The Month Of Maine: September 2022 Recap

by A Purple Life, posted in Blogging, Early Retirement, Early Retirement Updates, Film, Finance, Fitness, Food, Hobbies, Keto, Net Worth Update, Relationships, Spending, Travel
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And just like that, it was fall 🙂 . I always thought of myself as a summer girl, but given that I can soak up all of the lessening hours of sunlight instead of dreamily looking at them outside my office window, I’m coming around to this season. It’s definitely more pleasant to run in, I’m enjoying the warmth of tea in my belly and a fluffy blanket on my lap when I (inevitably) read a book in one sitting. Consider me a changed woman 🙂 . So, let’s see what I got up to during this first month of fall!

I Moved To Connecticut & Maine

After being in New Hampshire for a month, my Mom and I road tripped down to Connecticut via Massachusetts. We dropped my partner in MA and then continued on to Connecticut. In CT, my biggest challenge of life yet awaited me: being an assistant nanny to a 2 year old while his parents left him for the first time in his life.

It was A WEEK. Despite being only an assistant nanny, I was still shocked with how tired I was. Once again, I am in awe of people who are parents. I don’t see how you do this every day while also working and feeding themselves? Seems impossible. Anyway, after that week was done, it was time to get back to my nomad travels!

So I took a train to Maine after a slight hiccup (seen above). It was a beautiful ride and I was once again so happy I decided to further explore the train system we have the US. It definitely doesn’t hold a candle to Europe, but it’s better than nothing 🙂 .

Our first objective in Maine was to visit my partner’s sister and enjoy time with her before we moved farther north and my Mom joined us once again. It was an absolutely lovely time. I can’t properly express how much I prefer combining my life with someone else’s and just chilling together without the pressure that you have to have ALL THE FUN in one weekend or even a week, which inevitably leaves me anxious and exhausted. Maybe I should coin a term for it like “Slow Travel” – “Slow Visits?” I’m still workshopping it 😉 .

I Got My Updated COVID Booster

Yep – that’s basically it:

An updated COVID booster was released that not only combats the OG virus, but also some variants. With the colder season upon us, I decided I wanted to get that ASAP. It had also been almost a year since my original booster so I was pumped for it. Luckily the experience this time around was super simple. I went to Vaccines.Gov and they showed me all the places in my area that had the updated boosters. I signed up and got it done the next day – Boom!

I finally feel like I’m catching up to the rest of the world (my friend in Argentina got her 4th shot months ago and I was jealous 😉 ). Anyway, now I’m on her level and ready to (hopefully) stay healthy and finish out my travel plans to see her for the first time in a decade, in less than a month!!!

I Learned Spanish

If you’ve been following these monthly recaps this year, I suspect you already know the drill of what I do every month to improve my Spanish, but here is what I did this month:

  • I still only text my Mom in Spanish and have since we were in México in the spring. One thing that’s different though is that I have stopped checking my words via Google Translate before sending my texts. Progress!
  • I’ve continued my weekly calls with my friend in Argentina as well as my weekly call with my Mom where we speak Spanish and have started watching a show in Spanish together as well
  • I still do Duolingo Stories every day and have been learning a lot of vocabulary. I also passed a fun milestone:

In addition to those regular things, I tested out of another 29 lessons on Duolingo and now only have THREE checkpoints left until I’ve completed Duolingo’s Spanish program. That’s exactly one per month for the rest of the year – my goal of becoming fluent by the end of the year might just be doable!!!

I also have kept my phone in Spanish, which has been working really well! It’s no longer super stressful. I’m now used to it and know most of the new words on my phone, so using it almost always doesn’t require additional thought or translating. Perfect!

Except there was (of course) one hiccup this week 🙂 . It involved the below fun situation. As I mentioned last week, I try to keep my Google Maps in English since other people are often using it to tell me where to drive. Then this happened:

Well, after I dropped her off, I had to find parking and it was raining a ridiculous amount and I had my phone yelling directions at me from my lap and it decided to switch to Spanish directions in that moment. However, I survived and understood the directions 🙂 . I guess I unlocked a new level of “able to use Spanish Google Maps” this month.

Speaking

I had a few interesting revelations while speaking Spanish this month. The first was that I kept saying words thinking I was making them up, looking them up and realizing they are correct Spanish words. I suspect my brain is starting to see patterns in words and just try out what I think would be correct – similar to how a child learning their first language would 🙂 .

