A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Where are you and where are you going?
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IlliniDave
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstr

Post by IlliniDave »

Thanks, EK.

Coincidentally, I was intending to head up that way for a couple weeks next Thursday. Tuesday she's going in for a CAT scan to determine if/to what degree it has spread. I didn't know this until late last night, but apparently this is something that has been monitored for the last three years while in a "pre-cancerous" stage so there's a reasonable hope it was caught early enough to do something about. For what they believe she has the overall 1-year survival rate is about 80%, and the 5- and 10-year survival rates are just above and just below 50%, respectively. Not the greatest outlook ever, but things could be much more grim.

I have to say that suddenly I find myself much more motivated to get my "plan" enacted. It's a bit frustrating that it takes an external nut punch to realize I've really got more in the tank than I've been willing to draw on of my own accord. I was letting myself feel pretty smug about how successful I'd been in progressing towards ER over the last 6 years.

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jennypenny
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstr

Post by jennypenny »

I'm sorry about your mom.

Don't beat yourself up too much about not implementing your plan sooner. You don't know what perils awaited you had you done things differently. People always assume their life would be better, but who knows?

Chad
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstr

Post by Chad »

Sorry about your mother. That really sucks. Though, it at least sounds like there is a solid chance for her. As, Jenny said, don't be too hard on yourself. This will be hard enough without your own inner monologue being negative. Plus, in my experience it's easier and healthier to just forgive everyone of everything in these situations. This includes yourself.

saving-10-years
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstr

Post by saving-10-years »

@IlliniDave - hoping that you will have plenty of time to spend plenty of time with your mother soon. As I have found with my sister recently, spending time intensively one-on-one with people you care about (and have in recent years/decades seen only occasionally for short periods, or with other people around) can be liberating for both of you. Its very sad that your Mum's health is not looking good, but it sounds like you have lots of time together to look forward to yet. I hope that the scan shows better than expected news.

Yes, Chad's right - forgive everyone - yes, that includes yourself.

IlliniDave
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstr

Post by IlliniDave »

Thanks guys, I'm certainly not beating myself up over the fact I can't quit work and move home today. I can look back and understand there are things that middle-aged me wishes young me would have done differently without it becoming pathological. The biggest reason I mention it is things like this are a counter argument to the oft-given arguments that it is unwise to make aggressive financial sacrifices "now", that one should make "enjoying" their money a priority. There's a balancing act to the whole thing but what life has taught me is that the sooner freedom can be achieved, the better.

As I mentioned, this is something that has been watched closely in recent years so I think there's reason to be optimistic that it has not spread. So until something to the contrary shows up, I'm hopeful her odds are better than the "overall" odds. It all comes down to my pursuit of mindfulness--there's not much to do except to experience each moment in fullness and make the most of it.

DutchGirl
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstr

Post by DutchGirl »

I'm sorry to hear about your mother too. I hope she belongs to the lucky ones... But anyway, good that you'll be able to visit and hug her soon.

And thanks for the reminder to "get ready". It's very easy to sit back and relax.

spoonman
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstr

Post by spoonman »

I wish your mom resilience and luck. My own mother is starting to have health problems, it's been a wake up call for me.

IlliniDave
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstr

Post by IlliniDave »

So, Everything's on its Head

Spent the last two weeks traveling. We've received some clarity on my mother's situation since I last checked in here. The good news is the cancer is highly localized with no evidence of spreading, and the medical expectation is that removal should completely eliminate it. But, the surgery is pretty involved and she'll have an uncomfortable recovery that will take some time.

I did manage to take a few days to visit a remote corner of NE Minnesota on round 1 of my summer retirement home search. I've identified a number of suitable candidates from which I need to pick one. I don't think there will be a round 2. I'll be paying a little more than I originally hoped, but after repeatedly roughing out the numbers the increased cost is pretty doable. In the end I gravitated to some of the 'nicer', easier to access, places as a concession to the reality that as time marches on my ruggedness capacity will necessarily diminish.

I also met my "new" grandson for the first time :)

So much going on inside my head/visceral being that I have not even done my "financials" for July yet. That's pretty extreme for me.

I also have not been visiting the site much. Hope everyone is well.

I feel a big shift in the wind coming, just not sure how it's going to blow.

