The Month of Washington State: July 2022 Recap

by A Purple Life, posted in Blogging, Early Retirement, Early Retirement Updates, Film, Finance, Fitness, Food, Hobbies, Keto, Net Worth Update, Reviews, Travel Reviews
This post may contain affiliate links. For more info read my disclosure.

Well, 2022 continues to barrel through time at a break-neck pace. Another month down and I need to start thinking about more seriously about the broad strokes of my travel in 2023. Oh the problems of retirees 🙂 . In the meantime, let’s see what I got up to in July!

We Lived In Seattle, WA!

We moved to our old Seattle neighborhood of Queen Anne and it felt…weird 🙂 . I thought about it and realized it’s because I’m in the same exact place, but feel like a different person. Two years ago when we left this neighborhood, I was still working and still stressed out of my mind.

It feels like I’ve lived lifetimes since I walked these streets, but it’s only been two years. Not a lot has changed outside pandemic related stuff in this area, but I definitely have. Hence the weird feeling.

However, I quickly got used to it and instead became giddy to explore this city with non-stressed eyes. I started going to and doing all the things I wanted to do, but was too tired or stressed when I lived here, like going to museums, movie premieres, hanging with people daily, birdwatching and watching the gorgeous sunset over the city. In 2 weeks I did more than I would have done in a whole year. It’s wild how much more energy I have without work.

However, it wasn’t all roses 🙂 . I remembered something I don’t like about being on the west coast: texting with my mom less. She lives on the east coast and is an early riser and an early sleeper. That combination meant that we had about half of the time to chat when we were both awake and I felt that.

Obviously that’s a very specific situation, but it helped me think of a positive to leaving a place I love so much. After a lovely time, it was time to move back to the east coast! In case you’re curious, here’s where I’ll be for the foreseeable future:

August: New Hampshire
September: Maine, Connecticut
October: Maine, New Jersey, NYC
November: Buenos Aires, Argentina
December: Connecticut, Upstate New York

I Got A Check Up

I got a doctor’s check up and thought it would be a one and done deal, but sadly that was not the case. The doctor suggested I get a 4th Covid shot even though I mentioned that I don’t think I qualify. He said I can get it no problem (Spoiler: that was not the case). I made an appointment and showed up only to be (understandably) turned away since the 4th shot is currently only for people over 50 and/or immunocompromised people.

I also had to go to another location to get my blood drawn, but luckily these blood experts were awesome at their job. However, my arm apparently was not happy with me and I had a large bruise for a week or two. I also had a lot of arm pain several days later, but after calling a nurse, I was told to watch it and that no additional concern was needed.

I was overall impressed with the strides medical charts have taken in the last few years by going online, but found it strange that when blood results come in, I’m alerted before the doctor looks at them so instead, I’m looking at a bright red urgent (!) note next to a blood number without knowing what it means. I guess it’s still a work in progress.

As for some good news, my blood pressure was normal for the first time in a while and the only difference has been I started running, so that’s cool! Also my HDL and LDL numbers were amazing – keto for the win!

I Learned Spanish

My Spanish is coming along! I had a quick moment of panic realizing that I only have 3 months until my new language skills are put to the test when I go to Buenos Aires, Argentina for 5 weeks and hang with friends of friends who don’t speak English. I guess next month it’s time to double down on my studying! Anyway, for this month this is what I did:

Speaking

As usual, I had my weekly call with my friend in Argentina, which is back to us speaking Spanish 100% of the time. I also continued my weekly call with my Mom all in Spanish – though recently we haven’t even been watching a show and just talk the whole time.

I met up with a finance friend in Seattle that I met years ago via Insta. She asked where’d I’d been recently, I said México and she started speaking Spanish to me! We kept it up for a whole conversation and I understood 95% of it. Big improvement!!

Writing

I’m still only texting my Mom in Spanish, which is getting easier. I also tested out of another 29 lessons on Duolingo. I’ve also been using it daily just to test my comprehension skills through Stories and use it for past tense writing drills.

In other news, someone tried to scam me on Insta in Spanish, which was a high honor 🙂 . Also when on my latest flight, I read the in-flight video’s Spanish subtitles and understood most of it!

Listening

I started listening to a Spanish speaking financial podcast and understood most of it! It’s called De Peso A Peso Podcast and sadly, it’s no longer publishing, but it’s fun to learn about something I love (finance or finanzas 😉 ) in another language.

