Early Retirement Week 12: The Holiday

Unfortunately, today I’m not talking about the ridiculous and amazing movie The Holiday, but instead what I got up to during Week 12 of early retirement 😉 .

I am also sad to report that this will be the last weekly retirement update on this blog. It’s been an amazing way to dip my toe into retirement and see what actually happens after the plug is pulled, but I do think it’s time to switch to less frequent monthly updates detailing my retired life.

What Did I Do This Week?

I had Commune Family Time. Surprisingly for my hardcore introvert self, this pandemic and the required lack of human interaction, has taken a toll on me during 2020. At first I reveled in it a little (and felt horrible for doing so…). It was wonderful to take a second to just focus on myself, my partner and my job (before I quit) instead of also trying to see people, go places, do things and live a life in addition to that. In retirement, I can now see that doing so took a toll on me, but I don’t see an alternative since I didn’t want to wait until retirement to do everything I dreamed – especially since getting there was never a guarantee.

So after 7 months of seeing no one but my partner outside of a few outside/masked/distanced hangouts I could count on my two hands, I was excited to realize that we would be expanding our bubble by moving in with my BIL, SIL and little nephew when we moved to Georgia right before I quit my job. This new living situation has meant that I have had more social interaction than I am used to, not just during the pandemic, but before it as well.

It meant that the holidays and New Years Eve were full of hangouts instead of me sitting alone in the dark with a seltzer watching the ball drop in Times Square (…which is how I usually rang in the new year in Georgia after my Mom went to bed…). So the main thing I did this week was hang out with people. We watched movies, played games, cooked meals, chatted and generally had a good time and it was quite lovely 🙂 .

I completed the final weeks of the first annual Purplemas! And I must admit, I loved it 🙂 . Using NaNoWriMo to get ahead on posts and then being able to publish more frequently on here in December was really fun! Here are the posts I published in addition to the usual weekly updates:

1. The Year Of Resilience: 2020 Goals and Accomplishments
2. How I Lived On $15,886 in 2020
3. Lessons Learned From 6 Years Of Blog Writing
4. The Meta-Weirdness Of Making Money From A FIRE Blog In Retirement

Physical

Sleep

One night this week my partner and I didn’t sleep well – and I can’t figure out the reason. We were fine, we went to bed at a reasonable hour, the temperature was perfect and so I don’t know what happened 🙂 . However, this night of less than ideal sleep stuck out to me because it was an anomaly. When I was working, I had more bad nights of sleep than good and it’s interesting to see how that can change relatively quickly.

Before I had many possible reasons for not sleeping well, mostly linked to stress and my brain’s inability to shut up when I have (or am looking for) a job. However, now, I don’t have that and there was no stress or excitement I could link this sleepless night to – especially since it happened to both my partner and I. I guess that just happens sometimes …maybe I’ll blame the elves 😉 .

Other than that anomaly, I slept well this week – and continued my new, post work normal of falling asleep easily, staying asleep and awakening pretty well rested…what a concept 😉 . If I got sleepy by the afternoon, I continued my new love of taking naps. They still feel like a luxury – life is good 🙂 .

Food

When I got back into keto a few weeks ago, I did so with the understanding that I would go off for the holidays. Originally, we had a commune meeting about what traditions we wanted to include in this holiday and what meals we wanted to make. My brother-in-law very kindly started thinking of ways they could make the meals they wanted to make keto for my portion and I realized that that would add another element of work to a holiday that can already be stressful so I declared that I would be off keto for the holidays. This has led to a lot of delicious meals, which I’ll be posting on Instagram…whenever I get around to it 😉 .

Calligraphy

In keeping with the holiday spirit, I used my new calligraphy skills at the request of my partner, to write the names on all the presents we were giving and I also made bookmarks for everyone in keeping with a book tradition I’ll discuss below. I got compliments on my pen(wo)manship and my partner declared that our presents were the prettiest as a result – which is obviously the purpose of the holidays: Winning 😉 .

Mental

Learning

It’s time for my favorite segment: Fun Facts Nobody Asked For! Here’s what I learned and explored this week:

Birdwatching continues! I was happy and surprised to see a Tufted Titmouse on the trellis right outside the kitchen window while I was washing dishes. I freaked out and told the rest of the commune, who were enjoying their morning coffee. We all excitedly looked out the window and it felt like a lovely birds-bringing-us-together moment 🙂 . Later that day, my partner called out to me when he saw (and properly identified!) a Northern Cardinal outside our window. My birding hobby has really infected him as well 😉 . Besides that, I also identified a new bird by sound with my BirdApp: a White Throated Sparrow! I’ve never realized in my 31 years of life how birds sound different, but they do and with the help of this app, I’m starting to be able to tell the difference without the help of technology 🙂 . Anyway, get ready for a lot more Bird News in the following months because:

Look what I got for Christmas 😍. IT'S BIRDING TIME🦉💜🐦🙌🏾🕊️🥰!!! pic.twitter.com/tut1s81wzJ

— A Purple Life (@APurpleLifeBlog) December 25, 2020

The commune wanted to try a new holiday tradition of buying books for each other to enjoy on Christmas Eve. Well it turns out that this is an Icelandic tradition (maybe Eurovision is still infecting our minds ;)) and it’s called Jólabókaflóð.

