The Month Of Arizona: May 2024 Recap

I’m going to need time to slow down a little because this is getting ridiculous 🙂 . I’m still not used to writing “2024” and we’re almost halfway through, so either my brain needs to catch up or time needs to slow down – obviously I’m picking the easier solution 😉 .

This month was luckily way less frantic than April. Hopefully I will remember not to over-schedule myself and my travels so I don’t make that mistake again.

However, it still makes me laugh that traveling once per week wore me down so much when I used to travel just for a weekend. No wonder I was tired all the time 🙂 . Anyway, let’s see what I got up to during my less wild May and try to get my brain to realize it’s now June 2024.

I Visited Sedona, Arizona

I went to Sedona for the first time for a family reunion. It has interesting views, but I was a little wary of this excursion because…I’m not a desert person 🙂 . They freak me out if I’m honest. Give me a forest full of trees any day, but a barren desert is a no go.

However, I did learn a new appreciation for these unique landscapes and really liked all the things we learned about Sedona.

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I also visited a friend I’ve had for 18 years. Our friendship could vote if it was a person. Weird. I guess I’m old now 🙂 . Anyway, she is a genius who remembered that things like GroupOn exist and suggested we get a massage, which was lovely:

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I Applied For A New Zealand Visa

Yeah, I’m back on my bullshit 🙂 . Since February 2025 is coming at me fast, I started the NZEta visa process for New Zealand. I talked about the (at the time challenging) process in my March 2023 recap below and hilariously looked up my own post to remember how to apply before trying again this year:

• The Month Of Sea: March 2023 Recap

I luckily discovered that my previous visa is good for 2 years so I didn’t have to reapply!! I’m also happy to report that applying for my Partner was a wonderfully seamless process compared to all the bugs I encountered last year when I had to go through the process four times before it worked. Great improvements New Zealand!

I Played Video Games

My friend recommended I try a game called Dave The Diver, so I put it on my wishlist only to discover that my Partner owns it and had tried playing it for an hour and then stopped.

So I decided to try it out and since I have recently failed to play more than a few hours of Sable and Outer Wilds I expected to not be pulled into this new game, but I was WRONG!

Dave the Diver owned my life for a solid week. It was all I did and I couldn’t stop. Near the end of the main plot, I started slowing down doing the main plot to-dos because I didn’t want it to end. Needless to say this game will be a prominent figure in my 2024 Best Video Games post.

• The Best Video Games I Played In 2023

The game also dropped a new, free Godzilla DLC this month so that was cool to add to my game. However, I now regret downloading it because I didn’t enjoy it and it basically bricked my game until I finished the Godzilla storyline I wasn’t enjoying. This was my first experience with DLCs so I’m going to be a little wary of them going forward. Lesson learned!

I Hung Out With People

This month involved some of my usual virtual meetups, such as that weekly call with my Mom and Weekly Movie Nights where we watched the below. If you’re curious about my ratings of movies, I have a Letterboxd account here.

1. American Fiction
2. The Beekeeper
3. The Accountant
4. 65

This month included a fair bit of social time including that family reunion and then seeing my Partner’s family in the northeast. I also had a sleepover with one of my college friends and had a great time enjoying spring in the northeast.

I Read 10 Books

My first thought was “That’s it??” 😉 . But in my defense, one of those books was like 1600 pages so it seems fair. Also with that 10, I’ve reached my stretch limit of reading 100 books in 2024. I wonder how many I’ll have read by the end of the year 🙂 .

And here were my favorite reads this month:

1. Color Of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap by Mehrsa Baradaran
2. The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer
3. The Wicked Bargain by Gabe Cole Novoa

To see the other books I read this month and my ratings of them, I have a Goodreads account here.

I Wrote 4 Posts

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

1. The Month Of The Solar Eclipse: April 2024 Recap
2. Review: COPA Airlines – A Panamanian Gem
3. How I Use Notion To Organize My Life
4. Review: Qantas International Business Class

Thank you to all of you iPhone/iPad users who told me you’ve been having refreshing/jumping issues on my site! I’ve made a few changes to fix it and am curious if they’ve helped you. Patient Zero of this issue (my Mom) cleared her iPhone cache on Chrome and Safari after I made those changes and is no longer seeing the jumping she was before and I’m super happy about that!

If you’re someone who has had this issue in the past please let me know if it is (or isn’t) fixed on your end after you clear the cache on your browser of choice. I hope it’s fixed for everyone, but if it’s not I’ll continue looking into it.

I was actually honored to hear how many of you still read my words when this site wasn’t being user friendly – that’s super high praise right there, but page jumping is super annoying so I want to get rid of the issue if it persists.

So feel free to let me know how that’s going and if you see anything else weird going on around this site. I really appreciate it 🙂 . Thank you so much for being here and thank you again for the feedback!

Physical

Sleep

My sleep this month was really good. I suspect that at the beginning of the month, that was mostly because of exhaustion 🙂 , but later in the month I finally recovered my sleep debt, took naps when I was tired in the middle of the day, and got back to my usual well-rested, retired self!

I think I only had one night where I had a hard time falling asleep, but that might have been my fault because I started a new book before bed…so obviously I had to finish it 😉 . I should really know this about myself by now, but I guess I’m still learning.

Food

My food this month was awesome. I ate keto for 48% of the month and took 16 days off keto. A fair bit of that was to be an easy guest during that family reunion, but the remaining days included exploring our new town and the food it had to offer, which is always my favorite part of moving to a new place. 

