The Month Of Acadia: October 2022 Recap

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

I feel like every monthly recap begins with me not understanding how time is passing so quickly…and I will not be breaking that streak today 🙂 . How is 2022 80% over?!? My brain cannot comprehend it. Well, another month is done, I experienced fall, and enjoyed some season-appropriate adventures. Let’s see what I got up to!

I Went To Acadia National Park!

It seems that I’ve started an accidental tradition of visiting National Parks around my birthday with my Mom and Partner. Last year we went to Bryce National Park and the Grand Canyon, this year we visited the only National Park in the Northeast!

It’s also the first place in the US to experience the sunrise each day 🙂 . Hilariously the park wasn’t even close to where we were staying – it was about 3 hours away, but that was par for the course given our road trip adventure a year ago, so we went for it and I’m so glad we did!

I was also in awe of Portland, Maine after we lived there for a month last year, and wanted to explore more of this state so in addition to spending more time there, we went to see what their National Park was about and it was lovely. Acadia National Park is actually on an island, which I didn’t know about, and has many things that are easy to see during a day trip. Our visit also coincided with the leaves changing, which was a lovely treat.

I Lived In New Jersey

After our many Maine adventures, we flew to New Jersey. I can’t remember the last time I was there – probably when I lived in NYC 7 years ago 🙂 . Anyway, we went to say hi to family who lives in the area, and also were able to sample some delicious things nearby and rent a fancy Airbnb.

I Visited NYC

After that stint in Jersey, it was time to head to NYC and see some of my college friends. I was shocked and surprised to see that NJ Transit was extremely affordable and lovely (I guess I need to reign in my pessimism 😉 ).

So I popped into NYC for a hot second, ate some delicious things, said “Hi!” to my people and headed out to my next adventure 😉 .

We Started Booking Australia/New Zealand Oct 2023 Travel

I know I’ve been talking about this trip for 3 years, but it’s FINALLY happening!!! My Mom and I were originally going to travel all over Australia and New Zealand to celebrate my retirement in 2020 and obviously that didn’t happen, but here we are booking it all again 🙂

I try not to get too excited before a trip these days in case something goes wrong, but I’m already pretty pumped about this one. I’m finally going to get to see the Great Barrier Reef and all the gorgeousness Down Under has to offer 🙂 .

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 we text every hour it seems 🙂 )
  • I have weekly calls with my friend in Argentina as well as my weekly call with my Mom where we speak Spanish and often watch shows in Spanish as well
  • I do daily Duolingo Stories
  • My Phone is in Spanish

In addition to all that, my Mom and I were together for a week this month so we did more virtual Spanish lessons with our teacher in México! It’s wild how much we’ve improved – I went from having no idea what the teacher was saying to knowing everything she’s talking about.

I was curious if I had actually improved that much and discovered I had! When we first booked this Spanish school in México, they required that we fill out an exam and…I could barely fill out my name let alone ask a question. However, I re-visted the exam this month and I UNDERSTOOD ALL OF IT. WTFFFFF?!?!?! I had no idea I had come that far, but if I filled out that exam these days, it would be a masterpiece. I guess my self-created lesson plan is working even outside of lessons!

As I mentioned, I did a Duolingo Story every day, but I also tested out of another full section – 28 lessons. At this point, I only have 1 more checkpoint to COMPLETE Duolingo Spanish and I’m freaking out about it 🙂 !!!

Overall, I found using the Stories with all their context much more helpful for learning than running their drills. I’ve also downloaded Duolingo Podcasts, but haven’t listened to them yet. I prefer my Spanish Finance Podcasts for now 🙂 .

Speaking of, since I finished my last Spanish Podcast, I’ve got into a new one:

I asked around on Twitter for a new podcast and then realized: I can just google that…IN SPANISH! So I did and found this new podcast to follow – and realized I can just access ‘Spanish Google’ whenever necessary. LIFE CHANGED!!

Reading

We recently went to a restaurant I had visited a year ago and the menu is in Spanish. Last year I had no idea what it said and this year I read it and ordered like a pro. It’s little things that like that help me realize I really am making progress 🙂 .

