The Month Of Portland, Maine: Early Retirement Month 8 (May 2021)

by A Purple Life, posted in Blogging, Early Retirement, Early Retirement Updates, Food, Hobbies
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Hello party people! We’re legit into our nomad life now and have moved to the northeast 🙂 . It’s been a wild ride overall and despite feeling like I’m just chilling and napping 90% of the time, it seems like I got up to a few things in May. Let’s see what happened!

We Moved To Portland, Maine!

We’re on the other end of the country now! My partner and I flew from Atlanta to Portland and I was quite nervous before traveling since he wasn’t fully vaccinated, but was surprised with the new reality of the busiest airport in the world:

To prepare for our trip, my partner had to get a COVID test to enter Maine and we did that at Walgreens. They have a free drive-through DIY option, which is amazing. His test results came back in 4 hours and we were off on our adventures! Then this happened:

It’s fascinating how every place has their quirks. That’s one of the reasons I’ve decided to start writing Slow Travel Reviews of locations so you can avoid the mistakes I made 🙂 . Here’s the latest one on Decatur, Georgia. Other fun interactions after moving included:

We Booked Nomad Travel 

Soooo basically:

Yeah – we’re now fully booked through mid-October. In my defense, our plans in the southwest are kicking off with the Largest Hot Air Balloon Festival in the world, which happens in Albuquerque, NM at the beginning of October. Lodging was going fast so we jumped on that and then it snowballed into booking travel across the southwest for a National Park tour. Basically, I did my best, but my Mom enabled me and I continue to be a neurotic advanced planner. At least I tried?

Side Note: I just spelled Albuquerque above correctly on the first try!

Anyway, in deciding what we were doing in the southwest, y’all were super helpful on Twitter and I SO appreciate it. I love crowdsourcing information like this. And as a result of your sweet info, we added a whole national park (Bryce Canyon) to our trip!

Y’all are also super helpful when I book month long Airbnbs in places I don’t understand:

So thank you for that!

I Planned FriendCon

This tweet says it all:

I’m not going to FinCon because I do not feel comfortable supporting it. However, the universe has conspired, so I will accidentally be in the same city as all my favorite finance nerds at the same time! So I’m looking around for a coffee shop where I can park my ass for a couple of hours a day and see people in Austin, TX in September. It should be fun 🙂 . Check out my Twitter to follow where I’ll be and when.

I Read 3.5 Books

  1. Laziness Does Not Exist by Devon Price Ph.D.
  2. Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World–and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling 
  3. The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin
  4. Second First Impressions by Sarah Thorne

Yeah I know the 0.5 is weird, but let me explain. Books 1 and 2 are non-fiction and count towards the 52 non-fiction books in 52 weeks challenge I have going. However, Book 3 is a short story and I don’t feel right counting the few pages of The Cold Equations as a book. However, it is the inspiration for the plot of the disappointing Netflix original Stowaway that I reviewed on Insta below:

I was shocked and disappointed to see that the original story was infinitely better and more interesting, as well as public domain because of how long it’s been since it was published. So couldn’t they just like…make that a movie and give full credit? That would have been so much better.

Anyway, Book 5 is fiction so it also doesn’t count towards my challenge. Overall, my goal of reading 52 non-fiction books in 52 weeks is falling behind and I can only imagine that trend will continue because as people become fully vaccinated, we will actually start having a social life during our travels. Between that and recovering from hanging with people (#Introversion) I’m fully booked 🙂 .

If you’re curious about what I’m reading and my ratings of these books, I have a Goodreads account you can check out here.

I wrote 4 posts

In case you missed it, I published the below posts in May:

  1. Things You Don’t Actually Have To Worry About In Retirement
  2. Slow Travel Review: Decatur, Georgia, USA – The Land Of Flowers And Food
  3. Why I Switched To Google Fi (And How I Got A Free Phone Out Of It)
  4. Instacart Review: An Everything Delivery Service

I also recorded two podcasts and one podcast I had recorded in a previous month went live. Check it out here:

I was also a special guest at a Women’s Personal Finance Chat where people from that community got to ask me questions in real time. We went down a rabbit hole of what I’m doing with my money after I die (giving it all away) and it was a super fun time that ended on a bit of a morbid note, which is basically my brand 😉 .

