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Showing posts with the label About Me

Gratitude while FIRE'd

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Another year has come and gone. Last November while watching the sumo tournament, Asanoyama said something that caught my attention. He's been gone from the very top division for sometime and I was happy to see him back. He did well and when he was interviewed after getting a winning record, he said: A lot has happened a long the way, the tournament isn't over yet. So I want to say focused, keep my gratitude in mind and continue giving my best. That is a good attitude to cultivate - an attitude of gratitude.  Last Monday, I stopped at a counter to do a pickup and I realized that people get up each day to show up to work. Later during the week, I stopped by the store to look for replacement bulbs and on my way back to the garage, I saw a worker helping a customer with loading their car and what I felt was gratitude to God. God has been good to me.  I think that sometimes, it's easy to forget the good we have but I think it is important to focus on the good we have, on the bl...
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A Week In The FI/RE'd LIfe: Tuesday

My plan was to visit a particular city, see their downtown area and have a meal. I thought it was an 1.5hrs away but it was a bit farther and I took the longer route so it turned out to be 2 hours. The issue is that I didn't leave home early. I left closer to 1 and the restaurant I was going to was going to be closed when I got there but would reopen at 4 🙄 With that discovery, I decided to detour to another town and see what it's like there. When I got there, I saw they had Long John Silvers. I haven't seen those around here and it had been a while since I ate at one. I decided to order an old favorite. Big Mistake! I feel like they took all the salt in Utah and dumped it into the batter. The hush puppies were good, the Coleslaw was good and the fries were good. The shrimp and fish were hot but it was so salty. I tasted the corn and trashed it with the rest of the fish. For me to throw food away, it means it was bad. All I really wanted was the shrimp which I ate.  The la...
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A week In The FI/RE'd LIfe: Monday

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As I mentioned in yesterday's post, a question I see sometimes is: What do you do with all your time now that you have FI/RE'd or reached FI/RE. Since I don't use that term, I've had another nurse ask me what I do with my time now that I'm home because she knows I quit and it's been months. She actually found out around last September so she's not known for long. I was driving home earlier today after having a conversation with someone I met last month and I thought to blog about this week. I wrote about Sunday and I'm going to document some of the things I did today.  I was up after 7 today but really didn't get up until closer to 8. I'm trying to get up early. I really should have been up around 7 because I went to be early. I did my morning devotion and then ate. I just realized that I haven't really read the paper today. I usually take time to catch up on Wapo while eating breakfast. I had planned to cancel my subscription in May but I fo...
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A Week In The FI/RE'd LIfe: Sunday

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A question I see on Reddit sometimes is: What do you do with your time now that You have FI/RED?  To me, simple answer is "living". The sum of one's life shouldn't consist solely of work so that when you don't work, you feel you are not living. Also, if your entire identity is tied to what you do, I can see having a sort of crisis, existential or whatever, when you stop doing that.  Life is meant to be lived. Personally, doing this in my 30s has been a blessing and I feel like it is a great time to do it because there is much to do while young.  I thought to give a glimpse into how I spend my days. I don't think this is representative of how I usually spend my days as I've had some interesting past month that may have been worth blogging about but I also chose to spend my free time doing what I wanted. I don't have much planned for this week so we'll see. I tend to rest on Sundays because during the weekdays and Saturday, I'm usually doing some...
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An Interesting Thing I've done since FI/RE'd

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 I've had another nurse ask what I do with my time. She simply knows that I quit my job but I have not mentioned FIRE to her. She has asked that question more than once. Interestingly, I've been busy. I find it so interesting because I went to work full-time sometime post-pandemic and I read about 15 books in the second year of working full-time. I went part-time the year before I FIRE'd and read less books. I think I only read a handful of less last year. This year? I think I've only read 2 and it's June! One would think that I should have read more after going part-time and if "One" didn't think so, I  thought so. No, I'm not sitting at home watching TV, I'm also not on social media scrolling. So what do I do with my time? Living. I recall a colleague asking me back in 2023 when I went part-time: what do you do with all your time? I said I'm in the business of living. Actually, I wanted the days available so I could schedule therapy becau...
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Things I do more since FIRE'd

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 There's something I've found myself doing lately. I sometimes walk into the bedroom on my second floor and look out the window. I didn't use to do that. I had family there and they would do that. They were retired but they didn't look out always. Still I had to change the blinds so that says something. I was usually amazed they knew who lived where, who was pregnant, who did what when I didn't even know. Or I would ask "is so and so pregnant" and would hear something like "...long time". While I didn't work full-time for the longest time and so was here, I still didn't look out or bothered with what was going on around here. I had houses sell on the block that I didn't even notice were for sale.  Today, I looked out and saw a pick-up truck across the street. The man in it had what looked like a cigarette and the windows was up. I was wondering why one would smoke inside a parked car with the windows up. I was also on my computer havi...
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Things to do when you Retire or FIRE: Volunteer

