The Month Of New Hampshire: February 2023 Recap

I did it y’all!!! I survived my first ‘real’ winter in almost a decade and unlike any previous time, I…enjoyed it?!?! It’s obviously been a wild month with a lot of revelations so let’s see what I got up to and how I came to these new conclusions.

I Lived In New Hampshire

This month we did a renting/housesitting combo at my aunt’s place in New Hampshire. We paid reduced rent and I also took care of her plants, mail and pipes. This was my second foray into housesitting for loved ones after I was put in charge of a garden in 2021 and it went about as well as that did – as in, I discovered caring for green things is super difficult 🙂 . However, after about a month, I think I’m starting to speak their language so that’s good. I just now have a better appreciation for the level that even dogs can communicate 🙂 .

Overall I learned that watering many different types of plants that don’t have specific instructions, is a multi-day process that includes watering it a little bit, waiting a day and then feeling 1 inch into the soil to see if it’s dry. If it is, that plant wants a little more water. If there is still dampness there, I have to check back in a day or two. Every wilted leaf made me freak out a bit. I had no idea being a plant parent was so hard 🙂 .

This month I found myself becoming a cat once again and rotating my location in the house based on the position of the sun. I usually start my day by watching the sunrise over the ocean, move around noon to a spot of sunlight to stretch, and then watch the sunset on the other side of the house a few hours later.

I think being able to align my life to the sun’s position and also being awake for every speck of sunlight, is one of the reasons I enjoyed winter for the first time. Usually winter is either a frozen hellscape (*cough* NYC *cough*) or a dark, depressing slog. In Seattle, I would awaken in darkness, walk to work in the dark, work all day indoors (usually without time to eat lunch or take a break), and then walk home…also in the dark. It was a sad time, though I did appreciate that it wasn’t also accompanied by the frigid cold of an NYC winter.

On a less fun note, this month also involved me getting two new sicknesses: pink eye and the stomach bug that’s going around. My niblings gave me pink eye, which I’ve somehow never had before, and right when I was recovering, I got the nasty norovirus, which fucking sucked. 0/10 would not recommend. Anyway, I just feeling grateful that I could rest as much as I needed to recover and not push myself to work through sickness like I did during my career (#Dumb).

I Did My Taxes

I was told by a reader that this isn’t necessarily normal, but I usually receive all the documents I need for tax time in early January, and since I have no chill, I keep telling myself I’ll check “see how much I owe,” but before I know it, I’ve filled everything out on TaxAct, triple checked it and submitted my tax return.

I did my 2022 taxes🤑🙌🏾! However I accidentally made more money than I anticipated so I owe some this year. And as a result I set my payment to go out April 15 because I'm petty like that🥰. pic.twitter.com/nvHij9UYmi

— A Purple Life (@APurpleLifeBlog) January 31, 2023

This year I discovered something interesting, the IRS has paired with several companies to offer free tax filing if your AGI is relatively low. For example, TaxAct provides free online returns if your AGI is less than $73K and you’re between the ages of 20-58 or if you’re 67+ and meet other requirements. Check out all those offers here to see if you qualify.

I Learned Spanish

I’m continuing to learn Spanish while downshifting a bit so it’s not taking over my entire life like it did in 2022 🙂 . Here’s what I’ve done:

Activities

I’ve continued:

• Having my phone in Spanish
• Enjoying my weekly call in Spanish with my Mom
• Only texting my Mom in Spanish
• Watching Spanish FilmTube

I also watched the fantastic classic The Emperor’s New Groove (Las Locuras Del Emperador aka The Emporer’s Madness) in Spanish and found it funny even in another language. I also subscribed to the newsletter of my favorite Spanish teacher on YouTube: Butterfly Spanish and so far I’ve only been sent a welcome letter, but I really like the format. The email is all in Spanish (with an English version at the bottom if you want it) and I understood all of the Spanish! Awesome 🙂 . In addition to that, I’ve still been watching some of the hundreds of free videos she has on YouTube.

