Early Retirement Week 8: The Challenge

by A Purple Life, posted in Blogging, Early Retirement, Early Retirement Updates, Hobbies, Net Worth Update
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This week was tough for reasons I totally created myself 🙂 . That’s the fun thing about retirement – if a week is hard and you chose to do all the things that leave you tired, you have no one to blame but yourself…and luckily I’m fine with that 😉 .

What Did I Do This Week?

I completed NaNoWriMo!!! This is what inspired the title of this weekly post. NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month and the writing community challenges every person to write 50,000 words during the month of November. For comparison, that’s just a little longer than one of my favorite books The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (at 46,333 words). I haven’t successfully completed this challenge since high school and even then, I only completed it once.

During this attempt, I got a great head start at the beginning of the month and actually wrote 20% of the words I needed in the first 3 days, but I should have paced myself because this challenge is definitely a marathon instead of a sprint.

I usually only write when I feel inspired and have been lucky that that aligns with the weekly posting schedule I promise on this blog, which is 1 post a week of indeterminate length 😉 . However, because I only write when I feel the urge to do so, days often pass without any writing happening.

Unfortunately, I quickly discovered that this is not a recommended approach for NaNoWriMo. I didn’t write for several days and saw the number of words I had to write daily increase accordingly. So I made myself sit down to write every day as a result and that was challenging. I didn’t always succeed – especially since for 3/4 of this challenge, I was in Connecticut helping care for my baby cousin and my cousin’s household. Writing didn’t always happen.

This final week I had to go all out. I broke down the number of words I needed to write each day and was determined to do it and not just push it off as Future Purple’s problem…which would most likely lead to an all-nighter the last day and horrible writing as a result 🙂 .

So I pushed through. Some things are much more rewarding because they are difficult and I think this writing challenge is one of them. I am SO proud of myself that I wrote 50,000 words in 30 days. That’s almost the same number of words I wrote for this blog in ALL of 2019 (69,188) and more than I wrote in any previous full year (2018: 44,854, 2017: 44,944, 2016: 3,409<-What happened here?? Oops!, 2015: 32,117). For those reasons, I am basking in the glow of my success 🙂 .

I mentioned possibly making this an annual challenge in my life and I think I will! However, I’ll be sure to not combine it with nannying in the future 😉 . My partner suggested instead to have it align with a plan he’s been throwing around, of us living in a cabin in the woods without internet access for a month (or as I countered this week: a beach house with limited internet access for 3 weeks 😉 ).

So I’ll see y’all next year when I will once again forget how difficult this is and get stressed out about a self-imposed challenge…that I am the only one to blame for 🙂 . Now, I’m going to go lie facedown and rest my cramping writing fingers while staring at this beauty:

I traveled in an Amtrak sleeper car…during a pandemic 🙂 and it was super fun. I mentioned this a little bit in my last post, but to expand on it: the experience was nerve-wracking at certain points (*cough* Penn Station *cough*), but to me, that’s about the same as everything that involves other people or leaving my house during a pandemic.

However, as a pandemic travel option overall it seemed like a pretty good one. Originally I was going to drive from CT to GA since that’s how I had gotten up there 3 weeks prior, but it turns out that renting a car and dropping it across the country costs about as much as a sleeper car to yourself for the same distance – room service included 😉 . In addition, given my limited driving experience and the challenge I had driving 4-5 hours in one stretch earlier this fall, I wasn’t confident I could make it 13-15 hours myself without stopping.

So after researching Amtrak’s COVID protocols, I decided to book a sleeper car and had a great time. At y’all’s request I actually live-tweeted the experience and will be putting up a full post about it with more pictures and details on Thursday in case you are curious about the dirty details 😉 . In the meantime, here’s the live tweet thread:

I enjoyed the Southern Winter. It was 60s and sunny when I arrived back in Georgia, so I of course sat outside all day and soaked it up. I wrote on my laptop, read a book, chilled, ate and even hung out with my partner while he worked outside. I had missed less frigid temperatures and the ability to just stay outside 🙂 . The rest of the week was a mix of sun and cloudy rain so I was glad I enjoyed the only fully sunny day that week before the weather changed.