The other thing that changed this month was how it felt to string together sentences. It used to be like grasping at air – I didn’t know where to go next and felt like I was struggling to grasp anything. This month saying sentences felt more like putting puzzle pieces together – there are many pieces to choose from and I just have to grasp the right one. Basically, it feels a lot better speaking this month than it has in the past 🙂 . More progress!

Listening

We went to a burrito place and they were playing music in Spanish and I understood as much of it as I would an English song 🙂 . We also re-watched Season 1-3 of What We Do In The Shadows (Lo Que Hacemos En Las Sombras 😉 ) and then watched Season 4 for the first time and there was a fair bit of Spanish in there and I understood it all!! People in the room even asked me to translate and I could. Wild 🙂 .

Watching

I’m still trying to watch or listen to about an hour of Spanish shows, movies or podcasts every weekday. So here’s what I watched and listened to this month:

Películas (Movies) En Español

  1. Sherlock Holmes
  2. Mean Girls (Chicas Malas)
  3. Constantine
  4. He’s Just Not That Into You (A Él No Le Gustas Tanto)
  5. Resident Evil (El Huésped Maldito aka The Evil Guest)
  6. Clash Of The Titans [1981] (Furia De Titanes aka Wrath Of Titans)

Series de Televisión (TV Shows) En Español

  1. Snapped (Crímenes de Pasión)
  2. Top Chef VIP Telemundo

Podcasts En Español

  1. De Peso A Peso

Sadly, I finished that podcast so if y’all have any recommendations for other finance podcasts in Spanish let me know 🙂 .

I Requested A SSN Edit

Basically this:

However, someone in the comments said I shouldn’t do it…unfortunately I saw that after I reported it to the SSN. Oops. I guess I’m screwed. Luckily have like 30 years to figure it out 🙂 .

I Bought Bombas Running Socks

My obsession with Bombas continues: Bombas Review: The Best Socks In Existence 🙂 . After trying all these socks on, I wrote a post at y’alls request about how they were. I was expected to come out with a clear favorite, but instead I was impressed with all of them for different reasons. Damn you Bombas for being too good! Anyway, that post is here if you’re interested: Review: Bombas Running Socks.

I Hung Out With Friends

This month was filled with time with awesome people, which made me happy 🙂 . I joined a writing group that includes my sister-un-law and had a great first meeting. I read the other members’ ongoing fiction book and it was SENSATIONAL. I told her (completely sincerely) that it was better than most of the books I’ve read this year and I’ve currently read 73 of them so I might know what I’m talking about 🙂 .

I basically told her I was in the group to berate her to write more just so I could read it – whatever works right 😉 . I also declare that everyone should join me in attempting NaNoWriMo next month. It will be nice to have some buddies cause that shit is HARD. I may have succeeeded in that 50K words in 30 days challenge the last 2 years, but that’s no guarantee I will this time. I’ll also be balancing that challenge with exploring all of Argentina while I live there so – double challenge!

I also transcribed a 25 minute audio recording for one of the members of that writing club, which is the outline of another book. I used the awesome (and free) Otter.ai for the base and was very impressed with the improvements to their program (I haven’t used it for a year or two).

In addition to seeing friends and family and having all the calls I mentioned above, I also chatted with an ex-colleague every other week, had a bad movie night with one of my besties every other week, and my usual weekly movie night. Busy busy! Here are the things we watched together:

Movies

  1. What We Do In The Shadows
  2. Fire Island
  3. Hustlers
  4. The Lost City
  5. Hercules (2014)
  6. The Matrix

Shows

  1. Arcane (Season 1)
  2. What We Do In The Shadows (Seasons 1-4)
  3. First Kill (Season 1)

If you’re curious about my ratings of movies, I have a Letterboxd account here.

