The Month Of Sea: March 2023 Recap

How is 25% of 2023 already over?!? I refuse to believe it 🙂 . This year is flying by, but I can confirm that it’s because I’m having fun, so I have no complaints. This month I continued to enjoy New Hampshire, the sea and the start of spring. Let’s see what I got up to!

I Learned Spanish

Spanish learning continues. Who knew that learning a language is a lifelong endeavor 😉 ? I laugh when I think about my original language plan for retirement. I was going to learn Spanish in one year, then re-learn French the next and continue learning about a new language a year…oh how naive I was 🙂 .

I guess it’s fair to not understand language learning since I’d never properly learned a second language before, despite my decade of effort with French and Italian. Anyway, now that I know what it takes to actually become fluent in a language, I’m going to fight like hell to maintain my progress, which also takes constant work 🙂 .

This month was similar to previous ones in that:

• My phone is still in Spanish
• My Mom and I have weekly calls in Spanish
• We also only text in Spanish (and I text her all day, every day)
• I watch FilmTube videos from Spanish speaking presenters

In addition to that usual stuff, my Mom has been reading Fluent Forever at my recommendation, (though she somehow forgot it was me who recommended it to her🤣). As she went through the book, she followed the recommendations and made Anki study cards. We had a great time with me trying to guess what her…beautiful 😉 drawings represented.

Besides laughing our heads off, I was surprised that I knew basically all the words! I hadn’t realized that my Films en Español, traveling and talking to people regiment had taught me such small words that I rarely use even in English like “knee” (rodilla), but I guess it did! No vocab drills necessary 🙂 .

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My Mom also pays for a Spanish Fluency Club membership that’s provided by the host of the Hola Spanish YouTube channel.  I’ve listened to this host’s YouTube videos in the past, but it’s been a few months. I was surprised to realize when I listened this time, that I thought she was talking too slow 🙂 !

I know she’s speaking slowly and enunciating really well to help us learn, but that was the first time EVER I’d thought someone was speaking too slow for me in Spanish – it’s usually the opposite 🙂 .

However, I didn’t have that problem when my Mom and I watched Elementary (Elemental) in Spanish. My Mom showed me that even though Elementary on Hulu doesn’t show a Spanish audio option, you can just type “en Español” into the search bar and all kinds of shows come up, such as “Elementary en Español” – perfecto!

We watched that and between the show having fast dialogue in English, the Spanish was at times rapid fire. However, I was once again surprised to see that I could keep up with it. I even knew what they were talking about when most of the episode took place in a hospital and involved medical terms. Next level! I guess I’ve improved even though it doesn’t always feel like it 🙂 . Time to keep it up!

I Hung Out With People

This month was a weird one because for the first time in literal years, my weekly movie club went on a month-long hiatus and as a result, the number of movies I watched this month sadly dropped. It helps to have friends with similar interests 🙂 . However, I still was able to hang out with people IRL, which was awesome. My Mom visited for a week and I got to meet another reader:

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I also continued my bi-weekly calls with an ex-colleague to hear about the madness happening in the working world and had two ‘bad’ movie nights with one of my besties. If you’re curious about my ratings of movies, I have a Letterboxd account here.

And after all that, I was tapped out 🙂 . A friend of a friend of a family member wanted to talk to me about FIRE, but instead of a conversation with a stranger, I sent them other blogs that fit their situation to read instead.

I Read 12 Books

This month I read:

1. Shit, Actually by Lindy West
2. Soul Eater by Lily Mayne
3. Edin by Lily Mayne
4. Wyn by Lily Mayne
5. The Rycke by Lily Mayne
6. Gloam by Lily Mayne
7. Moth by Lily Mayne
8. Seraph by Lily Mayne
9. A Monstrous Christmas by Lily Mayne
10. Lor by Lily Mayne
11. For The Fans by Nyla K
12. [REDACTED] by Anonymous

So as you can see, I went a little wild this month after discovering Lily Mayne. I originally stumbled on the cover art for one of her books, realized it was the 5th in a series, decided to start at the beginning to see what was up, and before I knew it I emerged from a haze having read all 7 books and 2 novellas in a week. It was an awesome ride 🙂 . Now I just need to remember what life was like because I went into a reading frenzy.