I finally found some proof for what I should call my Baby Cousin – my cousin’s son: First Cousin Once Removed. I found this chart which had the best explanation I’ve seen of what to call different types of cousins. It isn’t intuitive (…like most of English…) but at least now I know 🙂 .

I found some new awesome Holiday Music thanks to my partner including the two songs below:

Singing in sync. from oddlysatisfying

Stargazing was amazing this week – it was phenomenally clear and easy to see our celestial friends. So every night I tried to pick out a star and learn more about it. I got through a grand total of 3 despite the seeming simplicity of the task 🙂 . I saw and learned about Betelgeuse, Polaris and Aldebaran. I also discovered this awesome site that tells you what the Hubble Telescope saw on your birthday – nerdy fun! I also saw the constellation Cassiopeia for the first time in the south. I used to pick it out of the sky when we lived in the north, but hadn’t noticed it down here before. In addition, it was the Full Cold Moon at the end of December. I actually thought someone had turned a flood light on because of how bright it was in the sky at night. We also had the Jupiter/Saturn Conjunction or “Christmas Star” they made with the moon at the end of December. It was the closest we’ve been able to observe these planets since the middle ages, which is cool. What’s not cool is that I wasn’t able to see it 🙁 . It was a clear night, but by the time the conjunction happened, it was too close to the horizon. It was the first time I wished I lived on a mansion on a hill over the Pacific Ocean 😉 . However, on the bright side, I’ve noticed that I’ve started to know vaguely what time it is based on the Position of the Constellations, and I was able to watch this gorgeous Northern Lights show live that was happening in Finland:

I also learned this:

TIL that grapefruit can mess with hundreds of medications – including birth control😳. I guess it's time to live dangerously🤣. pic.twitter.com/iQstJi3Cfa

— A Purple Life (@APurpleLifeBlog) December 23, 2020

Money

Ah money, money, money 🙂 . So, several fun things happened this week. Here’s one:

Partner: So what's your budget for a 2 week beach vacation rental🏖️?
Me: Whatevs.
Partner: Whatevs?!

…Who have I become😈?! pic.twitter.com/ubPAVYz2F8

— A Purple Life (@APurpleLifeBlog) December 30, 2020

As you can see, my ambivalence towards money has continued. I am still so curious when or if it will end 🙂 .

Here’s another fun thing that happened:

I received my first taxable dividend payout in my checking account…and it felt weird 🙂 . Waking up to seeing money from my investments in my checking account ready for spending, is a huge change from the last 6 years of me just saving, saving, saving and not touching my investments. It was “Future Me’s” money – well now the future is here and it’s time to bro down 😉 .

The other thing that happened is that the hellscape of 2020 ended and I got to finalize my net worth numbers for the year:

…and that’s ridiculous to see. If we’re grasping for 2020 positives, one would be that it made me realize even more than I could have ever imagined that I cannot predict what the stock market is going to do. My portfolio ended up 21% while I felt like the world was exploding around me. So, once again, I’m glad I’m a hardcore index fund investor and just enjoying the ridiculous ride 🙂 .

Emotional

Time Dilation & Calendars

I officially feel like an off the grid hermit compared to the woman I was 3 months ago who knew what date, weekday and time it was at any second. I had client finances, calendars, names and faces memorized. My boss would literally ask me “when is X deliverable due?” and I would respond “EOD Monday, December 28th.” Similarly, I could recite client finances at the drop of a hat.

Well, that shit is all out the window 🙂 . I’ve started having to put actual reminders on my calendar for video chats with friends and family because I just forget. When I was working, I was constantly looking at my work and personal calendar – I had it memorized. Now, I rarely look at it and have no idea what’s going on.

I don’t know what day of the week it is most of the time and definitely don’t remember the date, or if I promised to call someone at a certain time, so I’ve become someone who requires my phone to blare “15 minutes until video chat with Mom!” I never thought I would get here given my anal retentive tendencies for my entire life previously, but here we are.

I’ve almost missed several virtual hangs with people and it’s made me change my tune. I guess this is the new, retired me: a slug/hermit who has no idea what day or time it is 🙂 . I thought being on top of those things were just a part of my personality, but that has proven to be untrue.

Conclusion

And that’s it! This is going to be my last weekly retirement update that goes through everything within a specific week. We’re now going to switch to monthly updates. I’m currently planning for them to have the same format, but obviously cover 4 weeks instead of 1. I will do my best to not make them novel length as a result 😉 .

I’m going to aim to have each monthly update out the first Tuesday of the month. In case you missed any weekly updates, they are all listed below. I hope y’all have enjoyed these 🙂 . If there’s any topic you would like to see incorporated into the monthly updates, feel free to let me know.

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?