I Read 14 Books

This month I read:

  1. Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells 
  2. Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding by Daniel Lieberman
  3. The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun
  4. Calling Bullshit by Carl T. Bergstrom
  5. Below Zero by Ali Hazelwood
  6. Stuck With You by Ali Hazelwood
  7. Under One Roof by Ali Hazelwood
  8. Love On The Brain by Ali Hazelwood
  9. Skyward by Brandon Sanderson
  10. Barbarian Rescue by Ruby Dixon
  11. Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall
  12. Husband Material by Alexis Hall
  13. Glitterland by Alexis Hall
  14. Aftermath by Alexis Hall

To be fair, 5 of the above are novellas 🙂 . But I read a lot this month. A lot of my eBooks were finally ready from the library and then a few of the books were so good that I wanted to immediately read more from that author and suddenly: Here we are 🙂 . 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. 2 Years Of Early Retirement: Finances, What’s Changed And What’s Next?
  2. The Month Of New Hampshire: August 2022 Recap
  3. How I Stay Organized While Enjoying Life
  4. Review: Bombas Running Socks

In addition to those posts, I was a guest for 2 hours in a virtual NYC FIRE meet up group with about 40 people. A group member reached out asking me to join and answer questions from the group and it was a lot of fun! If anyone else would like me to join their established virtual FIRE meet up or answer group questions like that, let me know. Since I keep sucking at fitting in person meet ups into my schedule, maybe this will be a better option 🙂 .

I also recorded a podcast with Journey to Launch. It was my second time talking to Jamila on there. Here’s the new episode:

And here’s one from 2019:

One humorous thing that happened was that I accidentally convinced Jamila that she wants to retire early. Oops – my bad 🙂 !

After that, my fav TexMex restaurant quoted me and used my pics with credit on their Insta page. I fangirled out!

Lastly, I was asked to interview someone who wrote a book about building relationships at work…no thank you 🙂 . Don’t build relationships, GTFO of there…or maybe I’m just projecting 😉 .

Physical

Sleep

My sleep was sadly not perfect the first half of the month – I know, woe is me 🙂 . I think I was still recovering from my assistant babysitting duties because I was TIRED. I would sleep a full 8 hours, wake up tired and take a nap in the afternoon. Luckily, I had the time to listen to my body and do all that because by mid-month, I was back to feeling like my well-rested self!

Food

Eating this month went awesome. Until the last weekend of the month I was:

  • Eating keto
  • Calorie counting
  • Hitting my protein goals to not lose muscle
  • Intermittent fasting 16:8

And then it was time to unleash the beast 🙂 and enjoy some local carby delicacies before heading to our next destination. It was a good balance.

Exercise

Working out is still working 🙂 though I have noticed that I’m going on less runs lately. I suspect this has to do with being more busy and more tired. I only run when I actively want to so that makes sense to me, but I’m looking forward to having more down time so I can run more. However, I ran almost every day last month so maybe it’s time to just let that even out and call it balanced 🙂 .

Mental

Learning

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

Maine

  • Apparently every US state has “state foods” and many have “state berries”. Maine’s state berry is the Wild Blueberry because Maine grows more wild blueberries than any other place on earth!
  • Maine has a naturally made desert…say WHAAAT?! So random, but it’s true. I’m going to try and visit it next month.
    This is one of the Maine state facts that’s hard to believe but is true. The state’s desert is a privately owned tourist attraction that was created by nature and has activities for the entire family.
  • Maine is known for Lobster for good reason – the state fishes 40 million pounds annually, which is almost 90% of the nation’s lobster supply
  • Maine has 3,478 miles of Coastline, which (including inlets and islands) is the fourth most coastline in the US. Only Florida and Louisiana have more miles of coastline in the continental United States, but Alaska has the most coastline of any state with 33,904 miles. However, not including the inlets and islands, Maine has 228 miles of general coastline
  • Maine has more than 4,000 Islands. Of those islands, only 15 have people living on them year-round. Sounds like it’s time to find a Maine island of my own…
  • Maine’s coastline has so many deep harbors that it could provide anchorage for all the naval fleets in the world!
  • Maine also has one of the largest river systems in the country with over 32,000 miles of rivers and streams.

Birds

My time in Connecticut, NYC and Maine included birds that I’ve all seen before. So either I wasn’t looking hard enough for rarer types or my knowledge of birds (and what I think of as “common”) is getting too extensive 🙂 . No surprises here:

Wild Turkey, Ring-billed Gull, Great Egret, Black Capped Chickadee (the state bird of Maine!), American Robin, House Sparrow

One cool thing though was that my aunt sent me this The Birdsong Project that’s a collection of 242 new original songs and poems about birds from various artists – cool!

Fauna

I saw some lovely Eastern Gray Squirrels jumping about with their fluffy tails and a cute Eastern Chipmunk running all over the place. I also learned something terrifying: Chipmunks are omnivores and in addition to eating fruit and vegetables, they are also known to eat creatures like insects, baby birds, frogs and bird eggs…I’ll never look at these supposedly cute little animals the same way again.