The last book on this list is a to-be published novel that I had the honor of reading early! It was very cool to be part of that process and give feedback that might be incorporated in the final book. 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. How I Spend $1,500 A Year To Manage A Chronic Disease As A Global Nomad
2. Should I Use a Money Market Or High Yield Savings Account For My Retirement Spending?
3. How I Choose Great Airbnb Stays: A Peek Inside A Full-Time Nomad’s Travel Planner
4. The Month Of New Hampshire: February 2023 Recap

In addition to those posts, I was contacted by some interesting people this month. For example, I was contacted by a black female investing club and asked to chat with them. The club is a paid online space so I asked what the compensation was (since they didn’t mention any upfront…suspicious 😉 ) . They responded that they were willing to pay me for my time, so that’s cool. I guess it never hurts to ask 🙂 .

I’ve done stuff like this before that’s just a Q&A basically, but I’m not going to do it for free when the company is getting money from these people to be there, which seems fair to me. It was awesome to learn that there’s a black female focused investing education platform I hadn’t heard of before though!

And then there’s a list of companies that contacted me that I won’t be working with, such as:

• A Law Firm (…why? 🙂 )
• A Bolivian Travel Agency (This was weird because my Mom and I were just talking about where we could go swimming with whale sharks and the exact city this agency mentioned in their email was on that list…how’d they know?!?)
• A Financial Company that is not a fiduciary and has incorrect claims on their website as well as sketchy selling tactics…HARD PASS!
• A money transfer company called Instarem that appears to be a scam (source and source) – NOPE.
• A company that represents sketchy Alternative Investments similar to Masterworks – hell no!:

I Got Money From 12 Years Ago

Basically, this:

I recently learned about https://t.co/tBNFxgWxXw, went on there and was shocked that I was owed $65 from an internet company TWELVE YEARS AGO😱. I just got the check in the mail📩. Sweeeet🤑!!! pic.twitter.com/xkPd4b5TBl

— A Purple Life (@APurpleLifeBlog) March 11, 2023

Feel free to check out that site to see if you’re missing any money. I’m excited to spend my shiny $65 on exploring several breweries in Sacramento!

I Played Video Games

I’m finally branching out! As I mentioned in the below post, I’m trying to play more, new video games this year (a hard goal to be sure 😉 ).

• The Best Video Games I Played In 2022

Well in addition to my favs of 2022, I started playing Stardew Valley! It was my first time playing the game alone and I guess you could say it went well:

Me: I'm going to start playing Stardew Valley🎮!
My Partner: Be careful. You'll wake up 100 hours later not knowing what happened.
Me: Yeah right🤣!
[3 days and 45 hours of gameplay later]
Me: pic.twitter.com/YBK8kQFiZb

— A Purple Life (@APurpleLifeBlog) February 20, 2023

I also played the Stanley Parable with my partner and while I loved the concept and found it super cool that this game is something that can basically only exist in this exact medium, I didn’t have a good time playing it. The graphics gave me a headache that lasted several hours – maybe our monitor is just too high-def or something 🙂 .

I Planned Travel

After completely failing at trying to be spontaneous this year (and learning to be proud of my early planning tendencies 🙂 ), I started thinking about broad strokes and international plans with my Mom for the next few years. I love planning ahead and already think we’ll visit the below international locations in the future. It’s all still up in the air, but exciting to start thinking about:

2024 – Iceland, Europe (a lot of it 🙂 )

2025 – Belize, México

I also started getting ready for our next adventure that’s starting soon after this post is published:

I've never been to Sacramento, CA and am visiting for the first time in a few weeks🌴. Is there anything I should definitely eat, do, see? I'm looking for recommendations👀. pic.twitter.com/YHfzIgvARF

— A Purple Life (@APurpleLifeBlog) March 11, 2023

I also finalized some parts of my fall Singapore/Australia/New Zealand trip, which led to these fun times:

How can I easily get an Australian phone number🇦🇺📲? Sim card when I land there🤔? A service? I'm trying to set up an account with @woolworths and can't without an Australian #. I even chatted with their customer service online and they couldn't help me without one. It's wild🤷🏾‍♀️. pic.twitter.com/FbH5TgU1k9

— A Purple Life (@APurpleLifeBlog) March 21, 2023

Thank you for all of your awesome solutions! The grocery store Woolworths (or “Woolies” locally 😉 ) ended up responding and I took their suggestion: they responded with more info than the live chat customer service did and suggested using the number at one of my accommodations if it was a mobile number.

