{"id":16834,"date":"2026-08-25T11:19:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T15:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/?p=16834"},"modified":"2026-08-25T11:19:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T15:19:09","slug":"life-40","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2026\/08\/25\/life-40\/","title":{"rendered":"Life: 40"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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“While the biggest news of the year will be essentially a new home after we’re done remodeling our house for a second time, that entire project will take place and finish after I turn 39 and before I’ve turned 40 so I’ll have to save that event for next year.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I grabbed that from last year’s post when I turned 39.<\/a> The home remodel is the single most impactful event of my 39th year on Earth and today, turning 40 in just two weeks, I’m pleased to report that it’s complete. This occupied so much of my headspace over the last 12 months while also being the single largest disrupter of my life: by November I had put our entire home in storage, moved in with my in-laws and stayed there until late June. I spent my 39th year living with Heather’s parents in a 150 square foot room with my two-year-old, working two jobs, living out of a suitcase. I’m grateful that we had this as an option but it’s not what I envisioned decades ago when I thought about building a home for my family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s rewind to August 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After 12 months on the waitlist for both a quote and a lender, we finally had everything lined up. By October we were ready to close on our loan and had agreed to repay our bank about $450,000 for the remodel. I say “our” intentionally because the house was always in my name alone. We financed with both Heather and me on the deed and the loan. It’s a large sum of money and I’m reminded of it every month when the bank puts money into my contractor’s account and adjusts what I owe in interest. My mortgage this time last year was $1,200 a month. Interest only, I hit $2,200 last week. When we convert to the final loan with escrow, I expect somewhere around $4,000 a month. Worth it, but I feel the pressure of being an adult and it’s tough to get my mind around these very large numbers. Younger Adam would be appalled at my lack of responsibility. $1,050 a month for a sports car, $4,000 for a mortgage, $1,100 for daycare? I’ve failed younger me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

November 1st through August 1st, that’s how long it took to remodel a 700 square foot home into a 1,750 square foot lake house in New Hampshire, adding a 450 square foot garage I’ll use to build cars and motorcycles, with about 25% of the budget going to landscaping and a backyard shed. Things are nearly done. Heather sent me a photo of the grass coming in after landscaping finished, which matters because we get dumped on once a week up here. Heavy rain comes down the mountain to the lake and takes a lot of rock and soil with it. I’m looking forward to having a yard where the baby and dog can actually play. It’s been dirt for a month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I sold the 2002 BMW 330Ci convertible I bought for Matilda last year. She’s not a wind-baby — she doesn’t even like the car windows down — Heather never got to ride in it, and it was too slow for me to love. I paid $14,700, put another $2,000 into wheels, tires, service, battery and detailing, added 5,000 miles over a year of ownership, and sold it for $15,500. I’m okay with the return and enjoyed owning it for a year. By November I was shopping for its replacement. I wanted a coupe but needed back seats for Matilda, which ruled out the Z4 M40i I really wanted. I looked at M2s, M4 Competitions and older Porsches, but I know VW’s MQB platform well from years of Golf Rs and the Audi TT RS shares that DNA — all-wheel drive, two doors, four seats, lighter and better sounding than the M2. I took delivery in April. Matilda likes my bright green car and even though she’s already a little tight back there, it’s a great car for my 40th that I can afford and scratches the fun itch. I still want a Porsche 911 S in Miami Blue but that will have to wait for a time when I can afford more than a $1,050 car payment. My truck and solar panels are paid off and by October the Tiguan and motorcycle will be too, so we’ll be down to one car payment and the mortgage. These are the kind of things adults think about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turning 40 means Matilda is almost three (in October). She’s nearly potty-trained, wearing 4T clothes, size 8 shoes, and gets her own breakfast in the morning — yogurt, applesauce, a bar and water in a regular cup. This is a child who isn’t three but behaves as if she is. She’s been having real conversations with us since she was two and we get along really well. I do find that I’m too short with her sometimes and that isn’t fair or kind. Heather is far more patient and gentle than I am and I need to follow her lead. I recognize how I’m being and I can do better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve been teaching for Project Management Academy since March 2025, about two classes a month for the last 18 months. The job is hard, mostly because I’m not an extroverted person and I don’t find the students tough or their questions challenging. It’s just that being “on” for eight nights and two or three weekend days every month takes something out of me. My day job comes more naturally. I’ve taught hundreds of people and I’ll keep doing it, but I have to find a cadence that doesn’t cost Matilda a father eight nights a month. She gets home from daycare and I’m teaching until after she’s in bed. Heather handles Monday through Thursday alone for two weeks out of every month. I make it up in the mornings, six to eight before daycare drop-off, but I know it isn’t the same. Growing up, I noticed how available my dad was to spend time with me far more than I noticed how little money we had. We were pretty poor — trailers, small studio apartments — but he was there and I’d take his time over anything else. I’m sure Matilda will feel the same way and I know I’m not living by that example right now. I’ll cough this teaching gig up as temporary for now and hope I find a way to save the money we want alongside being more available to my kid who needs me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Summer is almost over and I’ve squandered it again — no camping, no motorcycle trips, no rallies. Though I’ll give myself some credit: Miami for Ultra Music Festival, Alabama and motocross for BMW’s spring planning session, Vermont’s BMW rally where I worked the whole time, San Diego with my friend Chris for an Angels game in Anaheim and a Padres game at home, a drive from Asheville to pick up the Audi with stops at a few favorite North Carolina spots, and a week in Nevis with Heather and Matilda including a wedding. That’s a real year by any honest measure. I just want to take Heather out west on motorcycles. Moab, Colorado, Arches, Zion, the Great Sand Dunes. She’s never done a long trip like that and she deserves one. Maybe by the time this post goes up, we’re already on our way. I hope writing it down here makes it happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The day job is going really well. I’ve always been a little skittish talking about my primary source of income on this blog, but I want to document for my own time capsule that I want to be at this company for at least ten years, maybe longer. It’ll be two years in December, which is when employee stock and a full profit sharing bonus start filling in the gap from what I made at Credit Karma. I knew coming home to New Hampshire meant taking a short-term pay cut and I chose it anyway. My boss retired and I have a new one, and 30 days into working closely together it’s going well and I think we’re on a good trajectory. What’s ahead in year three is the kind of operational and systems work I actually love and I’m genuinely optimistic about what we can accomplish together. The job is still a means to other things, not my entire identity, which is how work should be. We spend a third of our life on it (lately more like half, since I’ve been running two or three jobs) but the goal is to enable something else and I’m working hard to unlock that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The maintenance list for the garage this winter is long. Husqvarna 701 needs a new chain and drivetrain refresh. The Beta needs a new frame. The GS is 2,000 miles past its 12K service. The RAM needs a transmission fluid flush and the Tiguan needs a full brake job and some electronics modules that are acting up. None of this happened because I didn’t have a place to do the work. Winter 2026 is going to be amazing. A lot of evenings in the garage, YouTube videos, Matilda watching old Disney movies and maybe building some Legos with me. I want to take her on a trip this winter too — Key West or El Salvador, somewhere warm and different. She needs some more passport stamps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My year 40 goals are pretty straightforward. I want to camp more with my daughter because she needs to learn how amazing it is to lay in a tent under the stars hearing nature, animals, running water and getting dirty all day. A motorcycle trip with Heather. More movies. Actually using the garage I just built. And I want to rebuild some muscle — I’ve maintained my weight at around 205 pounds but I’ve lost muscle in the chaos of the last year and I want to get back to lifting. I’m aging and weight training matters in a way it didn’t at 30. I’ll join a gym soon because it’s not optional anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I still daydream about living in a city. Heather and I spent an afternoon looking at houses in San Francisco this summer knowing I’d need to five-times my salary to make it work. Part of me never stopped missing California. I left Florida at 20 for San Francisco and I still think about it even having lived in New Hampshire nearly twice as long. Matilda will grow up fine here and I hope to instill in her how important it is to experience other things because I did and I’m better for it. A woman I met named Laura, who grew up in Gilmanton New Hampshire, told me that she and her friends all wanted to leave the state the moment they turned 18 and many of them did. I don’t want Matilda to feel that way about where we call home, but I understand it. At 20 I left Florida for California and still want to go back even now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In San Diego this week I found myself defending where I live again. I’d tell everyone I met that I lived in San Francisco for a few years, which always started a conversation, and then I’d mention I now live out in the woods of New Hampshire and they’d have nothing for me after that. I know where I live isn’t exciting or desirable to everyone on the west coast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To them, I’ve failed. Happy 40th to me. Here’s to 40 more (???) Let’s hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“While the biggest news of the year will be essentially a new home after we’re done remodeling our…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_custom_appearance":"","csco_disable_excerpt_posts_layout":false,"csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-life","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pb3IC4-4nw","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13038,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2025\/08\/23\/life-39\/","url_meta":{"origin":16834,"position":0},"title":"Life: 39","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"August 23, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"ChatGPT didn\u2019t do this year justice and even though it is a tradition that I write this around my birthday, I also feel really great about the timing. 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My name is Adam and I'm usually in bed around 9:30 PM, even on weekends and I listen to a wide range of music. I've never done drugs, don't drink too much and rarely party anymore. I love house & techno music and am always on the look\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","block_context":{"text":"Travel","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/travel\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1949,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2011\/03\/20\/balding-att-announces-purchase-of-sexy-t-mobile-for-39-billion\/","url_meta":{"origin":16834,"position":3},"title":"\u2605 “Balding” AT&T Announces Purchase of “Sexy” T-Mobile for $39 Billion","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"March 20, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"AT&T is buying T-Mobile. As of last night, advertisements like this were still running on US television networks: I guess the \"fast\" T-Mobile network (illustrated by the woman in pink) is thrilled to hook up with that \"slow\" balding AT&T network. Awkward.","rel":"","context":"In "Linked"","block_context":{"text":"Linked","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/linked\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2323,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2011\/04\/28\/a-39-pinhole-lens-for-micro-four-thirds-cameras\/","url_meta":{"origin":16834,"position":4},"title":"\u2605 A $39 Pinhole Lens for Micro Four-Thirds Cameras","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"April 28, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Wanderlust: Pinwide is a cool wide-angle pinhole cap for Micro 4\/3 cameras that we're really excited about. It gives you the beautiful look of pinhole photography with all of the convenience of digital. There have been plenty of pinhole caps before, but none of them have ever given you such\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Linked"","block_context":{"text":"Linked","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/linked\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5283,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2015\/12\/16\/cinema-star-wars-marathon-day\/","url_meta":{"origin":16834,"position":5},"title":"Cinema: Star Wars Marathon Day!!!!","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"December 16, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The day is finally upon us. Tomorrow (likely today if you\u2019re reading this), I\u2019ll be laying down to get some sleep at 5PM so I can wake up at 10PM and drive 2 hours south to Boston. 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