I’ve also started to notice that I understand random Spanish while living my life, such as Spanish songs that were playing when I went to Zumba. I was surprised by this because I don’t usually listen to lyrics even with English songs and I didn’t think my brain would have the capacity to understand Spanish words while I was sweating my face off at Zumba. My accidental eavesdropping on Spanish conversations has also continued 😉 .

Watching

I used to mostly only watch things I had seen before in Spanish, but I’ve started watching things I’ve never seen before (such as new Snapped episodes) and now understand what’s happening!!! This is a big change from previous months where I felt mostly lost.

I also usually watch YouTube videos while playing The Sims, but I’ve started listening to either Spanish FilmTube or movies in Spanish to get practice in during my video game downtime as well 🙂 . Overall this is what I watched this month:

Films Watched En Español

  1. The Wizard of Lies (El Mago de las Mentiras)
  2. Thor Ragnarok
  3. Jurassic World 2: Fallen Kingdom (Mundo Jurásico: El Reino Caído)
  4. Jurassic Park III (Parque Jurásico III)

Shows Watched En Español

  1. Elementary (Elemental)
  2. Snapped (Crímenes de Pasión)

I Hung Out With People

This month was filled with (maybe too many 😉 ) social interactions. In addition to my usual virtual hangouts, such as movie clubs where we watched the below, I also had way more in person hangs than usual.

Movies

  1. Last Night In Soho
  2. Thor: Love and Thunder
  3. Crawl
  4. The Raid
  5. Salt

Shows

  1. Westworld (Season 4)

I hung out with Angela from Tread Lightly Retire Early and Felicity from Fetching Financial Freedom several times, met up with an ex-colleague to go to a museum, met up with that reader I mentioned above, and met with someone I worked with at my very first job who then invited me to her house in Brazil (random and cool!).

I also hung out some more with the friend whose wedding was the catalyst for this trip, met up with my old Seattle friend crew that still lives there and explored all my old haunts. It was a wild time. Heads up, if you’re curious about my ratings of movies, I have a Letterboxd account here.

I Read 5 Books

This month I read:

  1. Any Way The Wind Blows by Rainbow Rowell
  2. Hook, Line And Sinker by Tessa Bailey
  3. The Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas
  4. The Court Of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas
  5. All Systems Red by Martha Wells

It was another lovely month of books. Having holds come up on my Libby app has really helped me keep my momentum. I love forcing myself to do things I want to do 😉 . 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, this month I published the below posts:

  1. The Month of Seattle: June 2022 Recap
  2. Show Me The Money: All My Financial Info & Answering Y’all’s Questions
  3. Slow Travel Review: Seattle, WA, USA – The Land Of Flowers, Sea And Mountains
  4. Cheers To 4 Years Of A Purple Life: Highlights & Answering Your Questions

In addition to that, I declined being interviewed by a Pulitzer winning publisher, and a fan reached out to invite me to their lavender farm near Seattle. Cool! I sadly didn’t have time to visit this time, but it’s on my list for the next.

Physical

Sleep

Something interesting happened with my sleep this month. I found myself consistently sleeping more than the 8 hours I usually do. I would wake up, still be tired and go back to sleep for a little bit. I was so grateful I could do that. I suspect the medical stuff, all the exercise and seeing more people than we have since before the pandemic, caught up with me. Sleep was still great though – I was able to fall asleep quickly and stay asleep, which are my main metrics.

Food

After having a wonderful time eating everything Seattle had to offer, I got back to Keto, Calorie Counting while hitting my protein goals and 16:8 Intermittent Fasting. I started eating at 12pm and stopped by 8pm.

Exercise

It’s easier to keep to my routines with nothing else going on (groundbreaking I know), when I don’t have multiple friends to meet in a day and places to go, things to see etc. When my time is just a new city and endless time to determine my future, I find it easy. This month it wasn’t easy 🙂 .

Maybe having that kind of unlimited time was just an early pandemic thing and now that we’re seeing people, my random little goals come second to the people I love. I still need to figure out how to juggle my priorities in a more open world and a more people filled retirement.

However, this month, I walked up a mountain several times a day, walked across the city, went to Zumba weekly and tried to get back to my 3x/week running schedule. However, running has encountered another unexpected hiccup: the heat! I forgot about that 🙂 . I might need to change where we go based on a more ideal for running 60+ temperature. I don’t like having to run first thing in the morning or be faced with a super hot and less fun run.