Progress

As for my progress, I realized that watching a movie this month was even easier than it felt previously. I think that’s because of all the YouTube I’ve been watching, which is obviously faster and more formal than a voice actor performance. I also have been getting a few scam comments in Spanish on Instagram, so I feel like that’s a fun right of passage 🙂 .

I Hung Out With People

This month involved some of my usual virtual meetups, such as that weekly Spanish call with my Mom and Weekly Movie Nights.

However, I also had some additional fun times. I visited some family in NY, had a sleepover with family in NH, and had a sleepover with Darcy from WeWantGuac and Kitty from Bitches Get Riches.

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I also had a virtual bad movie night with one of the my besties and had coffee with a reader. So busy!

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And across all of that, we watched the below:

1. The Banshees of Inisherin
2. The Fugitive
3. Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
4. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
5. Everything Everywhere All at Once
6. The VelociPastor
7. Project Power
8. What A Girl Wants

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

I Read 5 Books

This month I read:

1. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
2. Anxious People by Fredrik Backman
3. Red, White And Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
4. Stalked By The Kraken by Lillian Lark
5. Neon Gods by Katee Robert

Overall my reading continues to be about 1 non-fiction book a month with a lot of fiction. I seem to be catching up after my 2021 accomplishment of reading 52 non-fiction books 🙂 . 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.

…[and] the Nazis were impressed by the American custom of lynching its subordinate caste of African-Americans…Hitler especially marveled at the American 'knack for maintaining an air of robust innocence in the wake of mass death.'" – 📚Caste by @Isabelwilkerson
2/2

— A Purple Life (@APurpleLifeBlog) February 25, 2023

I Wrote 5 Posts

In case you missed it, this month I published the below posts:

1. The Month Of Snow: January 2023 Recap
2. Nomad Tech Necessities: A Peek Inside The Bag Of A Full-Time Traveler
3. How I Read 100 Books For Free In 2022
4. A Review Of Packaged Keto Snacks (And What I Eat Instead)
5. The Best Video Games I Played In 2022

This month I was in a Voyage Phoenix Article, which you can check out here: Check Out Purple’s Story. My post about my nomad life being immune to inflation was also included in the Women’s Personal Finance Wednesday Roundup at the beginning of this month here. They curate the best content by women and nonbinary folks every week and it was a lovely surprise to read my name on that list 🙂 .

In less fun news, someone is impersonating me on Instagram 🙂 . They have almost 6K followers (which based on my snooping, I suspect they bought as bots) and have been messaging y’all about getting into a bitcoin mining scam. So if you see someone that looks like me (but has a slightly different user name) messaging you and trying to get you into a scheme, please know that it is not me. This is my official Instagram page: @APurpleLife. There are no dashes, underscores or weird spellings unlike the scam impersonators. Though I guess having them means I’ve made it? Yay 🙁 ?

Anyway, after y’all made me aware of this, (thank you!) I reported it to Instagram and they replied that they hadn’t and wouldn’t be responding to my report and that they wouldn’t be doing anything…Wow. I already thought Meta was bullshit, but this is some next level nonsense. My application for Instagram verification to try and prevent this has gone unanswered and Insta isn’t interested in doing anything about these (sadly very prevalent) scam accounts, so I’m basically just chilling over here after being impersonated. Weird times.

In humble hilarity, this happened:

If you recently got a strange email from me about video games📩 – feel free to ignore it🤣. I accidentally published a post that is very much a draft🤦🏾‍♀️. I'm actually surprised it's taken 5 years for me to make this mistake. Anyway, I hope you're having a good morning🌞! pic.twitter.com/DlwG7anEbh

— A Purple Life (@APurpleLifeBlog) February 3, 2023

After 5 years I accidentally published a post that I was still working on and it automatically sent an email to y’all about it. I’m sorry about that. Though I’m actually surprised it took me this long to accidentally do that since new posts on WordPress originally have a “publish” button until you change the date and then it’s “schedule.” So basically, saving it for later and publishing it now are the exact same button. Anyway, I continue to provide irrevocable proof that I’m human – my bad 🙂 .

