Early Retirement Extreme Forums

The police actually came out to remove a bat for you? Damn. Where is this utopia you speak of? Out here, people who call 911 are put on hold for an hour.

Apologies for laughing at your miniscule blueberry harvest. Sometimes good things come in small packages so hopefully they were tasty. And good things happen to those who wait so I predict better luck with your raspberries. Well, at least your potential love interest was honest about being married. ...

Preamble Very little of what I'm writing about today has to do with early retirement from a financial perspective or even a philsophical one. I'm making decisions based on survival and getting through this whole ordeal. I'm not in place where I can expend energy pinching pennies or DIY-ing. In some...

@theanimal: I'm glad you brought this up. DH and I been monitoring Portland (Oregon) closely. At this point, neither of us can stomach any more urban disorder so we're heading to the suburbs of Portland for at least a year. @Slevin: Thank you for sharing the blues. It raised my spirits. And you're r...

Uprooting In my last journal entry, I talked about our upcoming plans to relocate but not the reasons why. Nine years ago, we bought a beautiful old house with solid bones on a street lined with sycamore trees in a close-knit community. At the time, our entire neighborhood pitched in for private se...

In-N-Out is the absolute bomb!

@chenda: I have been involved with three soldiers. Two Iraq vets and one Afghanistan vet. The only similarity I can ascertain from this small sample size is that they were always on time for dates.

This IS an oddly transitional time of life. The identities and roles that we assume, that of being a child or a parent, remained unchanged for decades, to the extent that they seem static. Only one day it becomes clear that we have been ascending an intergenerational escalator all along and that sta...

Well, damn! Congratulations on taking such proactive steps and keeping it up! Especially the weight loss -- 37 pounds down is huge!

bridgebetween wrote: ↑

Thu May 25, 2023 12:11 pm

Theres a fancy burger joint near me... Five Gays .... it was rammed with people for 6 months ... now daily its got 1 - 2 people in it.

As a fruit fly, I would like to know, where is this amazing burger joint you speak of? And if this was a typo, you made my day.

Scott 2 wrote: ↑

Sat May 06, 2023 8:28 pm

Any ideas as to what might be happening? We paid $10 for this plant!

How are your tomato plants doing now? I'd probably go with theanimal's guess of sunburn. But the soil looks dry although it's hard to tell from a pic. Have you looked underneath the leaves to see if there are any pests?

From a couple months back. Chanterelle and candy cap mushrooms.

While vanity is generally not an ERE pursuit, there's something aspirational about trying to maintain a youthful appearance. Why? Why does this matter? Why is it considered better to look youthful? Please keep in mind that you're running into me during my cranky old lady meets Buddhist philosphy st...

My brain.

And a Wedgewood stove from the late 1940s.

@ertyu: That's a fascinating account of your experience. You describe it so articulately! What you mentioned about the intensity fading is similar to my experiences with EMDR. Very happy to hear it's worked well for you and helped you to achieve balance and emotional regulation. I've been done with ...

@IlliniDave: Hey, it's nice hear from an ERE oldtimer! I appreciate you weighing in with your experience. Happy to hear you got lucky with selling at the right time! Also, you make a good point that the sale price isn't the only factor - it's also important to generate momentum and sell the house qu...

Yin yoga will keep you spry! Try Travis Eliot on YouTube. His videos last anywhere from 10 minutes to 1.5 hours. I stretch for about 60-90 minutes per week and it keeps me limber. Maybe it will work for you.

Diy EMDR has been good. Involves essentially staying with my feelings and bawling as I move my eyes left and right. Ymmv, + the actual certified people want to discourage the majority of people from diy cowboy self-therapy, but for me at least it's been good. Do you feel tired after? How do you kno...

TopHatFox wrote: ↑

Fri May 12, 2023 8:49 pm

Made $1500 this week :3

Bought the $6 hotdog at Rock that Burger instead :3

There you go.

Which did you enjoy more? The burger or the dog?

I read your journal with awe at your energy, the sheer number of novel thoughts tumbling through your head, and your ability to articulate them.

I can relate to feeling defective or broken, but in the end I've told myself firmly that I am able to have healthy relationships with other people, so I cannot be alone to blame. @horsewoman: Thank you for chiming in. I wonder if it's pure coincidence that a group of us here has gone NC or if it ha...