Mental

Learning

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

Language

Similar to my rant about straws, it turns out the word for “pen” in Spanish completely depends on what country you’re in. I’m about to give up over here 🙂 .

Astronomy

Stargazing was awesome this month despite being in the city. I got to see a Supermoon over Seattle that was 7% bigger and 16% brighter than a normal Full Moon. It was awesome to see 🙂 . And I was also happy that our Airbnb had blackout curtains – that moon was indeed bright.

Birds

Birding continued to be awesome this month and I learned some really cool things, such as that hummingbirds SNORE and it is the CUTEST thing in the world:

Also, my aunt sent me this super cool story about using a hawk to (non-violently) ward off pigeons in a train station. Overall, here are the birds I saw this month:

Lesser Goldfinch, Glaucous winged gull (pictured below), Caspian tern, Tree swallow, Purple finch, Dark-eyed junco, Black phoebe, Song sparrow, Chipping sparrow, House finch, Black-capped chickadee, Hammond’s flycatcher, Bewick’s wren, American robin, Rufous hummingbird, House sparrow, Stellar’s jay, Black-throated gray warbler, Bushtit, Northern flicker, California scrub-jay

Look at those cute pink feet! (Source)

Flora

I saw some beautiful flowers this month and sadly I didn’t take the time to identify all of them. Seattle is so full of flowers that I never would have made it anywhere on time 🙂 . Here are some of my favorites that I did identify:

Red hot poker, Summer lilac, Przewalski’s golden ray

The Red hot poker lives up to its name! (Source)

I also sadly did not see, but learned about the Corpse Flower, from my favorite ScienceTuber. It only flowers every 2-7 years for 48 hours, smells like a corpse and its official name means “giant misshapen penis.” Fascinating 🙂 .

Fauna

One of the highlights of my month was seeing a River Otter while we were on a Seattle Ferry. I also saw some “Little Brown Bats” – and yes that is their official name 🙂 .

Creativity

Creativity has been awesome this month! There have been so many things that I’ve been excited to share their awesomeness with the world, such as:

Emotional

My emotions this month were pretty good. Eating good food, learning new things and seeing the people I love paired with the summer sunshine does great things for me.

Money

Money continues to (shockingly) be a non-issue. The market decided to shoot up after a down June and gyrations continue to make my portfolio a surprise each month 🙂 .

Conclusion

And that’s what I got up to in July! It was a complete whirlwind of a month and I’m excited to slow down a bit, double down on my Spanish learning and relax a little on the coast.

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)
  5. The Month of Portland, Maine: Early Retirement Month 8 (May 2021)
  6. The Month Of New Hampshire: Early Retirement Month 9 (June 2021)
  7. The Month Of The Northeast: Early Retirement Month 10 (July 2021)
  8. The Month Of New York State: Early Retirement Month 11 (August 2021)
  9. The Month Of City Hopping: Early Retirement Month 12 (September 2021)
  10. The Month Of The Southwest USA: October 2021 Recap
  11. The Month Of Santa Fe: November 2021 Recap
  12. The Month Of Family: December 2021 Recap
  13. The Month Of Freezing My Balls Off: January 2022 Recap
  14. The Month Of Thailand: February 2022 Recap
  15. The Month Of Spring(?): March 2022 Recap
  16. The Month Of México: April 2022 Recap
  17. The Month of Mérida: May 2022 Recap
  18. The Month of Seattle: June 2022 Recap

How was your month?

4 thoughts on “The Month of Washington State: July 2022 Recap”

    1. Haha RIGHT?!? I was corrected in class for using a different word for pen than where I was in México – I feel like no matter what I’m going to be wrong. lol. Thank you for commenting 🙂 !

      Reply

  2. I’m a bit behind on your retirement updates, so catching up in reverse.

    Your Spanish progress is amazing! I’ve been wanting to practice more but can’t quite clear the brain space for it. If you could pick the one thing that’s been most effective in your learning, if you were limited by time, which of your learning methods do you feel is most effective for you?

    Reply

    1. Catching up in reverse sounds fun 🙂 . And thank you! Sadly I can’t think of anything that’s the most bang for your buck based on time outside of an intensive, small, no English class, but I know that’s not really feasible either if you’re short on time.

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *