotely, out of my home office.

There are several other signs, but the most recent one is that Rebecca really just started looking for a new job up there this past weekend and, as of this afternoon, she is already employed. She’d said that she wanted to find a job doing exactly what she is doing down here, with the same flexible hours and everything and what she got was exactly that. She was offered a job with a small (compared to her current firm) public accounting firm that really seems to have some good things going on and she’s very excited about it.

The downside? We can’t move until Thanksgiving. There are a couple of little loose ends we’ve got to tie up here, but we’ve got the move tentatively scheduled for the weekend before Thanksgiving. We’ve found, put an offer on and closed on a brand new house (the way that worked out was yet another sign) and it’s sitting up there just waiting on us to fill it up. Based on the couple of trips we’ve recently made down to the Pottery Barn Outlet, which Rebecca discovered was fairly close to Dallas, we won’t have any problem filling the new house up…

So, stay tuned, if anyone is still reading this, of course. We’ve got a busy next month or so, but life should hopefully slow down quite a bit and there will be more time for keeping this updated. As always, the photos over on Flickr have been updated somewhat regularly, at least more often than this site has been, so you can catch up with what’s been going on over there…

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I’ve been trying to get a chance this past week to make a post here, but things have been moving so fast that we hardly had time to even take a breath, let alone post on this website! Now that it’s the weekend and things have slowed down (a little), let me fill you in on things…

The week began with our house going on the market officially. They came out, took pictures, put signs up and everything on Monday. The house hit the MLS on Tuesday. Our Realtor uses a nifty new showing service that makes all showing appointments, gathers feedback and manages that whole process. Much to our surprise, given the state of the Dallas real-estate market, we got our first call from the showing service that very same day (Tuesday). Another Realtor had clients who wanted to see our house the next morning.

Wednesday morning came and went. The house was left with all the lights on (against every fiber in my being), Lily was tucked away safely in her crate (or her ‘box’, as Madi says) and the lockbox was on the door. Later that afternoon, we got a call from our Realtor telling us that we had an offer already. We were a little taken aback, given the fact that the average time on market for a house in this area right now is around 75 days. The offer was a good one and after a couple of days of paperwork, the contract was signed on Friday.

So, in the course of one week, our house has been listed, shown, and put under contract. We’re supposed to close in less than a month (wow), so we’re going to be scrambling to find another place to rent for a while and get packed, all the while leaving the house in great condition since it will still be being shown (twice this weekend). Keep your fingers and toes crossed for us that it all works out!

Madi and I were in the front yard today and got to meet the buyers, since they were driving by and having a look at it again. They seem to be a very nice family and it makes Rebecca and I feel better knowing that this house, that we’ve put so much into over the past few years, is going to continue to be taken care of and loved by another family. The house has served us well, and we’re already getting a little sentimental about leaving it (thanks, in part, to Madi’s newfound love of taking me out to the deck to sit with her and feed the ducks), but it’s time for us to move along…

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Tags: house, madi, realtor, real estate

Madi, that’s who! Yes folks, we’ve entered the potty training phase of early childhood development with Madi and, knock on wood, it’s starting out pretty well! We’ve been working on it for a few weeks now and we’ve had several successful attempts already. They’ve had a couple of them at school, too! The only bad thing is that she’s learned that if she says ‘poopy!’ and takes off running for her bathroom, she gets to climb up there and read. She’s got a stack of books in there already. She gets that from me.

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Tags: bathroom, development, madi, poop, potty