I was also interviewed by Adam at Minafi about my use of Goodreads which was fun. I feel like I often use apps in a weird way so it was interesting to try and articulate that. Anyway, Adam is creating a Goodreads alternative to compete with Amazon – check that out here if you’re interested.

In addition to the more normal requests above, I got a few weird ones this month 🙂 . I was randomly asked to be part of a Twitter chat to promote the show Going from Broke, which the outreach contact kept mentioning was hosted and created by Ashton Kutcher. I declined because as I’ve mentioned, my rigorous nap schedule keeps me fully booked 😉 , but it’s really cool to be asked about something so seemingly mainstream.

I was also asked to give a paid virtual talk on finance and real estate, which I declined because…I know nothing about real estate 🙂 . In a complete reversal to what I was taught during my career (aka “fake it until you make it”) I am completely upfront if I haven’t done something or don’t know something in retired life.

In contrast, while I was working, my superiors would often tell a client “of course we can do that thing”…even when we have no fucking clue how to do that thing. The project was then dropped in my lap to figure out while the client had unrealistic expectations, believing we had experience in a certain type of project when in reality, one person might have done something similar years ago and was no longer at the company. Ahhh marketing – so full of shit 🙂 . Anyway, it felt good to be upfront about my knowledge and not waste people’s time or money.

I Hung Out With People!

One of the reasons my partner and I decided to head to Portland, Maine was to be close to his sister. We combined bubbles and had a wonderful time hanging with them on weekends and some evenings.

In addition to those hangouts, a vaccinated friend from college came up from NYC to spend a weekend with us and eat all the things! Overall, we hosted or had sleepovers three out of the four weekends we were in Portland. We’re so wild! That’s more weekend hanging than we did in all of 2020 🙂 .

And of course, my normal weekly virtual hang outs continued. I’ve kept up my weekly calls with my friend in Argentina, my Mom, and the movie nights I have with my college suitemates. We watched these movies online together this month:

  1. Train to Busan
  2. S.W.A.T
  3. National Treasure

In addition to those films, my sister-un-law, her husband, my partner and I did a re-binge of Community, one of the best comedies of all time.

Physical

Sleep

Sleep has been weird this month. I’m planning to look back on what I say about sleep for the full first year of retirement, but overall it seems to be improving with some fluctuations. Some nights I fall asleep, stay asleep and wake up like a Minecraft character.

And some nights I awaken when the birds do at 4am, read while watching the sunrise at 5am and have a hard time falling asleep again after that. Luckily on those days, I have the option to burrito myself and nap until I feel up to engaging with the world again. Such luxury! Overall though sleep is better because I don’t have to power through if I’m sleepy – I just take a rest and adjust my plans and I’m always grateful to have that option.

Food

Keeping any kind of hold on my eating has gone out the window. I am all about experiencing the deliciousness around me because there is a shockingly large amount of it. Apparently, I neglected my research before we booked this stay in Portland, Maine because I had NO idea that it was a foodie capital of the world.

In fact, in 2018 Bon Appetit named it the Restaurant City Of The Year. As a result, I’m eating whatever the fuck I want and it’s been sensational. Here are some of the delicious things I’ve been eating:

Walking

Basically:

We are in an expensive Airbnb in the middle of the city and as a result, I wanted to take advantage. I wanted to walk to the heart of downtown in 20 minutes every day because I can. However, exploring like that for 2-3 hours a day caught up to me and the above happened. Luckily I have a new, awesome and small travel heating pad to help me get back to ship shape 😉 . Despite that set back, it’s great to get back into walking for hours almost every day. I love it so much.

Singing

I’ve been preparing so I’m ready when karaoke is safe again! I never knew I would miss such a thing, but I’ve been practicing to perform this:

I have also almost mastered this YouTube banger by the adorable 6’10” behemoth I gave the best music video of 2020 award in my annual recap post. This is his rendition of the 2019 winner of the Eurovision Song Contest and it’s gorgeous:

Daði was competing in Eurovision 2020 and before it was shut down was favored to win. Sadly, they had to make new songs for the 2021 version (WHY?!) and as a result, he did not take home the gold. So much sadness.

Mental

Learning

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

Portland, Maine

I am a failure as a nerd researcher. My partner suggested we go to Portland, Maine – I assumed I would eat lobster, look at the ocean and that would be that. WRONG! I had no idea that Portland was a known foodie haven. As I mentioned, it was the Bon Appetit Restaurant City Of The Year in 2018. It is chock full of amazing food and also amazing beer!