Random

Here are some random things I learned this month:

  • In France, the guillotine was used for executions as recently as 1977…WTF?
  • In Ancient Egypt, some dead women were left in their house for several days before they were sent to embalmers to try and avoid necrophilia….W…T…F?!?!?

Creativity

My creativity is flowing once again! I’m getting ahead on posts over here and have felt the urge to share more on social media (a good indication that I’m in a creative mood 🙂 ). I’ve also been having a good time reviewing books on my Insta again and might even get around to a movie review or two if the mood strikes 😉 .

Emotional

My emotions have been good overall this month. I realized I’m now WAY more chill than I was while working because of the train debacle I mentioned above. I accepted what was happening, came up with a new plan and went on with my life. Whereas if I had still been working I would have been an anxious mess about it. Great progress I think 🙂 .

One new thing this month was that I started to experience the season of fall for possibly the first time in retirement. It’s definitely a different vibe than the summer when the sun rises at 6am without a cloud in the sky, which makes me want to jump out of bed and go for a run and do all sorts of things at a wild speed.

This is compared to a slower fall morning where the sun rises around 8am and it’s drizzly and cloudy, which makes me feel like curling up with a blanket, tea and a book instead of running all around town. However, I think it might be good to slow down in this way.

There’s less pressure than what I feel on a sunny day because I want to take full advantage of lovely weather and not feel guilty if I want to spend the whole day reading on the couch. Anyway, the weather experiment continues! I’m curious if prolonged exposure to cloudy weather will have a negative effect on my emotions or if it will just help me slow down a little.

Money

As I mentioned above, I just posted a whole 2 year retirement review. Here’s a summary of the numbers:

I was under budget for Year 2 of retirement and am tracking below budget for the rest of the year currently. Baring anything expensive and unforeseen, I may end the year 12-10% under budget and have been playing around with ideas of what to do at that point, such as donating the rest of my 2022 budget to charity (in addition to my Giving budget, which is usually already 10% of my regular budget). We shall see.

Currently the market downturn isn’t bothering me (see above), but I’m always open to that changing 🙂 . Several years of having no emotional reaction to the stock market has to stop at some point right 😉 ?

But seriously, I’m feeling good about this year so far financially and am excited to spend some money while enjoying my upcoming time in Argentina. Gotta use those dividends for something 🙂 .

Conclusion

And that’s what I got up to in September! Fall is officially upon me in the US and I’m ready to soak in the changing leaves and pumpkin spice before trading my scarf for a bikini and soaking in some sun in the Argentinian summer 🙂 . Until next time!

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

Weekly (2020)

  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 (2021)

  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

Monthly (2022)

  1. The Month Of Freezing My Balls Off: January 2022 Recap
  2. The Month Of Thailand: February 2022 Recap
  3. The Month Of Spring(?): March 2022 Recap
  4. The Month Of México: April 2022 Recap
  5. The Month of Mérida: May 2022 Recap
  6. The Month of Seattle: June 2022 Recap
  7. The Month of Washington State: July 2022 Recap
  8. The Month Of New Hampshire: August 2022 Recap

How was your month?

24 thoughts on “The Month Of Maine: September 2022 Recap”

  1. Fun fact about France and the guillotine :
    Even if the death penalty was abolished in 1981, there is still a law in place saying ” everyone sentenced to death will have his head cut off”.
    Although not applicable hahaha.

    Reply

  2. If you enjoy What We Do in the Shadows, you should check out Los Espookys on HBO – similar vibe, all in Español.

    Reply

  3. Not gonna lie, I so look forward to Tuesdays because I get to read your latest post! 🙂

    Sounds like a fun month. I’ve been a Fall Fan for a while, though mainly by necessity: I grew up in Florida and fall is when the weather finally stops being disgusting and gets actually semi-nice, LOL. 😂

    Sounds like a great month! I love all the reading you’re doing—I miss having time to read more. Which is one of the (many) reasons I’m gunning for early retirement. It’s also fascinating that getting more chill is a (welcome) side effect of early retirement. I am literally the opposite of chill and I want to change that. Maybe once I retire, the chillness will come naturally! 🙂

    Reply

    1. That makes me SO happy to hear 🙂 !!! And yeah it was a good month – reading is one my great joys 🙂 . And yeah I think a slower pace to life helps the chill-ness come pretty naturally. I’ve got nowhere to be 😉 .