However, I am excited to have a long unbroken keto streak after this month since I feel so much better when I’m eating keto. Feeling carb bloated starts to annoy me after a few days 🙂 . But I’m still very happy with this new on/off keto approach I’ve been doing for 7 months now!

Exercise

My exercise this month finally got back into a groove! I’m finally back to running 3x a week and doing yoga in addition to walking everywhere like I love.

And getting back into the groove has been rewarded with new PRs like the above and having fun running in my new shoes (below)! I’m excited to crank it up and keep running regularly this summer.

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Mental

Learning

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

Astronomy

Before I get into the main astronomical event I witnessed this month, I wanted to mention something cool I saw. I had a night flight on a clear night, and after we were at cruising altitude, realized I could see SO many stars and also a bunch of other planes going by.

It was obviously easier to see them because of their white and red flashing lights, but it was super cool since I usually can’t see the many planes around us because of clouds. This live flight path map matched my visual experience for once:

It got a little cloudy below us by the end of the flight and it was also interesting to see light pollution above cities that illuminated the clouds from below.

Eta Aquarids Meteor Shower

The main event for me this month was the Eta Aquarids Meteor Shower! I saw 3 meteors in an hour during “very poor” weather conditions per Time And Date (below). However, this was in Sedona, AZ where they have some kind of darkness ordinance so there are no street lights and very little light pollution.

Still, that success gave me hope that I could see a fair bit in that dark part of the world despite less than ideal conditions. I then tried again during peak conditions and saw several meteors including a HUGE one. It was easily in my Top 2 biggest and brightest meteors I’ve ever seen since I started watching them almost monthly when I retired in 2020. Amazing!

In a less successful tale, I also tried to see the Northern Lights in NY State since there was a solar storm that made them visible in way more of the US than usual. However, when I tried to see them, the sky was cloudy. Oh well! I guess I have to wait for my Iceland trip this fall to take advantage of the increased aurora activity. I’ll try to be patient 🙂 .

Fauna

This month I finished up my west coast exploration by seeing a California mule deer and California ground squirrel…in California 🙂 . All the wildlife that weren’t birds hid from me in Arizona, but in New York State I saw a wild turkey (that actually FLEW into the road in front of my car…I assume that’s an act of aggression 😉 ) and I saw a groundhog for possibly the first time. Weird 🙂 .

Birds

Birds were abundant and beautiful this month. After eating local food, seeing the different birds in new areas is my favorite way to explore 🙂 . So here are the feathered friends I saw this month broken out by state.

Arizona

House Sparrow, Anna’s Hummingbird, Eurasian Collared-Five, White-Throated Sparrow, Great-Tailed Grackle, Gambel’s Quail, Bullock’s Oriole, House Finch, Bushtit, Northern Cardinal, Bewick’s Wren, Verdin, Lazuli Bunting, Ash-Throated Flycatcher, Woodhouse’s Scrub-Jay, Brown-Headed Cowbird, White-Winged Dove

New York

Blue Jay, Song Sparrow, Gray Catbird, American Crow, Chimney Swift, Yellow Warbler, Red-Winged Blackbird, House Wren, Common Yellowthroat, Mourning Dove, American Robin, Tufted Titmouse, Northern Cardinal

Creativity

My creativity is back! My hypothesis that having down time was required to think and let my creativity well refill, was proven correct. Being able to look out over a babbling brook outside our Airbnb and watch the sun set, combined with removing my sleep deficit and napping whenever I want has brought me back!

I continued with my goal of writing or working on the blog every day and often found myself accidentally doing more than I planned, which put me ahead of schedule. That’s a great feeling and I’m going to keep this in mind when I plan wild travels in the future.

Emotional

My emotions this month were good. I was much less exhausted and more calm while getting back to my slow travel life full of cooking healthy food, taking naps when I’m sleepy and writing when I feel like it. It’s so much better 🙂 .

Money

My money musing this month were influenced by my travel debacles and lessons learned. I was reminded that not everyone knows the things an airline will do when you miss a flight:

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And that there are other options besides bunkering down at an airline gate all day:

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I also learned about another Chase Sapphire Preferred Card perk:

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And I finally hit a new net worth milestone!!! It happened when the market hit an all-time high so I didn’t expect it to last, but it was nice to hit a new milestone without any input from me 🙂 .

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This is where I netted out at the end of the month:

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Conclusion

And that’s what I got up to in May! In June I’ll be visiting family and relaxing a bit more before another whirlwind adventure begins in Montréal, Canada🇨🇦. 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
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
2. The Month Of New Hampshire: February 2023
3. The Month Of Sea: March 2023
4. The Month Of California: April 2023
5. The Month Of Seattle: May 2023
6. The Month Of Chicago: June 2023
7. The Month Of Montréal: July 2023
8. The Month Of Troy, NY: August 2023
9. The Month Of Australia: September 2023
10. The Month Of New Zealand: October 2023
11. The Month Of Puerto Vallarta: November 2023
12. The Month Of Warmth: December 2023

Monthly (2024)

1. The Month Of Family: January 2024 Recap
2. The Month Of Costa Rica: February 2024 Recap
3. The Month Of San José: March 2024 Recap
4. The Month Of The Solar Eclipse: April 2024 Recap

What’s a fun fact you learned this month?