Speaking

While we were in Jersey, I popped into a market and quickly realized that it was a Spanish speaking market (all the labels were in Spanish) so I rolled up, whipped out my Spanish to check out and even responded well to a customer who accidentally bumped me (in Spanish!) I was so proud 🙂 .

Listening

I had a lot of random encounters this month that made me realize my Spanish audio comprehension was improving. Some of which make no sense 🙂 . For example, learning Spanish seems to have re-activated my brain that previously studied French and Italian for years (and currently can’t speak a lick of it 🙂 ).

I understood someone speaking Italian at the airport even though I’ve lost all my skills with that language. I could hear when each word ended and they were close enough to Spanish that I understood. I haven’t understood Italian like that since college when I was studying it daily. Wowza!

I also understood a baker in NYC that was speaking French to me and my friend. She was responding 🙂 – I kept acidentally saying “Sí” instead of “Oui.” So I don’t know if Spanish has unlocked some previous language knowledge or it’s possible that learning to listen to Spanish words has made me more easily recognize similar words from these Romance languages. No idea – if y’all have any idea what’s happening here, feel free to tell me in the comments 🙂 .

Other fun listening moments included understanding as much of the Spanish airport announcements as I did English – that shit is hard to hear 😉 . I also kept overhearing people in the American Airlines Lounge at JFK speaking Spanish. Some were speaking so fast I couldn’t parse the words, but I got the gist and that’s new.

Usually I need to be able to internalize and realize the words before someone is moving on to get it, but not in that case. I also have continued to enjoy listening to Spanish music and even translated one of the songs to the best of my ability for fun 🙂 .

The last listening update was surprising to me. I tried to listen to a movie in Spanish out loud from a TV instead of my headphones for the first time and it was DEFINITELY harder to hear and understand – especially with loud music and action going on at the same time.

So while I was very impressed with my listening comprehension with my headphones, watching a movie with others without subtitles might be much, much harder. However, if I was watching with others, they might be fine putting on the subtitles for me since I’m learning 🙂 . I do that for a few of my friends in English who are native English speakers so why not?

Watching

Outside of that “out loud” revelation, watching movies in Spanish this month went really well! I now understand 90% of what’s being said, which is a HUGE improvement from when I started in the spring.

Before I could recognize when words ended, but at times, someone was speaking so fast that I couldn’t always internalize what’s being said before the speaker moved on. However now, I’m starting to understand all the words people in movies are saying at the time they’re saying them! This includes understanding the meaning of words I’ve never heard from context –  just like how I understand new words in English while listening or reading 🙂 .

Anyway, here’s what I watched this month:

Películas (Movies) En Español

  1. Wanted (Se Busca)
  2. Mr. & Mrs. Smith (Señor & Señora Smith)
  3. The Sea Beast (El Monstruo Del Mar)
  4. I Love You, Man (Te Quiero, Hombre)
  5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter y El Cáliz De Fuego)
  6. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter y El Misterio Del Príncipe)

Series de Televisión (TV Shows) En Español

  1. Snapped (Crímenes de Pasión)

I Played Cities Skylines

…which from this moment on I’m calling “City” Skylines because the title makes no sense to me 🙂 . My partner bought City Skylines on Steam maybe 5 years ago when we lived in Seattle. I love The Sims (obviously 🙂 ) and enjoyed Sim City so I was excited to try it…only to fail…over and over again.

This game is no joke! After a lot of frustration at not being good at something for once, (I don’t play games I suck at 😉 – I’m self aware and too competitive like that) I stopped playing – UNTIL NOW! What changed?

I cheated 🙂 and watched YouTube videos of an actual City Planner playing it and showing how to start your city without failing. Apparently it was a pervasive enough problem that there’s a shitton of tutorials about it. So I did a lot of research, began my city and…still failed 🙂 .

Attempt #1 was a bust, but Attempt #2 was my most successful city yet! I quickly became cautiously optimistic I could actually play this game, and even became a little addicted (I literally played past when I wanted to go to sleep and then dreamed about the game…it had its claws in me).