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    1. I would HIGHLY recommend it. I had never lived in Maine until last year and it blew my socks off so we’re back!

      Reply

  5. Jr. and I are getting the updated Covid shot this Friday. I’m amazed I haven’t caught it yet. Our son got it from school earlier this year and we dodged the bullet somehow.
    Oh, nice job correcting SSN. good karma.
    Have fun in Argentina!

    Reply

    1. Awesome! And yeah I’m shocked I haven’t either. I’m glad y’all bodged the bullet and hope your son is feeling all good now. Thank you!

      Reply

  6. I’ve always wanted to learn another language but never really had anyone to practice with. I think it’s really cool that you and your mom are doing it together!
    Also, I have the same goal to read 52 books in 2022! I can relate to what you said. It’s amazing how many books stack up in the “read” pile when you get on a roll reading for fun. I am not as much of an over achiever at you 😉 but still on track to achieve my goal. Definitely going to check out your suggestions – thank you!

    Reply

    1. Yeah she’s my travel and Spanish learning buddy 🙂 . It’s definitely easier with someone else. That’s an awesome goal! You’ve got this 🙂 .

      Reply

  7. Sounds like a fun month! I don’t envy you the babysitting gig, but I’m sure the toddler learned some good resilience due to the short break from their parents, and for sure the parents appreciated it!

    The USA has some incredible landscapes, and trains are one of the best ways to travel and appreciate the scenery. You got the right idea of travelling slow and going via train.

    I’ll join you for Nanowrimo this month! It’s been a few years since I last did it, but this year looks good in terms of free time and (lack of) other projects.

    Nice work with the Spanish. Sounds like it’s clicking into place. Well done for keeping up the practice.

    The market downturn is annoying me so much. I’m still making contributions to my portfolio and it’s suuuuuuper fun watching them disappear into the ether. I started this year with a higher portfolio value than I have now, but I’ve contributed a five-digit amount into it. I know it’s temporary and will benefit me in the long run but monkey brain want shiny thing now gdi. The keep truckin’ phase is long and tedious. I remain reluctantly grateful for my somewhat toxic job that pays me enough to contribute that kind of money and keep me employed and sheltered for the foreseeable future. Here’s to riding out the recession with health and sanity intact!

    Reply

    1. It was indeed 🙂 . And YAY so happy you’ll join NaNoWriMo! Let’s do this!!!

      In case it helps, something I liked to do when I was still contributing to investments when the market went down was calculate how much I’d saved from buying then (vs earlier) and seeing it as an awesome sale instead of my portfolio just decreasing. Anyway, deep breaths 🙂 . I hope you can tame that money brain, but if not another option is to not look – my Mom doesn’t and is 7 years happily retired. Good luck!

      Reply

      1. Great advice! I’ll keep reminding myself it’s all on sale 😉

        I see in a comment below that your nanowrimo username is the same as here. I’ll request to be buddies with you – my username has lizardsuit in the title 🙂

        Reply

  9. Great post, I love Maine too, I use to live in Limestone on a military base there. It’s Waaaay up north, a stones throw from Canada, but very beautiful. Portland Maine is one of my favorite cities. Thanks for sharing, I got to reminisce about old times!

    Reply

  10. Is Keanu sexier in Constantine when he speaks Spanish? 😉
    FYI, they are making Constantine 2. So d*mn excited!

    Reply

    1. I mean he’s already at peak sexy so I don’t know if it can go any higher, but I did enjoy hearing his Spanish dub actor’s voice yes 🙂 . And WHAT?!?! That’s amazing!!!

      Reply

  11. Toddlers are exhausting! Those parents were so lucky to you and Mama were available to sub in for you.

    Way to accidentally convert Jamila! Your monthly updates keep me on my toes, look at all (some) of the fun we COULD be having instead 🙂

    We adults got our boosters this weekend and I’m hoping that the elder kiddo can get theirs soon. We’re still getting a steady stream of COVID case notifications even without widespread testing so every bit of protection we can get, the better.

    Reply

    1. Toddlers are indeed exhausting 🙂 . And I’m so glad they keep you on your toes haha. Congrats on your boosters!

      Reply

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