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 I had someone ask: what do you do with your time? when I mentioned that I wasn't working. That took some maneuvering to get out of. But this is a question people ask and there are people who post asking what people do with their time when they FIRE ( F inancial I ndependence and R etire E arly) at a young age. I used to wonder what the old people retiring would do with that time and thought they would get bored. Here is one suggesting for those who are wondering what to do when you Retire Early: Volunteer .  A friend texted a picture of us from an event we volunteered at. Her timing was perfect because I was feeling around the moment that I'm not "serving" enough and was feeling a "certain way" about it. She shared the flyer for an event that needed volunteers to distribute food. I've been wanting to volunteer for again for some time now but I don't feel like volunteering in a clinical capacity. My volunteer activities in the last decade or so have...
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Do You miss Work after Retiring Early or reaching FIRE?

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 This came up just moments ago as I read a message from someone who said work has been really busy today. No, they are not in the nursing field. But it brought back memories - Wednesdays were our busiest days. And I realized I do not miss it  - not the people, not the place and not the patients. I miss none of it.  Honestly, it's been more than 7 months and it doesn't seem like a long time but it's all a blur. It's almost like a part of me wanted to forget and has worked on doing so. I also have to remark that I went from 0 to Burnt out quickly. I realized I could leave and be okay back in September or so. And I was dragging my feet and kinda didn't want to leave. What was I thinking?!  But between realizing I could FIRE and about 2 months later, I was burnt out. I'll discuss when I knew  it was time to leave another time because that is a story by itself. I talked to my manager at the start of February and I'm not sure why I decided to hang around for the s...
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Time Value of Money (Inflation? Or the "T" word?)

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 I went to IKEA last weekend. I had a coupon that was going to expire and because I knew I wasn't going to get the chance to go on Sunday, I stopped by after going to the Japanese Festival . I almost went to Greekfest after but most of us decided to go home. I  decided I'd like to use the coupon now than have it wasted since IKEA was less than a couple miles away and on the way home. I spent $0.75 with tax for a set of dishes and a serving bowl . The dishes were $0.79. I got 11 of them and one serving bowl because I had already purchased one to try out. I wanted to try it out because it is white and I wanted to see if it will stain. It doesn't. So I went back to complete the set. I added the serving bowl because the coupon was $10 off a $10 or more purchase. The serving bowl was $1.99. I got the small bowl-like instead of the small plates because I thought that would be of more use to me. They look like the small plates but with the curve so I felt they would still work f...
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A Week In The FI/RE'd LIfe: Wednesday - Saturday

 Okay, my goal was to write for each day but I think I'm going to combine the rest of the week. I just didn't have the time for this.  Wednesday: my goal was to prime some walls. However, I spent so much time in the morning trying to tape up stuff that closer to the afternoon, I had to put that on hold for an appliance delivery. They got here early with the new stove and took the old one away. Then I was debating on getting a sprayer. So I researched a few, debated and eventually went to the store. I looked a few there but decided the prep of the sprayer and cleaning it was something I didn't want to deal with this time. So I didn't start painting until after 6 p.m. I did until 9 p.m. Okay, there were other things in between like a phone call and other stuff. The thing is that I only ended up doing half of it. Had I started earlier instead of debating on the sprayer, I would've finished the whole thing.  Thursday: I finished my coat of primer. I may have been out la...
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A Week In The FI/RE'd LIfe: Tuesday

My plan was to visit a particular city, see their downtown area and have a meal. I thought it was an 1.5hrs away but it was a bit farther and I took the longer route so it turned out to be 2 hours. The issue is that I didn't leave home early. I left closer to 1 and the restaurant I was going to was going to be closed when I got there but would reopen at 4 🙄 With that discovery, I decided to detour to another town and see what it's like there. When I got there, I saw they had Long John Silvers. I haven't seen those around here and it had been a while since I ate at one. I decided to order an old favorite. Big Mistake! I feel like they took all the salt in Utah and dumped it into the batter. The hush puppies were good, the Coleslaw was good and the fries were good. The shrimp and fish were hot but it was so salty. I tasted the corn and trashed it with the rest of the fish. For me to throw food away, it means it was bad. All I really wanted was the shrimp which I ate.  The la...
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