However since then, I have started several other cities and they’ve all been successful! It seems that having a tight grid traffic system and building it with dirty roads in the beginning is the key – who knew 🙂 ?

Anyway, I’ve had many hours of fun with this game and it’s started to change how I look at cities. When I first arrived in Argentina and was driven into the city, I started daydreaming about how to change how the highway was designed to be more efficient…if someone discovers this game is actually trying to get people into the city planning profession, I wouldn’t be surprised 🙂 .

I Hung Out With Peeps!

I didn’t realize how many people I hung out with in October until I crashed introvert style at the end of the month 🙂 . However looking back, it totally makes sense why I’m tired. This month I went all over Maine, visited family in New Jersey, got an Airbnb in New Jersey and saw other friends, went to NYC, and at the end of the month, flew to the other side of the world: Argentina….where I can only speak Spanish. I am allowed to be tired 😉 .

Anyway, while all of that was happening, I watched some fun movies with these groups of people. Here’s what we watched if you’re interested:

  1. RRR
  2. Top Gun: Maverick
  3. Psych 2: Lassie Come Home
  4. The Gray Man

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

I Read 12 Books

This month I read:

  1. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
  2. Cashing Out by Julien Saunders & Kiersten Saunders
  3. The Undertaking Of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen
  4. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
  5. Between You & Me by Mary Norris
  6. Blood, Sweat and Chrome by Kyle Buchanan
  7. Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey
  8. Finna by Nino Cipri
  9. Axiom’s End by Lindsay Ellis
  10. Truth In The Divine by Lindsay Ellis
  11. Extraordinaries by TJ Klune
  12. Flash Fire by TJ Klune

The wild book run continues. I’ve been reading a wild amount and it’s partially because my on hold eBooks are coming up on my Libby app in clumps, and also because I go on sprees of watching movies to just reading a book a day. I suspect that next month will have a lot less books given that I’m trying to explore a whole new country.

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 Maine: September 2022 Recap
  2. I Recorded What I Did Every Hour For 2 Years Of Retirement: Here’s What Retirees Do All Day!
  3. What Contributed More To My Net Worth: A Six Figure Salary Or Investment Returns?
  4. These Are My Favorite Nomad Travel Tools!

So besides my JL Collins fangirl tendencies not being helped by this amazing interaction:

I had a surprising month outside of the posts above. I randomly did a Q&A at a college in New Jersey. I also did a media interview and will let y’all know when that is live. Randomly, an investment platform reached out about a collaboration around art investment – which I know nothing about 🙂 .

So that was a no, but a reader that has a farm in New Jersey reached out about visiting their farm, which was so kind! I didn’t have time during this visit, but am sure I’ll be back and am excited to meet them and see what they’re about.

I also had a DAF (donor advised fund) company reach out about a partnership, which I wasn’t about, but that interaction did make me look into DAFs which I only knew about vaguely before. They seem like good ways to lower your taxable income if it’s very high while working, and a good way to keep your dollars growing, but in my retirement, I’m more concerned about giving now since that’s (I think) when people need the most help. Also, I’m still going to give everything in my investments to charity when I die, but I also want to do both – help people now and later. Anyway, let me know if you have other opinions on DAFs. I’m curious.

I also was offered early access to a new finance app if I would provide feedback. That was a no, but I was honored to be invited 🙂 . It seems like there’s always a new app that seems to do the same thing and I haven’t yet seen one that’s worth the money people ask them to pay (however, I in no way know about all apps so let me know if some are out there).

Also, this weird thing happened:

Now it’s time to get pumped for NaNoWriMo starting TOMORROW!!! We’ll see if I can continue my retirement streak of writing 50,000 words in the 30 days of November. However, based on this it might not be a problem 😉 :

Physical

Sleep

My sleep this month was pretty good, especially since I moved to at least 4 locations during this time. Getting acclimated to new places immediately and sleeping well seems to continue to happen as I get deeper into my retirement and nomad life, which is awesome.