I ended up using the mobile phone number of one of our Airbnb hosts and finding on a random forum that in Australia you put 0 in front of entire number if it’s in country while +61 would work only if you were outside country , then the 4 or 5 indicating it’s a mobile number, then the rest of the number. Phew! With all that, I finally got it to work. But the fun was just beginning 🙂 .

I Applied For Visas To Australia & New Zealand

…and as always, it was a *process*.

Australian Visa

As a US Citizen, I’m supposed to apply for a subclass 601 visa. However, at the time it wasn’t clear that the only way to apply for that visa was on their app. I prefer to do serious stuff like this on a computer instead of a phone so we went through their online portal only to discover that we could only apply for a subclass 601 visa there.

The difference between these two was a bit confusing as well. 601 is for a US visa if you’re outside the country and the 600 requires that you’re inside Australia and available for an in-person interview. Oh boy 🙂 . Luckily we figured it out after not too long and caved into getting the app. Checkmate 🙂 .

So I downloaded the Australia ETA app on my Mom’s iPhone that has NFC. It does require that you have your passport with you in person instead of just a picture because they read the chip that’s embedded in it with NFC. The process was much easier once I used the app and I was lucky my Mom was there so I could use her fancy phone 🙂 .

After completing the application, I paid $20 AUD ($13 USD) for the visa – not bad 🙂 . I was then approved immediately with an email saying “visa granted” with a grant number. Sweet!

New Zealand

So after learning that resistance to visa apps is futile, I immediately gave in and started the NZ visa process with the app. I downloaded the NZeTA app and when I opened it, an error occurred (Great sign 🙂 ). It said “try again later” and that there was a processing update. It seems like this might happen often across these two countries systems because the Australia visa website had a warning about one happening 2 hours after I started my application.

Anyway, once the app started working I completed the application and then I submitted it, it said an error occurred…again. And then it had a “please wait” screen that went on forever. So I closed the app and tried again.

Overall, I had to go through this entire process (passport, take a picture, enter answers to questions etc) 4 times. After the 4th attempt, I finally didn’t get the error page BUT after I paid ($52 NZD or $32 USD) the circle of death appeared and spun forever. I ended up closing it many minutes later and when I opened the app again it said “error” – well fuck 🙂 .

I then checked my visa status here and it said they were “awaiting payment” – great 🙂 . It also said “If you use the app it will take you less than 5 minutes to complete your request”…which is a lie. Frustrated, I decided to take a break.

I went about my day and about 15 minutes later I got an email saying my NZeTA application was submitted and 2 minutes after that that it had been “issued” – Sweet! It might have taken 4 tries, but at least the approval process was swift 🙂 .

Physical

Sleep

Sleep this month was interesting. I loved getting up most days to watch the sunrise, but doing so did make me feel tired even if I’d gone to bed 8+ hours before. Another consequence of my early mornings is that by the time night comes, I’m often falling asleep.

This does help me fall asleep faster, but I’ve also been drinking more coffee than usual to feel as awake as I’d prefer at 6am. Overall I just find it interesting that me feeling sleepy does apparently have to do with the time of day and not just how much sleep I’ve gotten.

Food

This month I was back to eating keto and calorie counting. I know weight doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things (especially since I’ve been gaining muscle with my running), but according to the scale, I’ve lost 15 lbs so far this year. I’m finally dropping some of those pandemic pounds. Cool 🙂 .

I also discovered a new fun recipe: protein shake lattes! I use my beloved Isopure Zero Carb Vanilla Protein Powder shaken up with unsweetened vanilla almond milk and then add it to my coffee. It’s a fun way to spice up coffee keto-style instead of using heavy cream.

Exercise

My exercise this month has been amazing! I love running when I have nice views to look at and after figuring out my winter running gear, (a gaiter, gloves and a jacket) I’ve been running more than ever. I ran more than my stretch goal of 3x a week this month!

The goal of stretching more before and after runs as well as rolling out, has also been going well. I’ve become noticeably more flexible and can touch my forehead to my feet in butterfly pose, which is definitely new!