In other news, a reader offered to pay for travel hacking advice. I put my noggin’ together with my Mom (the real travel hacking MVP these days) and sent over our recommendations for free. And speaking of passing on money, I turned down these opportunities this month:

• I was asked to visit a restaurant in Paris – and the email was partially in French. They’re really overestimating my French abilities there 🙂
• A “Pets to Lawn & Garden and Backyard Farm brand” asked to partner with me which is very strange since I have none of those things 🙂
• I was asked to partner with online travel company called Almosafer, which appears to be a scam #FuckNo
• A credit union in a state I’ve never lived in asked to partner with me…not sure why they thought I would do that, but no thanks

I also turned down an interview request for my mom (after talking to her). It was sent directly to me so I guess I’m her PR manager now 😉 . I was also asked to consider using a different nomad travel insurance, but before I could reply, (my turnaround time is very different in retirement) they sent me 2 more emails. Oops – I’m slow! Anyway, I don’t recommend anything on here I don’t use and love and I’ve already bought my travel insurance until next year so that’s a no. However, I did find it funny that I’m too sloth-like for even email communication these days.

I was also asked to partner with a credit monitoring software I’ve never used so that’s a no. However, my go to (Credit Karma) was bought by Cash App about a year ago, which is a company I don’t necessarily trust. So maybe I’ll look into alternatives in the future, but at the moment I’m too lazy to do so…I’m sensing a theme here 🙂 .

Physical

Sleep

My sleep has been pretty good this month. I’ve been getting up at 6/6:30am so by the time it’s bedtime I’m usually already halfway passed out 🙂 . The early mornings aren’t still my ‘thing’ in that when I wake up to watch the sunrise, I’m sleepy (despite sleeping 8ish hours) compared to awakening because I feel like it without the sunrise in my eyes influencing me, but it’s still been really nice 🙂 .

As I mentioned, I also think this is one of the reasons that a northeast winter has been tolerable and not given me SAD (seasonal affective disorder) for the first time…ever 🙂 .

Food

My eating this month has been awesome. I’ve been all keto and not that weight necessarily means anything, let alone since I’m gaining muscles, but I’ve lost about 10lbs this year. I’m finally shedding some of that pandemic weight to get back to my usual baseline. To do so, I’ve been eating at a calorie deficit, eating keto and hitting my protein goals to not lose muscle. I use this site to calculate that in case that’s helpful.

I also continued to make my own spices and realized that things in the spice aisle are not magical concoctions, but things that anyone can combine 😉 . Here’s what I used when we accidentally forgot Montreal Steak Seasoning. Overall, I’ve been cooking up a storm. Doing so and then washing dishes all the time gets tiring though so maybe I’ll go back to my usual 1/2 restaurant 1/2 cooking lifestyle 😉

Exercise

Running was awesome this month! I ran 11 times in February, which is way up from my usual goal of 4-8 🙂 . I coordinated my runs with weather (no rain, least cold part of the day – usually afternoon and low tide so have more beach to run on). It’s been fun being more connected to the outdoors as a result. All this also included running 7 days in a row (which is a new streak for me) and a 10K (with a break in the middle)

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That long run was the first time I needed help with chafing afterwards 🙂 , but I found some informative articles like this one and this one about using moisturizer, such as petroleum jelly or lotion to reduce the effects of friction. The more you know 😉 !

