News!

I am happy to share the news that we have purchased a home. This will be our back yard. The details worked out very well. We will close in two months and then the sellers will rent it back from us for two months. Since we still have 6 months until the end of our lease, this is perfect.

 The house has all of the space we wanted, including a small guest suite. My Dad spends Christmas Eve with us (he lives very close by, but since my Mom passed away he doesn't like to go to an empty house on Christmas.) My MIL stays occasionally; eventually she will stay with us for longer periods of time. We also have other visitors from time to time. They will now have a nice bedroom and full bath to use comfortably.

 We call the area the house is located in Yangmingshan. That is the name of the area where we lived in Taiwan and this vaguely reminds us of our Taiwan location. "Shan" means mountain; we lived on Yang Ming Mountain and the road to our house was steep and curvy. It is the same here. Though technically we are in the foothills rather than on a mountain, the drive is at least as steep as it was in Taiwan and the initial curves are very similar. So it feels familiar and good when we drive up the hill.

Soon I will need to begin preparing for another move. I am hoping the frequency of moves slows down now. We recently celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary. In those 17 years we have lived in 11 places. The new house will make it 12. So I think some settling might be in order. Unless, of course, the company wanted us to move to Italy...!