I’ve also been feeling magnanimous lately 😉 and making my partner coffee more often. Because of his fancy nomad coffee set up that he walked through the in the below post, it’s an arm workout! And hilariously I’ve noticed my arms getting stronger, and it getting easier to hand grind coffee beans as a result. Progress!

• Nomad Coffee Supplies: How To Make Great Caffeine Anywhere

Haircutting

This month I continued my journey into being a hardcore hair stylist by cutting my partner’s hair to a different style than I have previously – and it turned out well! I’m learning 🙂 .

Nail Painting

My DIY nail adventures continue!

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For the first time, I tried using a dual base and top coat. Usually I don’t mess with a base coat because I’m skeptical of…everything 🙂 , but after finally trying a top coat a few years ago, I finally caved on this as well. I used the Sally Hansen Double Duty Base and Top Coat and it shockingly made a big difference as a base coat.

The application even of harder to use polishes was way easier and my nails are taking WAY longer to chip than usual, which is wild. I do a lot with my hands and usually chip at least one nail within a day or two, but I’m going on a full week with no change to my polish at all. WILD!

One caveat though is that as a top coat, this polish isn’t as good as a dedicated top coat, such as the Sally Hansen Insta-Dry Top Coat that I usually use. It obviously works to keep the polish on longer, but it sacrifices “shiny-ness” to do so. However, I don’t care if my nails are less shiny if they look the same a week after I did them, so I’ll take it!

Now I’m debating if I’m going to keep these polishes with me on our upcoming cross-country travels. The last time I tried that at the beginning of my retirement, my Holo Taco polish exploded – luckily I had it in a plastic bag – but that wasn’t a fun surprise upon landing 🙂 .

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

Despite NH having the motto “live free or die” that doesn’t seem to extend to weed. In this state, it’s not against the law for adults to not wear a seatbelt or helmet, but weed is a no go – fascinating 🙂 . I feel like they need to change their motto to Live Free Or Die* (*no weed though – that’s too far).

Spanish

My Mom found these tips about Spanish that I found really helpful:

• The phrase “this and these have t’s” helps to distinguish between the Spanish words for this/these (este, esta, estes, estas), which contain the letter “t” and the Spanish words for that/those (ese, esa, eses, esas) that don’t
• It’s easier to learn some of the irregular command verbs with the sentence “Vin Diesel has ten weapons, eh?” for Ven / Di / Sal / Haz / Ten / Ve / Pon / Sé
• For Spanish gender, there’s the mnemonic “Guys are LONERS and girls like DIJON mustard” to remember that words ending in l, o, n, e, r and s tend to be masculine and words ending in d, i, a and -sión are feminine. However, there are exceptions like el día and la mano
• I’m not fancy enough yet to use this tense, but wanted to point this out unless it helps someone else: You can use the acronym WEIRDO to remember which situations require the subjunctive tense in Spanish. W.E.I.R.D.O. stands for Wants or Wishes, Emotions, Impersonal Expressions, Recommendations, Doubt/Denial, and is used after the word Ojalá. Another suggestion is WEDDING where the letters stand for Will, Emotion, Desire, Doubt, Impersonal expressions, Negative and Generalized Characteristics

Astronomy

I continued making a point to watch every sunrise and sunset I could – it’s so gorgeous and shockingly different every day. This led me to wonder why that is. Basically, the colors we see in the sky are a result of rays of sunlight being split into colors of the spectrum as they pass through the atmosphere and ping off the water vapor and other particles in the air.

Apparently, the amount of water vapor and dust particles in the atmosphere are good indicators of weather conditions! They also determine what colors are in the sunrise. During sunrise and sunset, the sun is low in the sky, and it emits light through the thickest part of the atmosphere.

A red sky suggests an atmosphere that has a lot of dust and moisture particles. We see the red because red wavelengths (which are the longest in the color spectrum) are breaking through the atmosphere. Shorter wavelengths, such as blue, are scattered and broken up. This ties in with the saying “Red sky at night, sailors delight. Red sky in morning, sailor’s warning.”

A red sky at night means that the setting sun is sending its light through a high concentration of dust particles and that usually means high pressure and stable air is coming in from the west (who knew?!). So basically good weather will follow.