I’ve also continued to be serious about stretching and doing so before and after runs. The below was our cool-down, stretching song that I danced to in high school and it still holds up to this day:

The lyrics still hold up as well 🙂 :

Mental

Learning

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

New Hampshire

• New Hampshire is apparently The Granite State (a reader mentioned this to me) and it refers to NH’s extensive granite formations and quarries. And apparently, this state has three other, less known nicknames: “Mother of Rivers” (for the rivers of New England that originate in NH’s Mountains) and “White Mountain State” for the White Mountain Range as well as “Switzerland of America” for the mountain scenery…and now I know that NH has some serious marketing campaigns 🙂

Spanish

As I’ve mentioned, my phone has been in Spanish for a long time. As a result, I’ve noticed that the Spanish names for New Jersey and New York use the word Nueva, but New Hampshire is Nuevo Hampshire?. And I was curious why that is. So here’s more than you probably ever wanted to know:

• “New York” is from the“old” city of “York” in England and the Spanish word for “city” is “ciudad” which is a female-gendered noun in Spanish and an adjective that’s applied to a female-gendered noun in Spanish must also be female-gendered. So “New York” is rendered as “Nueva York” in Spanish
• “New Jersey” is a take on the “old” island of “Jersey” in the British territory of the Channel Islands and the Spanish word for “island” is “isla” which is a female-gendered noun in Spanish and an adjective that’s applied to a female-gendered noun in Spanish must also be female-gendered. So “New Jersey” in English is correctly translated to Spanish as “Nueva Jersey”.
• “New Hampshire” is a take on the “old” county of “Hampshire” in England and the Spanish word for “county” is “condado” which is a male-gendered noun in Spanish and any adjective that’s applied to a male-gendered noun in Spanish must also be male-gendered. So “New Hampshire” in Spanish is “Nuevo Hampshire”.

Astronomy

Like I said, I watched the sunrise over the ocean and sunset every day I could. It’s wild how completely different it looks day to day.

In having my life revolve around sunrises and sunsets, I’ve accidentally learned a lot about them. For example, there are different parts of each sunrise and sunset called Astronomical Twilight, Nautical Twilight, and Civil Twilight.

Each phase is defined by the solar elevation angle – the position of the Sun in relation to the horizon:

After Astronomical Twilight, Nautical Twilight is a deep dusk when the sky is dark blue and bright planets are still visible. In Civil Twilight, the sky is light all over though the sun is not yet visible. Interestingly, the duration of each twilight phase depends on your latitude and the time of the year.

For example, in places where the Sun is directly overhead at noon like the equator during the equinoxes—the Sun goes across the horizon at a 90° angle and has a swift transition between night and day and relatively short twilight phases. In Quito, Ecuador (which is very close to the Equator and where I straddled the equator line for the first time 🙂 ) Astronomical Twilight begins only about 70 minutes before sunrise during the equinoxes.

At higher latitudes, in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the Sun’s path makes a lower angle with the horizon, so the twilight phases last longer. For example, in New York (about 40° North), during the equinoxes, it takes about 1 hour and 30 minutes from the beginning of Astronomical Twilight until the Sun rises. In Oslo (about 60° North) and the northernmost tip of Antarctica (about 60° South), the same process takes about 2 hours and 30 minutes.

At high latitudes around the summer solstice, the Sun doesn’t go lower than 18° below the horizon, so twilight can last from sunset to sunrise. For example, the area experiencing all-night Astronomical Twilight around the summer solstice, lies between about 48°33′ and 54°33′ North and South, which in the northern hemisphere is roughly the area between locations just south of the US-Canadian border and Canadian cities like Edmonton, Alberta. In Europe, it covers much of Germany. Weird 🙂 !

So I learned a lot about twilight this month as well as seeing some of my usual favs Jupiter and Mars in the sky with my naked eyes. I also planned to see the comet C/2022 E3, but it was sadly cloudy that morning 🙁 . Despite that disappointment, I learned more about comets!

Apparently a comet is a small body of ice and dust that’s left over from the formation of the Solar System. They have a frozen core surrounded by a huge, fuzzy cloud of gas and dust, which appears as the comet approaches the Sun and heats up. A tail forms when the solar wind pushes gas away from the comet. Also, comets usually have two tails! The dust tail is broad, white and obviously made of dust. The ion tail is blueish and always points directly away from the Sun!

Flora

This month I watched dozens of birds eat Winterberries outside our window.