 

Food

This month was interesting. I was not keto, but I tried to still not just go wild with all the deliciousness 🙂 . I have trouble with moderation if you haven’t gotten a hint of that by now. Anyway, I think I’ve been doing a great job! I got off keto to try some of the delicious food and brews available in these locations, but I haven’t gorged myself on cheez-its for example (which I HAVE in the past). So I’m going to count food as a win this month! It was delicious and I didn’t let it run away from me.

Exercise

Running continues to be awesome. I haven’t been going on super long runs, which I did when Running and my Couch to 5K App were my main focus, but I still get out there, sweat and get new PRs. However, I have noticed that being in giant cities and running around a lot of people and with stoplights has (semi-understandably) slowed my pace increase progress. However, I’ve still been running – even in huge metropolis’ like NYC and Buenos Aires, and I’m proud of that.

In addition, I’ve been walking my ass off 🙂 . This is definitely more of my regular life, but walking at least an hour a day just to get places has always been part of my exercise regime because I love to walk.

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

  • Everywhere I turned in Maine there seemed to be Blueberries. Well apparently that’s because Maine is the largest blueberry producer in the world! Blueberries thrive there because of the naturally acidic soil found in Maine’s mountains, which long ago housed ancient glaciers! Some say that Maine’s Blueberries are also the best when found wild in Maine because they have a more intense flavor. There are also lots of different types of blueberry plants and some fields have nearly 1,500 variations per field.
  • Blueberry Pie is Maine’s official state dessert 🙂

Acadia National Park

Language

  • When writing in Spanish I’ve found the keyboard shortcuts to add accents super helpful. Here are the ones I use most on a Mac:
    • é, ó, í: HOLD option + e and then press letter you want the accent on (e.g. e->é)
    • ñ: HOLD option + n and then press letter you want it over (e.g. n->ñ)
    • ¡!: Option + 1 to create an upside down exclamation point
  • On an Android you can hold a letter and other options for variations of that letter will pop up (like n and ñ)

Astronomy

Stargazing this month was wonderful! When we were on the beach it was super easy to watch the sunrise and see an abundance of stars after the sunset. I saw Jupiter, Neptune, Saturn, Pluto, Uranus while in Maine, and Mars in Jersey.

I also enjoyed watching the sunrise over NYC and while I was there, the Orionids meteor shower occurred and I suspected that I wouldn’t be able to see it because of the light pollution and unfortunately I was right 🙂 . Despite that though, it was a great month for my astronomy hobby.

Flora

Seeing plant life went really well this month, though I wasn’t always able to identify all of it – because there was too much 🙂 ! As I mentioned, there are a thousand different plant species in Acadia National Park because within the park there are multiple kinds of ecosystems, such as coastal, mountain, wetland, and forest.

Within the deciduous and coniferous woods of the park include ash, aspen, spruce, beech, pine, maple, white-cedar and birch trees. Wild strawberry, blueberry shrubs, and mayflower are within the meadows of the park. Within the bogs, freshwater marshes and ponds are cranberry, huckleberry, snowberry, cat-tail, water-lily, and winterberries. Juniper, rose and raspberry shrubs are also commonly found on the mountain tops and in dry, rocky places.

So much! Outside of that ridiculousness, I identified a scarlet oak, red oaks (which have pointy leaves compared to a white oak’s more rounded leaves) and a black cherry tree. Such nature 🙂 .

Birds

Birdwatching was also great this month. We visited fam for a few days in NJ. They had a lot of feeders so I’d start each morning birdwatching and would see a ridiculous number of them coming to visit for an early morning snack. I guess they know which feeders in the neighborhood have the good stuff 😉 .