During my delayed research, I also discovered that Portland, Maine has the most breweries per capita of anywhere in the US! That explains why everywhere I turned they were offering local beer from different breweries in the city. I’d never seen anything like it personally.

I have a goal to read about the history of all the places we’re temporarily living in and Portland has some really interesting facts I learned. For example, Portland, Maine was named for the English Isle of Portland, but the city of Portland, Oregon, was actually named after Portland, Maine.

It happened during a coin toss of all things in 1845 (this random fact I learned on a recent episode of Top Chef). The two founders of Portland, OR were from Portland, ME and Boston, MA and they flipped a penny to see which place it should be named after – obviously the gentleman from Maine won.

To continue the history lesson, in 1820, Maine was established as a state with Portland as its capital! That’s no longer the case and the capital is apparently in a city called Augusta, which I didn’t know and have no idea where it is 🙂 . Before it was named Portland, the city used to be called Casco. And after I read that, I saw Casco on names of all kinds of things downtown, including the gorgeous Casco Bay.

Also, apparently, Portland is known for its pure tap water. The water comes from Sebago Lake (which also has a Brewery named after it…) and the EPA says it does not require any kind of filtration.

Randomly, Portland is where national Prohibition started. The Portland mayor and temperance leader Neal Dow made Maine ban alcohol sales in 1851 and the law led to the Portland Rum Riot in 1855, which I suspect is the inspiration for the name of the local brewery Liquid Riot. That might explain this phenomenon:

Our Airbnb was on the west end of Portland and as a result, we were frequent visitors to the Western Promenade. On a clear day I had been alerted that it was possible to see Mt. Washington and it was true! We could see a mountain in the distance, which I then looked up and found that it’s the tallest peak in the northeast at 6,288 ft…and it’s in New Hampshire.

It’s cool we can see into another state from the coast of Maine. However, I couldn’t help but compare this 6,288 ft tall mountain to the 14,411 ft behemoth that is Mt. Rainier that we could see from our Seattle apartment…I’ll try not to be snobbish about it though 😉 .

Birds

Birds continue to surprise me. I really should give them more credit. Just because I thought all birds were the same and put them under the label of “noisy nuisance” while I was working, doesn’t mean that they are not as abundant and fascinating in the city as they were in the country. I’m so sorry I doubted you my bird babies!

Overall, Portland, Maine is covered in Seagulls, Pigeons and Song Sparrows. They’re everywhere. There is fun Seagull drama to be had at all times. Those birds are the size of cats and were always outside my window trying to get the best spot on a neighboring roof.

In addition to those usual suspects, I made some super fun discoveries around Maine including the Common Eider (which is a duck that flies down from the Arctic – WHAT?!), Black-Capped Chickadee, American Robin, Northern Cardinal, Common Grackle, Common Tern, Chimney Swift, Common Yellowthroat, Red-Winged Blackbird, Northern Gannet, Mallard Duck, European Starling, and Chipping Sparrows.

Overall though my entire birding experience can be summed up like this:

Randomly, someone asked me what the birds you often see on the beach with tiny, fast moving legs were and I said Plovers without hesitating. Apparently all this recording and writing of my bird learning is actually sinking into my brain 🙂 . I wasn’t sure if I was retaining any of this stuff I was learning, but that was confirmation that 8 months later I do in fact remember!

Astronomy

Did you watch the Lunar Eclipse aka the SUPER BLOOD MOON on May 26th? What a fucking metal name. I love it so much. Basically May’s full moon decided to be extra awesome and be a Supermoon, which means it’s a certain closeness to earth (within 224,791 miles in a given orbit) AND it’s part of a Lunar Eclipse, which creates a blood red colored moon.

During a lunar eclipse, the Earth comes between the Moon and the Sun, which covers the Moon with our shadow. However, indirect sunlight still manages to reach the Moon and illuminate it through our planet’s atmosphere. The atmosphere blocks most of the blue color and lets through only the red or orange light. As a result, the Moon appears to be blood red.

This year the phenomenon was visible on the west coast of North America as well as some parts of Asia, New Zealand, and part of Australia. I’ve never regretted moving from Seattle more 😉 . The total lunar eclipse happened for 15 minutes starting at 7:11am EDT. You can see a live feed recap here if you’re interested:

For the east coasters like me, we instead got to see a beautiful full moon that was called the Flower Moon, which was named such because it occurs during the flower blooming season in Northern America (predictable, but I’ll allow it…).