I read, rested and recharged. If I wasn’t writing for NaNoWriMo at a certain moment, I tried to take as much time as I could to rest my brain and body. I read fiction, I took naps (more on that below) and I often slept like the dead 🙂 . This led to less time with my commune than I would have liked, but when I did hang out, I noticed I was pretty quiet because of how tired I was. So I tried to be intentional about getting my rest. Hopefully a newly energized Purple will jump back into commune life refreshed very soon!

Physical

Sleep

Napping is BACK! I have been napping like all hell and it’s been amazing. I’ve been sleeping in after getting up early for a baby for 3 weeks and often falling asleep in the afternoon sun. However, I might have taken it a little overboard one day and my afternoon naps might have bitten me in the ass.

One night, I couldn’t for the life of me fall asleep. I laid there for an hour and, nothing. I took Melatonin, nothing. I acknowledged all the thoughts in my brain and wrote down anything I was thinking (like part of this post) to get it out of my brain. Still nothing. So then I read in bed for another hour until I finally fell asleep only…for there to be a massive thunderstorm!

I awakened to distant thunder that I guess was fast approaching because then there was a VERY loud crash as the storm went overhead that actually made me jump. Understandably, it was difficult for me to get back to sleep after that 🙂 .

So I was tired, but happy that I would have the opportunity the next day to nap once again…and mess up my sleep schedule…to begin the cycle all over 😉 . But seriously, getting more sleep has been absolutely amazing and since I’ve been balancing recharging with my NaNoWriMo challenge, I’m going to dive into resting with two feet next week and hopefully get back to my fully charged self.

Food

This week included Thanksgiving, so of course I posted this:

After that delicious blow out though, I stuck to the plan I was throwing around in previous weekly updates of getting back to keto. I’ve made a plan, including a meal plan, a shopping list and re-downloading MyFitnessPal onto my phone.

Basically, we’re hunkering down here in our tiny house until COVID numbers look much better. During the month we’ve lived here, I’ve already sampled most of the delicious takeout this town has to offer so I feel like now would be a great time to get back into a routine of cleaner eating and focusing inward. After two months of eating whatever my heart desired, I’ve started to feel a bit blah and bloated so it’s time to swing the pendulum in the opposite direction and see if I feel any differently.

Alcohol

As a part of the above clean food plan, I’ve decided to take a break from alcohol as well. My partner has been doing a dry streak for almost a year now and I told him I was willing to go dry with him for the holidays in solidarity (since holidays usually involves an abundance of alcohol, though obviously less so this year since we’re not traveling anywhere or joining a family gathering).

I’ll see how this streak makes me feel. If it feels good, I might turn this into another 100 day streak. I do love my streaks and challenges 🙂 . As a part of this plan, I re-downloaded Alcohol Change UK, which I’ve used to track all my streaks. So far this year, I’ve been streaking for 126 days – that’s really cool! They have a fun celebratory animation every time you log a dry day or a day where you drank as planned and I like those little boosts of serotonin 😉 .

Fitness

Fitness has improved a little in that I’m back with my outdoor and walking loving commune, so we’ve been going on walks together through the neighborhood. I admit, a few times I bowed out in favor of a nap…and I regret nothing 😉 . As a part of the above eating plan, I’m going to try to see if I can accomplish my original goal of one pull-up by the end of this year. Currently my idea is to just try every day, even if that involves just hanging on our pull-up bar and struggling to move an inch higher – at least that will be entertaining for my commune-mates 🙂 .