Maine

Ring-necked Pheasant, Blue Jay, Black-capped Chickadee, Northern Cardinal, Semipalmated Sandpiper, Carolina Chickadee, Red-breasted Nuthatch

New Jersey

Carolina Wren, Great Crested Flycatcher, Northern Mockingbird, Northern Flicker, House Sparrow, White-throated Sparrow, Downy Woodpecker, Red-eyed Vireo, American Robin, Bald Eagle, Eastern Phoebe, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Palm Warbler, White-breasted Nuthatch, Golden-crowned Kinglet, American Crow, Eastern Bluebird, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, American Kestrel, Purple Finch, House Finch

NYC

Northern Cardinal, Song Sparrow, Northern Mockingbird, Tufted Titmouse, Blue Jay, House Sparrow

Also if you’d like a laugh – here was my favorite bird related tweet that I saw this month:

Random

Here are some random things I learned this month:

  • The below happened and inspired me to look into why we get white hairs. Apparently it happens when a strand of hair no longer has melanin and that never changes. So even if you pluck a white hair, it will just grow back white. It also is a different texture because it’s no longer producing the same level of moisture and there are different ways to care for it. Ah aging 🙂 .

  • A friend showed me that the 1999 classic from my youth She’s All That was written by  M. Night Shyamalan, which explains some things. I guess that’s the real twist – take your glasses off, put your hair down and suddenly you’re attractive 🙂
  • Apparently the term “English” refers only to people and things that are from England specifically. So to be English is not to be Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish. However, “British” refers to anything from Great Britain so anyone who lives in Scotland, Wales or England are considered British, which all makes sense, but I’ve never thought about it. So basically I’m with Ted Lasso when he asks “How many countries are in this country?!?!” Answer: 4.

Creativity

My creativity hit a bit of a wall this month and by the end of it I was pretty wiped. I really think I need to schedule more down time in my life 🙂 . This creative slump was not welcome because I was planning to attempt NaNoWriMo again this year and (hopefully) win for the 3rd year in a row, but started re-evaluating that given how wiped I was.

However, after meeting with my new monthly writing group, I realized that I can still totally do NaNoWriMo because it’s not about winning – it’s about writing more in a supportive environment where others are trying to do the same. So I’m still going to attempt the 50,000 words in November goal, but if I don’t make it – that’s ok 🙂 .

Emotional

In October, I learned to appreciate fall – the little nip in the air, the changing trees that I didn’t really see growing up in Georgia. It was gorgeous! There was a little less sun than summer, but not a huge amount, and there was more time for hot tea (I love tea) and warm blankets (another love of mine).

However, by the end of the month I was feeling a little down. However, I think that was tiredness – I didn’t schedule a lot of downtime and then realized I haven’t had real downtime since APRIL??? Oops 🙂 . I guess I jumped a little too much into my seeing people. So lesson for my planning next year: more downtime!

Money

There’s been rumblings that we were going to officially stay in bear market territory recently and then the market was like “hold my beer” and cranked it up over 8% this month. We’re once again back out of bear market territory and the market continues to be a mystery 🙂 .

Meanwhile I’m chilling in Argentina, which is quite cheap compared to living in the US. It’s spring here and between the gorgeous weather, awesome birds and low cost of living, I’m loving it 🙂 .

Conclusion

And that’s what I got up to in October! Now I’m hanging in Argentina. I hope you had a lovely Halloween 🙂 . I binged all the Brooklyn 99 Halloween Heist episodes as is my tradition. What did you get up to?

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: 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
  9. The Month Of Maine: September 2022 Recap

How was your month?

14 thoughts on “The Month Of Acadia: October 2022 Recap”

  1. I hear you on how it’s suddenly 2 months until Christmas. What?! Where did this year go?!?!

    Language learning: I learned a second language as a child, and it keeps interfering with the French I’m trying to learn now. So yeah, your experience gels with mine; I picture my brain “storing” all languages in one place, so when I try to access French, the other languages keep getting in the way because they’re in the same box. Très annoying.

    Your pictures look stunning. The USA is home to some seriously gorgeous country. Looking forward to the write-up about Argentina.

    And I’m super excited to see where you go in Australia and New Zealand! I hope you have a wonderful time! If you’re up for trying interesting foods, you can get emu, crocodile, and kangaroos burgers/steaks in Australia. You can also check out bush tucker courses (if you’re really adventurous and in the bush, cities may not have these). I can heartily recommend the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne, it has one of the most beautiful reading rooms I’ve ever seen, and it’s free to visit. Ballarat is also interesting (site of Australia’s gold rush in the 1800s) and is a few hours away from Melbourne. New Zealand is fantastic, but I haven’t been in years – I vividly remember hokey pokey ice cream, Rotorua, and Whittakers chocolate, and some of the most beautiful beaches ever.

