Random FIRE chronicles

What’s been going on as of late.

I’m in the middle of writing yet another long post. It’s a mix of something I find useful and interesting, with personal stories and external references thrown in to make a point. Pretty standard around here.

The post is about the two methods I’ve found for getting through tough shit; distraction and embracing the pain, and the uses of each.

But this isn’t that post. I needed a break a few thousand words in, so I figured I’d do a shorter post about what’s been going on around here.

This Blog

Some weird stuff happened. More than 8 people actually read this blog. Why? In order of occurrence:

1. Diania Merriam, creator of the Econome conference shared my post about me attending said conference.
2. Dave over at the awesome blog Accidental FIRE shared my 1 year FIRE Goals update post.

This then drove a bunch of traffic here, which means few hundred people at least opened those posts. Again; weird!

I suppose now should be the time I analyze which posts are most read, churn out similar posts, and do all sorts of social media marketing. You know, if I actually wanted to grow this thing.

But do I?

Well, right now, nah.

I’d rather just keep writing about stuff that interests me, some of which has been useful in my life. Maybe others will find that useful and/or interesting too. If not, so it goes.

Mostly I just like writing.

I’m not against building some website to monetize it. The multi-profit site thing seems like an intriguing way to provide value in the world, as well as a way to make more money so I can buy even more expensive bikes. But if I do go down that route, this probably won’t be the place I do that.

Travels

A few weeks ago I drove to the international mountain biking mecca that is Pisgah, North Carolina. It was legit fucking awesome. Spent a few days there riding without the family in tow. I left a week after my wife had gotten back from her own week long work trip. While she was gone the kids had spring break, they got sick, and our fridge broke. It was a tad stressful, so to say I was looking forward to some me time is quite an understatement.

The solitude was refreshing. Even the extremely long drive there was enjoyable-time to myself to listen to books ( The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck was most good) and podcasts. I camped out in the back of my prius, rode the shit out of my bike, and enjoyed the majestic beauty of the mountains. And I only went over my handlebars once!

But a weird thing happened. By the end of the first full day of riding, I really missed my family. Though it was so much easier traveling without small kids, gosh darn it, I really wish they had been there. I still enjoyed my time away, but the trip made me realize that yes, I am a normal person. And though they drive me crazy at times, I want to make the most of the decade and a half my kids are living with me.

Back when I was slogging towards early retirement, I dreamt of taking short 2-3 day solo adventures every few months once I left my job. This trip made me realize that dream isn’t what I actually want. I’ll still do the occasional solo adventure, but probably much less. Now I dream of bringing everyone on the adventure. We shall see how that goes!

Work

Substitute Teaching

I worked a bit, and it was mostly fun.

I’ve been doing some substitute teaching for my kid’s school district, as I thought maybe I’d like it. I thought it’d be good because:

a. it’d give me a chance for social interaction

b. I’d be working on the academic schedule, so I’d still be around for all the kid stuff

c. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little scared of making withdrawals in the current market, some extra cash would be nice.(yes, I know, I’m being overly conservative, scarcity mindset, blah blah blah. Maybe we’ll cover my irrationationality and the associated feels some other time)

So I’ve been giving subbing a try. So far, actually filling in for teachers has sucked. It has stressed me the fuck out. Like when I get done for the day, I just lay down and can barely get myself to take care of my own kids. I think teaching may not be for me. But you know what? I found another sub position at our district that I actually did enjoy:

Lunch Room Monitor

As a sub I can fill in for various Instructional Assistant (IA) jobs that don’t include actual full on teaching. I haven’t tried any others, but I’ve done the Lunch Room IA thing a couple times. The job consists of me opening ketchup packets for kids, telling them to stop throwing things at each other, and then cleaning their tables when their done. The first time I did it, I really enjoyed it. The second time, it was decent, though I was noticeably more stressed. I may give other IA jobs a chance.

Door Dashing

Thanks to the Econome talk that Kevin from Financial Panther gave, I’ve been trying door dashing on my bike. Thus I have finally realized my dream of becoming a bike courier, likely inspired by that Kevin Bacon Quicksilver movie. This could be a post in itself, and I’ve only done it a few times. So far, it’s a shit ton of fun! It’s also crap for money, though I have yet to utilize Kevin’s multi-apping strategy. I will for sure keep trying this out.

I’m even trying out a new routine today which is related: After getting the kids to school, I drive downtown( the only place where bike door dashing is availble in my city, about 15 minutes from our suburb), and head to a coffee shop. I then write while enjoying my mocha until the lunch rush hits. Then off to bike food deliverying (is that what we call it? Gotta find a better term).

Home Improvement

There’s a high probability that we’ll be moving next year. There’s another bedroom community which is closer to my wife’s work, is much more walkable/bikeable, and the schools are better. Again, this could be another post in itself. Setting that to the side, the future move has motivated me to do a little home updating.

Our cabinets are old AF, and they looked it. They were a weird brown. I painted them. They’re now white. This took a little over a week, and though it was frustrating at times, it was nice to have some work to do where I could actually see a physical improvement.

I don’t think I’ll ever turn cabinet painting into a side-gig. But I’ll at least update our bathrooms, and lean into some more minor home improvement projects. Hopefully it’ll be a good ROI on my time when we go to sell.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

When I was a kid, I used to watch this movie over and over. We had recorded it on a VHS tape, and I wore it the fuck out. A submarine and a giant squid? Hell yeah!

Then a few decades went by, and I forgot it existed. Then I had kids, and my son started talking about squids. Bam! I remembered my favorite movie from my youth, and of course it’s on Disney. So we watched that.

Man, Disney movies from the 50’s have some pretty adult themes. Like the Captain is about to die, so he orders his crew to scuttle the submarine. They’re all like “great! let’s all die together slowly from asythixation on the sea floor!” Seriously. That’s what happens (whoops, spoiler alert).

Luckily all that was way over my son’s head, and he enjoyed the movie. And I still enjoyed it too! Though I am going to read the book and see if there’s any more explanation about the crews motivation to mass suicide at the drop of a hat. I mean seriously, WTF?

There you go

That’s a few short blurbs of what I’ve been up to. It’s been good. Life is still not sunshine and rainbows every fucking minute. But it’s still mostly good, and definately better than when I was a sleep deprived zombie whilst working a crazy job. Guess I’ll keep running up that hill or whatever. 😉