And a red sunrise can mean that a high pressure system (good weather) has already passed, thus indicating that a storm system (low pressure) might be moving to the east. A sunrise that is a fiery red can mean that there is high water content in the atmosphere so rain could be on its way. I feel like I can predict the future now based on the color of the sunrise 😉 .

Flora

Seaweed took over my mind this month! There was so much seaweed on the beach that looked so different that I went down a bit of a rabbit hole and learned:

• Apparently, about 70% of the world’s oxygen comes from seaweed! For comparison, rainforests make up about 28% of oxygen production
• There are 9x more seaweed in the oceans than there are plants on the land
• Seaweed reduces pollution by absorbing toxins from the water. They also absorb carbon dioxide and because seaweed grows really fast (much faster than trees) so it can suck up carbon dioxide at a ridiculous speed.
• There are over 12,000 species of seaweed, and seaweed isn’t the name of a single plant, it’s a common name for thousands of marine plants and algae.
• There are three main seaweed categories: red, green, and brown, which only live in salty waters. Green seaweed can be found in shallow waters in warm, tropical climates. Brown seaweed is much bigger than the green seaweed and live at greater depths. Red seaweed can grow in cold water that is either shallow or deep.
• Seaweed doesn’t have roots. Larger seaweeds, such as kelp, have root like tails called holdfasts that help them hold firmly to a rock. Only a few kinds of seaweed can survive free floating in the ocean.

Fauna

This month was pretty low key, but we did see a Cottontail Rabbit, Eastern Rabbit, and  an Opossum!

Birds

March was filled with birds, but usually the same types – I think I’ve been spoiled by seeing a lot of different birds lately 🙂 . I saw: Northern Cardinals, Sparrows, House Finch, Purple Finch, Starlings, American Robins, Common Redpoll and a Killdeer!

Random

• I love the song “Pompeii” by Bastille and must have listened to it a thousand times when it came out in 2013. However, I only just learned from my partner that the constant chant in the song of “e-eheu, eheu” is Latin and “eheu” translates as “oh no”, making the chant “oh, oh no, oh no”, which is a fitting for a reference to the fall of Pompeii…and makes the song even more tragic 🙂

Creativity

My Mom mentioned something to me while she was visiting that stuck with me. She said that in retirement I seem to have regained the curiosity and enthusiasm I had as a child, which I think is an interesting way to look at it.

I still feel like a curmudgeon most of the time (it’s just my charming personality 😉 ), but retirement has definitely given me the space and inspiration to be way more curious and creative than I was while working or even while busting my ass in school.

It was interesting to hear that from someone else’s perspective. She’s right though 🙂 . This month my creativity and curiosity continued to be at high levels. The length of this post might give some hint into that 🙂 .

Emotional

My emotions were good this month. I was worried about winter taking its toll on me, but it didn’t. Despite various snow storms, there was a lot of sunshine in the northeast US this month – more than I expected.

I also had a wonderful time watching the sea and reading my face off. Seeing loved ones and running throughout didn’t hurt either 😉 . Basically I was wonderfully content the month and hope my rest will translate to me being ready to tackle our upcoming travel calendar with gusto!

Money

Ah – dinero 🙂 . Money continues to be a non-issue. It’s a wonderful surprise every time I see dividends hit my account like they did this month:

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Also, my cash cushion continues to hold strong. I’ve already booked all of my lodging and travel for this year so the rest of my budget is basically just food and fun. I don’t think I’ll have an accidentally really under-budget year like last year (see below), but I’m excited to finally actually hit the budget I set ($22,700 in 2023 given inflation).

• How I Lived On $16,930 As A Global Nomad In 2022

Meanwhile, despite the recent market volatility, I still have a higher net worth than I did when I retired almost 3 years ago:

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Life is good 🙂 .

Conclusion

And that’s what I got up to in March! It was a wonderfully relaxing month, but I think I’m ready to start traveling again. It’s about to be a whirlwind of a year with visits to California, Washington, Illinois, New York, Canada🇨🇦, Singapore🇸🇬, Australia🇦🇺, New Zealand🇳🇿 and México🇲🇽. I can’t wait 🙂 !

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
2. The Month Of New Hampshire: February 2023 Recap

How was your month?