Flora

I continue to be shocked at how much I had blinders on during my years of work and school and grind. I keep expecting cities to have no remarkable nature and I continue to be ashamed at my assumptions. Even living in the middle of Portland, I got to see and learn about so many new types of flowers and trees.

Some awesome new flora I learned from people I hung out with and the internet included the Narcissus Flower, Birch Tree (the one that looks like it has paper peeling off of it), Bleeding Heart Flowers (which look exactly like that), an Oriental Poppy (whose bulbs look like fuzzy abominations out of a Dr. Seuss book):

I also was reacquainted with our old tree pal from Georgia the Bradford Pear aka Semen Tree (because of how it smells). Always fascinating to be chatting with friends while walking and then mutually get a whiff of that and look at each other knowingly 😉 .

Anyway, besides unfortunate smelling trees, I learned these plants this month in Maine: Violets (don’t make fun – I knew nothing about plants before a few months ago!), Cherry Plum Trees, True Lilies and Lilacs.

On a random note, to keep the ‘learning weird facts from television’ train going, my Mom and I watch Catfish over video chat every week while we’re apart and last week, the Catfish was in Turkey and mentioned that they have a city where the only Black Roses in the world are grown. That sounded awesome to me, but I was also skeptical that I had never heard of such a thing before.

It turns out that’s because it’s not true. There are places that grow very, very dark red roses and this place in Turkey is one of them, but actual black flowers do not exist in the world currently. This made me sad, but also made me smile because after seeing that episode, I kept noticing very dark red tulips all over Portland that appear black in certain lighting:

Words

I’ve always been curious about the meaning and origins of words. When I was learning Italian, I kept a tiny notebook where I wrote down every word I heard in conversation or while reading or watching a show and then…I did nothing with it 🙂 . Well, no longer!

In my retirement, I’m going to continue chasing my curiosity as I suggested in one of my recent posts and actually follow through with my lack of knowledge about words because I have the time 🙂 . So here are the word things I learned this month:

  • A helpful internet diagram showed me that the easiest way to remember the difference between Latitude and Longitude is by associating the terms with different parts of a ladder. Lines of latitude run east and west and lines of longitude run north/south. Thank goodness for the internet because I’ve been hella confused for years:
From GeographyRealm.com
  • I learned that Wi-Fi has no actual origin – it doesn’t really mean anything and as a result it makes me think of combining two words to create something that sounds semi-cool and techy like Intitrode in Office Space
  • The word Sonder was inspired by similar words in German and French and created to describe “the profound feeling of realizing that everyone, including strangers passed in the street, has a life as complex as one’s own, which they are constantly living despite one’s personal lack of awareness of it” – Wooooah dude
  • The word Piddle apparently means “to urinate” – I had no idea
  • Once again Top Chef has taught me something with their latest season, specifically the definition of Pan-African is “relating to all people of African birth or descent”, which encompasses so much of the globe including much of the US, Caribbean and so many other places that are now home to generations of people originally from Africa. I didn’t realize there was a word to describe this phenomenon
  • Someone on a recent Instagram AMA asked me my favorite place I’ve ever been and I said an atoll in the Maldives and then wondered…what actually was the definition of an Atoll? Apparently it’s “a ring-shaped coral reef, island, or series of islets. An atoll surrounds a body of water called a lagoon.”
  • I learned that a deuteragonist is the word to describe a character that is second to the protagonist and that umbrage means offense or annoyance…which reminds me of Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter. I assume she was named partially for that reason 😉 .

Creativity

Hello creativity! I’m still firing on all cylinders over here and I think I’m finally finding my rhythm. There are days or weeks when I don’t feel particularly creative and might not write anything down and then others when I’m frantically typing on my phone until I can get home to bang out something serious.

There are ebbs and flows, but overall I’m way more creative than I was previously. I even started drafting a post speculating on why that might be and one of the books I read this month, Laziness Does Not Exist, decided to be extra helpful and provide me with studies that actually supported my hypotheses, so stay tuned for that!

Emotional

Introversion

I had huge plans for our first month of legit nomad life, but quickly realized that I was overly ambitious (sound familiar?) It’s almost like I never learn 😉 . After running around every moment (it seemed) for a week with my partner and moving basically across the country, I needed some time to recover.