Mental

Learning

Now, let’s get back to my favorite segment: Fun Facts Nobody Asked For! Here’s what I learned and explored this week:
  • My Birding habit is back! I’m once again surrounded by birds in our tiny house and I’m loving it. I’m seeing all the usual suspects of Blue Jays in the backyard, a Carolina Wren that woke me up one day with their song outside our window, American Robins flying by and lots of Crows. I hear Crows in particular are really smart and that you can become friends with them and they’ll remember your face and bring you things…maybe that’s my next adventure, Crow Wrangler 😉
  • In that same vein, I identified a new bird: a Common Grackle! There were hundreds of them one night making a ruckus and flying around together (pictured above). We looked up why and learned that in the winter, these birds forage and roost in large flocks that can include millions of birds!
  • Stargazing is going well again away from the lights of the big city. This week I enjoyed watching Mars, the Waxing Gibbous Moon and the Big Dipper in the sky
  • My partner shared some really cool Rock facts with me this week that taught me (1) there’s a type of rock called Sodalite that turns gold under UV light and (2) there’s a phenomenon called Baikal Zen, where rocks that are lying on the surface of frozen lakes are heated by sunlight, which melts the ice below. Then when the sun sets, the ice freezes again and creates frozen near-impossible structures.
  • The commune had our first “Cheese Club” where we tried new cheeses and things from the local shop. One non-cheese item we got was Black Strap Molasses, which I had never heard of before, but tried and it was delicious! We then used it in a pie for Thanksgiving. On the cheese front though, we tried a 3 year old gouda called Boerenkaas Nederland or “Farmer’s Cheese,” a 3 year old Sharp Cheddar from Wisconsin, A Brie Cheese with Greenhill Cow’s Milk and Dowling Boxcarr Goat Cheese. A delicious time was had by all. Also I looked up why cheddar cheese is orange and discovered some weird stuff.
  • Apparently Cheddar Cheese was originally orange because in the 17th century it was produced from cows whose grass diet was high in beta-carotene, which gave an orange color to their milk. That color became a marker of high-quality cheese so of course producers of lower-quality cheese learned to game the system by adding pigment from saffron, marigold, and also carrot juice to their cheese. That technique moved to the US with cheese makers in Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana. They wanted to create a uniform color throughout the year (because apparently the color of cheese changes depending on whether the cows are eating beta-carotene-rich grass in the spring or hay in the winter). They also wanted to distinguish their product from the white cheese typical of New England and New York. After a while, the orange color became associated with cheese overall, which is why American cheese (and also cheese snacks like Cheetos) are orange, too. However, instead of the above spices and vegetables, today, the color usually comes from annatto, which is a food coloring made from the seeds of the achiote tree. The more you know!
  • Once I got over my cheese obsession, my exploration of my ‘southern’ music has continued. This is my latest favorite by Colter Wall (who is adorable and doesn’t look at all like he sounds):

Nail Painting

I mentioned in my last post that I spent about $40 on 2 nail polishes from Holo Taco. I bought Missed Shift and another polish called Purple Envy. I was super excited for these to arrive and tried them as soon as they did. I looooove Missed Shift – the color is gorgeous and shifts from purple to green based on the light.

However, despite the amazing name, I don’t love Purple with Envy. It’s pretty, but doesn’t have a drastic color transformation from purple to gold like is touted on the website…or maybe I just shouldn’t be wearing it next to the magical wonder that is Missed Shift 😉 .

Either way, my partner asked what I want for Christmas and I sent him a link to the Holo Taco beginner set. I’m about to become a fancy nail polish queen! In addition to these polishes, I found an awesome Nail Polish Remover and Top Coat that both worked super fast, which has incentivized me to actually re-start painting a nail if I mess up instead of just living with it like I usually do 🙂 .

Creativity

As a result of writing more than ever before, I’m unsurprisingly losing some steam 🙂 . So I’m happy that I’ve been doing all this advanced writing because I’m going to definitely need a break. Creativity is currently still going strong along with my continued curiosity about the world, but after this week, I think I’m going to allow myself to put my creativity on a shelf for a hot second and just consume writing instead 🙂 .

Money

I’ve continued to be a ridiculous person who does not care about money. This is a small and silly example, but for the first time in my life, I upgraded a free app to the paid version 🙂 . It’s the app Darker and I’ve been using the free version for years. It allows you to further lower the brightness on your phone and the paid version allows you to go even darker – which is awesome for me when I’m trying to read a book in the dark of night if I’m failing to fall asleep by lying there.

The app got me good by letting me have a free trial of the pro version and for once I decided I couldn’t go back – for the price of $3 😉 . So obviously, I’m a fancy pants now who just throws money at problems. My partner and I have also been looking at Airbnbs near where we’re currently living in Georgia to have a change of scenery for the new year. My partner told me he wasn’t finding anything in our Seattle apartment price range around the holidays and I replied “Meh – then bump it up. We’re rich.” Wow. Such blatant disregard for the budget 😉 – who even am I?