Fauna

Today I got to practice identifying tracks since we got snow and would awaken to see new tracks in the the yard. The first time I properly identified Eastern Cottontail rabbit tracks, but the second time I couldn’t figure out what they were! I think they’re Snowshoe Hare tracks.

This month I finally uploaded that GoPro footage from when I whale watched in New Hampshire last summer and I learned that all dolphins are whales, but not all whales are dolphins🤯.

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Birds

This month I saw the usual suspects of European Starling, House Finch, American Robin and a variety of Sparrows. Also my SIL taught me that baby Golden Plovers look like moss – that’s some good camouflage!

Random

• A group of moths is called an eclipse and a group of butterflies is called a kaleidoscope – shout out to my LO fans out there 😉 #IYKYK
• A group of tortoises is called a creep

Creativity

In general, my creativity continues to crush it 🙂 ! Writing while looking at the sea definitely helps. I guess my inspiration increases when I’m near the ocean. However, after I fucked up that post earlier this month, I did find it hard to write for a hot second. Hypothetically, I know mistakes are inevitable and I’m only human, but that took the wind out of my sail for a hot second 🙂 .

But I got my mojo back by thinking more logically about that situation (ACCEPT that mistakes are inevitable pleasssse) and also surprisingly, my sleepover with other FIRE bloggers also reinvigorated me. I wasn’t expecting that, but it did and not because we talked about post ideas or anything (we didn’t), but something about being around those people that are in the same general boat with the same goals (helping educate others on finance to make the world a better place), made the creative juices start flowing again. So once again, community for the win 🙂 !

Emotional

I mentioned this a bit above, but getting up at 6/6:30 for the sunrise and then going to bed relatively early to account for that, plus lots of surprising sunshine that’s happened this winter, has definitely chased away my SAD (seasonal affective disorder).

I’ve definitely concluded that winter is not that bad when I’m not working. Also waking up so early is foreign to me, but I now have a standing nap at about 1pm in the afternoon, which is LOVELY. Then I’m up to watch the sunset and ready to cook dinner, hang with my partner and then go to bed. It’s a nice life 🙂 .

On a random note, I found this note from myself this month. It was penned a few days before I wrote the first post on this very blog. Check it out to see where my head was at the time 🙂 :

TITLE: Just Breathe

DATE: 12/16/2014

Don’t worry.

The only givens are that things will change. You have to be flexible and curious to learn to be ok in this world. Whether FI or not. That’s the only guarantee.

Don’t worry about exactly how all this will work when FI because guess what? YOU HAVE YOUR ENTIRE LIFE TO FIGURE IT OUT. All of your time is just that – yours. All the time in the world to read more books, listen to more podcasts, talk to more people and run calculations.

All the time in the world to learn how to fix a leak or a broken dishwasher. No rush. No worries. Just focus on the now and what you can do to help get there. Immediate concerns.

You can do this. You are doing this. Enjoy it.

After almost 3 years of retirement I can confirm that all of this was true – good job Past Purple 😉 !

Money

Money became a reflective topic for me this month. You’ll see what I mean in my next few posts, but for now, I was very interested in viewing my net worth in another way:

Seeing this Net Worth growth graph hits different. I think that's because it shows actual daily fluctuations and isn't a simple line graph I update annually. This is the real shit🤣. This chart shows my NW starting at $36K at the end of 2014. It's currently $638K. Wild🤑🙌🏾💜 pic.twitter.com/8JhAn9UNSr

— A Purple Life (@APurpleLifeBlog) February 2, 2023

Otherwise, my life looks like this:

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Conclusion

And that’s what I got up to in February! I was planning to have a chill month where I decompress from all the social activities I’ve been doing, but it didn’t exactly turn out that way. However, I had an amazing time and am excited to see what the next month brings!

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
9. The Month Of Maine: September 2022 Recap
10. The Month Of Acadia: October 2022 Recap
11. The Month Of Argentina: November 2022 Recap
12. The Month Of Holiday Cheer: December 2022 Recap

Monthly (2023)

1. The Month Of Snow: January 2023 Recap

How was your month?