    Re: British vs English – yes, very true. Though I would add an extra nuance. People from Ireland, Wales, and Scotland tend to be proud of that, and would call themselves respectively Irish, Welsh, and Scottish, not British (and of course NEVER English). When speaking with people from other countries who don’t know or understand the distinction, all bets are off though!

    Good luck with Nanowrimo! You got this!

    Reply

    1. Yesss I’m not the only one haha! And that’s an awesome way to think about how a brain stores languages – I love it 🙂 . The US is indeed more gorgeous than I usually give it credit for – the pandemic definitely gave me a new appreciation since I could only explore within our borders.

      The Argentina write-ups are incoming don’t you worry 🙂 . And thank you for the food suggestions – I’ve had kangaroo and crocodile before, but not emu. I’m not sure I’ll be in the bush (I’m traveling with my fancy Mom 🙂 ), but I’ll keep that in mind for next visit. Adding that library to my list if we’re in Melbourne!

      And I’ve never heard of hokey pokey ice cream so I need to look that up ASAP lol. Verrry interesting about the Irish, Welsh, Scottish vs British thing – great to know 🙂 . And thank you!!

      Reply

  2. I love the Brooklyn 99 Halloween episodes too! I didn’t watch them this year, but that sounds like a fun Halloween tradition.

    I was wondering if you’d be able to share how you travel hacked such an amazing flight? I never seem to have enough points for more than economy seats on shorter international flights. I would love to be able to book a suite like that on a long flight though!

    Reply

    1. Yeah it’s a lovely semi-low key tradition 🙂 . As for travel hacking, I slowly saving up hundreds of thousands of points by getting a bunch of credit cards over several years back when I was working. Now I have all these points and they’re expiring soon because of the pandemic so I gotta spend them all 🙂 .

      Reply

  4. I love your monthly post! It gives me ideas of places to visit. Happy to report that I just finished the first week of Just Run program. I was 2 days late because we also decided to potty train our 2.5 years old… so yeah. But I’m actually looking forward to the run now. It’s at least 30 minutes of my me time and I even ran while its drizzling. Halloween was great for our little family. The boys were Peter Parker and Miles Morales (the spiderman from spiderverse — because we have to explain it to some of our neighbors ). My oldest was really into it and didn’t want to stop going door to door. We also didn’t run out of candy this year and **ONLY** used 2 Costco size bag of chocolates. We were able to return one bag since we didn’t open it.

    Reply

    1. I’m so glad you enjoy them 🙂 . And congratulations again on Just Run – that’s amazing! And I wouldn’t even call it late – there were several times when I ran a day or two after Just Run recommended because you know…life 🙂 , but the app adjusted the date and it wasn’t a big deal. I think of them as extra rest days for your muscles 😉 . That’s AMAZING you’re looking forward to the runs!!

      That sounds like a lovely Halloween! And of course I know who Miles Morales is 😉 . Spiderverse is where it’s at – the art in that movie blew me away.

      Reply

  5. Italian here, and I can confirm that with one Romance language decently acquired, you get a very high chance of understanding the others. Italians understand about 60% of Spanish without ever studying it, it’s the closest language for grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary etc. French is a bit harder because of differences in prounuciation. I studied Spanish and I recently realized I can understand a lot of Portuguese too, especially Brasilian Portuguese which is much closer in pronunciation to Spanish compared to Portugal Portuguese. No idea why but it’s something I learned recently and surprised me!

    Reply

    1. Super interesting!! Thank you for confirming my random theory 🙂 . That’s super cool about Portuguese and Brasil vs Portual. I keep getting confused clicking on a YouTube video only to discover it’s because they’re speaking Portuguese. It’s close enough that my brain is like “we know this” and I’m like “we do NOT” lol.

      Reply

  6. Hola,

    ver como estudias español me da ánimos para hacer lo mismo con el inglés, mi gran asignatura pendiente¡!

    Saludos,

    Susana

    Reply

Leave a Reply

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