All this ridiculousness might have been further fueled by the fact that I am so close to hitting my next net worth milestone of $600,000 that I can taste it:

We’ll see if I feel the same way when the market inevitably goes down again, but in the meantime, it’s ridiculous to see that without my latest credit card payment, (anyone want to pay that off for me? 😉 ) I am at $600K, 2 months after I aimed to retire with $500K. Life is weird. (Spoiler: The next week I hit $600K. I’ll discuss that in my next weekly update.)

Emotional

S.A.D

While I appreciate being back in Georgia instead of Connecticut and I enjoy the less cold weather, I now have to wear a jacket when going outside (shocking I know!) That, combined with the clouds and lack of sun this week has started to affect my mood and being so tired hasn’t been helping.

However, I still feel so grateful that I can take the time to recoup my sleep debt and relax. So, so grateful. And that I have the time to analyze my negative emotions. Anyway, my emotional reaction to having less hours of sun and less sunlight in general is making me seriously consider becoming a snowbird going forward. Maybe we’ll start winter-ing in Mexico or something 😉 . TBD.

Conclusion

And that’s been my week! Another successful week of retirement in the books. Next week I’m planning to be the biggest slug this planet has ever seen and finally fully recover from my weeks away and this month of being a writing fiend. As a result, get ready for a ridiculous update next week 😉 .

If you’re interested in the other weekly retirement updates I’ve written, they’re all here:

Weekly

  1. Early Retirement Week 1: The Freak Out
  2. Early Retirement Week 2: The Vacation
  3. Early Retirement Week 3: The Whiplash
  4. Early Retirement Week 4: The Heartbeat
  5. Early Retirement Week 5: The Election
  6. Early Retirement Week 6: The Trophy
  7. Early Retirement Week 7: The Train
  8. Early Retirement Week 8: The Challenge
  9. Early Retirement Week 9: The Question
  10. Early Retirement Week 10: The Game
  11. Early Retirement Week 11: The Recharge
  12. Early Retirement Week 12: The Holiday

What did you do this week?

8 thoughts on “Early Retirement Week 8: The Challenge”

  1. Way to go on NaNoWriMo!

    There’s nothing quite like realizing you created all your own obstacles in a particular week, is there? 😉 I do that … a lot XD But it is often stuff I feels strongly about and think it’s worth it even if going through it in the moment feels foolishly like I forgot how to budget my time and energy again. Speaking of which, I have one of those to tend to this week…. (boxing up donations for our last Lakota Family of the year). I better get crackin!

    Reply

    1. Thank you so much! And haha yeah – seriously 🙂 . I’m glad you do it over things that really matter to you though – that’s the way to be! And woohoo that’s amazing and you’ve got this!!

      Reply

  2. This year I did my first ever pull-up! I had to work up to it, for sure. I used the bars on the side of my daughter’s loft bed, stood on tiptoes, and just concentrated on lowering myself as slowly as possible, then hang for a count of 10. 5 attempts per day. The first week I couldn’t raise my feet off the ground until I was fully hanging, but I did my best to make my arms work at it anyway. It took me just under 2 months for the first pull-up. 🙂

    Reply

    1. That so awesome – congratulations!!! And I love that build up routine. I need to figure out a better one because I’m not seeing any improvement from my current one – though it’s also possible I’m just impatient 😉 . Thank you for the timeline and hope I can do this eventually!

      Reply

    1. Haha – well I’m glad I got you back 🙂 . Based on everyone around me getting into birding though I’m not sure you’ll be able to sleep – it’s basically a black hole aka there is no escape 😉 . Thank you lady! I was actually just looking at train tickets just in case… #Wanderlust

      Reply

  4. I love reading all about your experience with the NaNoWriMo! It’s given me the motivation to make some space in my life for it this coming November. Since the creation of my blog, every year without fail and not intentionnally I stop posting in the dead of Winter (No posts patterns have been 2017 Sept-Mar, 2018 Sept-Mar, 2019 Dec-Mar, 2020 Nov-March). Perhaps this can be a way to build up my writing habit for that period and/or simply a way for me to plan some content in advance for this down time :).

    P.s: I’m loving these cheese facts! Fascinating!

    Reply

    1. That’s awesome you recognized that pattern and sounds like an awesome idea to me! Most of NaNoWriMo for me was just knowing so many other people were doing it with me. We are not alone! Excited to have you join this year 🙂 . And good to know – I’ll add in more cheese facts!

      Reply

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