I wanted to chill, read and recharge and originally felt bad about it. We have this amazing Airbnb in the heart of an awesome city so I should be out exploring! But then I looked back and for the whole month, there were only 4 days I had taken a ‘break’ from being out in the world. That’s definitely a new (low) record for me.

In the end I found a balance, but it was hilarious to see that even with my whole life ahead of me, I still created pressure on myself to “do it all” – even when doing it all was walking all the streets and eating all the food in Portland. One of my retirement goals is to get to a baseline of a refreshed life and as a part of that, I need to listen to my body and mind and what it needs.

Money

Let’s start with a little humor:

True story. What a waste of wallet space 😉 . Anyway, I just wanted to level set because when we see people on the internet, it can seem like they know it all or have it all together and I can assure you that that is never the case. Life includes endless balls to juggle and if someone can do it all effortlessly, I am highly suspicious…and also want whatever drug they’re on 😉 .

Overall, money continues to be a non-issue even though we are in an expensive Airbnb this month that was over our budget (last month we were under) and I’ve been eating out almost every day – sometimes multiple times a day – without checking my budget. I wanted to see if checking my accounts would change that behavior and this happened:

I know I should look into why my money hasn’t moved, but to be honest – I don’t really care enough to investigate. I will happily take that Worst Finance Blogger trophy now. Despite the fact that we’ve pre-booked our accommodations through mid-October, my cash accounts are still full, my net worth is high and life is good. Money continues to be a non-issue.

Conclusion

So that’s everything I got up to in May! Next month we’re going to move to another town in Maine and then to the shores of New Hampshire for a month. It’ll be nice to see more of the ocean and hang out with a few of our fully vaccinated friends and family. To the summer!

Also, if you’re interested in the other weekly and monthly 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

Monthly

  1. The Month Of Rest: Early Retirement Month 4 (January 2021)
  2. The Month Of Birds: Early Retirement Month 5 (February 2021)
  3. The Month of Change: Early Retirement Month 6 (March 2021)
  4. The Month of Atlanta: Early Retirement Month 7 (April 2021)

How was your month?

29 thoughts on “The Month Of Portland, Maine: Early Retirement Month 8 (May 2021)”

  1. Great post Purple! I was really glad to hear you’ve added Bryce Canyon to your southwest parks trip. I just got back from visiting Zion and Bryce and while they were both spectacular, I think Bryce was my favorite. There is something so…ethereal about its beauty. And the color blue of the sky apparently is legend. After experiencing it (and looking at my photos afterwards), I can attest to that truth.

    Reply

    1. Haha yeah I can’t believe i hadn’t heard about Bryce much before with how everyone raves about it. I’m so excited to visit! If you have any suggestions for specific places to go within the park I’m all ears. I love gorgeous views (…that can be accessed by car because my Mom is coming too 😉 ).

      Reply

    1. That’s so kind! We actually already have accommodations in the area, but I appreciate it!

      Reply

  3. I’m really enjoying reading your blog and loved this post about Maine in particular. One of my favorite things about Maine is watching and listening to loons. I hope you have a chance to encounter them before you head off to your next destination: https://youtu.be/4ENNzjy8QjU

    Reply

    1. I’m so happy to hear that! And I don’t think I heard the loons when we lived by the water – maybe they were drowned out by the city noise. I’m on the look out now though!!

      Reply

    1. I have literally had people tell me their friends have done that. It is indeed that good.

      Reply

  5. The food shots were everything (Mmmm, duck fat)! Also I’m gonna check out the movie Train to Busan. Had no idea it involved zombies!!

    Reply

    1. Haha I’m glad you enjoyed them! Stay tuned for a whole post on Portland’s ridiculously amazing food 😉 . And yes – I hope you enjoy that movie! It’s way ‘more’ than a zombie film. Really amazing.

      Reply

  6. When I worked in the airline business, I got used to speaking in airport code for cities. So if you can continue to struggle with spelling Albuquerque, you can always just use it’s airport code of ABQ! Of course, only aviation nerds might know what that means.

    If you are interested in the night sky, there is a website https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/ that gives you the times when the space station is visible. Just put in your location and it lists times and direction. It looks like a faster moving airplane, without the blinking lights. It’s freaky how accurate it is…

    Reply

    1. That’s funny because a few residents of ABQ (who don’t work in airlines) said the same thing. They don’t even spell it out. I’m hopping on that train! You’re also making me realize I think in airport codes sometimes (my Mom worked for an airline as well).

      And cool! Thanks for sharing. I think the app I use to stargaze shows the ISS as well. I’ll check it out.

      Reply

  7. Awesome post! Funnily enough, I’ve been curious about Portland, Maine. Heard a LOT about Portland in Oregon, not so much about the Maine option. That it’s a foodie paradise is amazing. Those photos are mouth-watering. Definitely want to visit.

    Daði is incredible and I wish 2020 had gone ahead just so we could’ve seen his song as intended. (Obviously it was better that it didn’t! Not denying that! Sometimes I just want things though XD) I didn’t realise he’d covered Arcade! Wow! Thank you for including this in your post, it was wonderful to listen to. You can see him really getting lost in the song, just fabulous.

    Wi-Fi is a made up word, ha! Life is weirder than fiction sometimes. The 2-year stash of money staying stable despite spending: that’s pretty cool. You said you weren’t going to investigate, but not gonna lie, my brain is pinging all over this wanting to know why! That’s a great start to retirement.

    Your national park tour sounds incredible. I love hiking and being in nature, and the US has some truly astonishing natural treasures. You’re super lucky and I’m super jealous but also looking forward to the photos you’re going to share!

    Reply

    1. Yeah I’m surprised it’s not more talked about – I like it a whole lot more than Portland, OR (don’t tell anyone lol…). And yes on Daði! I understand the sentiment – I’m glad they cancelled Eurovision as well, but I would have loved to see him perform “Think About Things” and win. Oh well. So glad you liked the cover – I can’t stop watching it haha.

      Fiiiine maybe I should be a real finance blogger and investigate. I’ve added it to my list. And yeah I’m excited about the national parks – I’ve barely been to any, which is wild given that I’ve been to most states. Time to change that! And yes – lots of photos incoming 😉 .

      Reply

      1. Oh hey, don’t feel you have to just because one commenter whined about it! I’ll survive 😉 keep doing you!

        Reply

          1. YESSSSSSS thank you! My brain is satisfied hahaha. I figured it might’ve been because of unexpected income. Looks like it cushioned your entry into RE nicely. It all adds up!

            Reply

      2. I’ve lived in Portland OR and visited Portland ME. You might be right about which one is better.

        Why do you not want to support FinCon?

        Reply

        1. Haha I’m just telling it like my taste buds tell me 😉 .

          As for FinCon, I’m not attending for the foreseeable future because of the founder’s conduct (links below) as well as the systemic issues he created within the organization from a lack of representation among other things. He is no longer the CEO of the company, but still owns it/profits from it. I have seen the organization make changes in the last year since this happened, but not enough for me to be comfortable giving them my money.

          https://twitter.com/MelanieLockert/status/1267504338483548160
          https://twitter.com/RevAGSL/status/1267228685121105920
          https://twitter.com/herfirst100K/status/1267510899549499392

          Reply

          1. Thank you for your response. I did not know about this. That’s too bad because I know some people really find the gathering helpful.

            Enjoy the rest of your time in the Northeast!

            Reply

            1. Of course and to each their own – a lot of my friend are going because their pros outweigh the cons. I just don’t feel comfortable giving money to it. And thank you!!

              Reply

  10. After you quoted Devon Price on Twitter I bought “Lazyness Does Not Exist” and so far I love it!

    I finished grad school in March and have to find a job now which is exhausting and really really irritating 😀 I always thought myself lucky to not have graduated during the financial crisis in the 2000s/2010s — instead I got to graduate during a pandemic, hooray.

    The book helps to stay on track and not give up hope 😉

    Reply

    1. That’s so awesome to hear – thank you for telling me! I’m glad you’re enjoying it. Definitely don’t give up hope! You’ve got this.

      Reply

  11. The highlight of this post is that you spelled Albuquerque correctly on the first try. That’s impressive. It would be more impressive if you spelled it and didn’t look up on Google if you did spell it correctly afterwards! I kid.

    Maybe we’ll meet in Austin! I hoped that Fincon would offer scholarships to blogs but it seems like they’re not doing it this year 🙁 either way, I think there’s a strong chance that I’m going.

    Reply

    1. Haha I think so too! Cool on Austin. I didn’t know they aren’t offering scholarships this year – that sucks. Hope to see you there!

      Reply

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