IlliniDave
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstr

Post by IlliniDave »

August 2014 Month-End

Q3 of 2014 has been a struggle. Spending quarter-to-date sits at about $5,600 which is high for 2 months. The driver was travel expenses. Net worth has grown by about $18,500 which has me on pace for the most tepid quarter since I've been keeping records. Invested assets have grown by $13,929 (also sort of meh), representing $35/month growth in ER income. The only bright spot is I managed to stagger across one of those nice round numbers in my investment account balance total ($600K).

I'm closing in on the purchase of my end-of-the-road Northwoods retirement "summer home" (cabin, actually) which will be a speed bump in the ER process. But I've looked hard at it and I should pretty easily be able to withstand having the money tied up in non-income producing real estate for a couple decades. It is fairly rustic, which should help keep my expenses low for 5-6 months out of the year. So while not producing spendable income, it will have a small positive effect on cash flow in the out years.

I haven't been visiting the site much. I hope everyone is doing well.

spoonman
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstr

Post by spoonman »

Congrats on surpassing the $600K threshold!

Even though you feel the other numbers you posted are tepid by your own historical standards, they are very darn impressive nonetheless!

IlliniDave
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstr

Post by IlliniDave »

Too Busy to Wring Hands over Money

I've lost some of my focus on squeezing every last penny out of every last penny.

We are relieved that my mother's procedure went well this past Monday. All the in-procedure indications confirmed the cancer has not spread and was successfully eliminated. The formal/detailed pathology report is expected Monday or Tuesday. She is reportedly recovering from the procedure at an unusually robust pace for her cohort. That's surprising because she is not the type to go out of her way to maintain her physical condition on an ongoing basis (maybe that will change going forward). It was something I was privately concerned about. Apparently she's got a lot of fight in her.

I wound up having an unexpected surgery myself, outpatient thankfully, for an abscess that responded to the customary treatment by flexing its muscles, laughing, and going on a rampage. The second procedure seems completely successful, but it was a temporary scare because the response between treatments opened the door for the possibility of more nefarious root causes. As it turned out, a simple abscess (infected hair follicle) which likely just didn't get handled adequately the first time. Very glad for my employer's near-cadillac (though not particularly "cheap" to me) healthcare plan.

Last night I came to an agreement on price for the future Northwoods hideout I've mentioned a couple times. Certainly not the most ERE-ish decision for me at this juncture. But I'm an "oversaver" and have what a true ERE-er might consider a laughable margin for error built into my plan. While that strategy over a lifetime means I'll be working until approximately age 55, it does allow for a few indulgences such as this. Should be under contract by Monday. And if things go amiss, there's a very reasonable expectation that I'll be able to recover at worst a large fraction of the money put into it (that market still has not recovered from the 2007-2008 crash, which hit it hard--clearly not buying in a bubble). So it's not like I'm engaged in frivolous spending. If I want to "justify" it, I can say I'm allocating a higher percentage of my net worth to real estate than I had previously. It would be more of a speculative exposure as there's not a lot of income-producing potential associated with this property. That's a pretty weak argument, ha, but it makes me feel better.

spoonman
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstr

Post by spoonman »

Glad to hear you and your mother's surgeries went well. It's amazing how an infected hair follicle can lead to so much trouble.

saving-10-years
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstr

Post by saving-10-years »

Glad that its good news health-wise and hope that the purchase of this indulgence-in-the-woods proceeds smoothly,

llorona
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstr

Post by llorona »

Thanks for sharing the good news about your mom!

IlliniDave
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstr

Post by IlliniDave »

Thanks everyone for the kind words regarding my mother. Every now and again things emerge in life that supersede our various day-to-day goals, and it's indeed good that sometimes those things have good outcomes!

IlliniDave
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstr

Post by IlliniDave »

2014 Q3 Summary

Third quarter this year was a roiling one. Both my net worth and invested assets decreased for the quarter ($4,800 and $3,100, respectively). In the next few weeks I expect to liquidate about $48,000 in invested assets to facilitate the purchase of my "cabin in the woods", and expect to make no investment purchases outside my 401k (just enough to snag the match) for about the next year. With reasonable luck I'll have the place paid for in 12-14 months, then be back on track building up my invested assets. As I pay it down, my overall net worth should continue to rise. I have a new mantra: "I'm modifying my portfolio allocation by increasing my real estate position". That helps me keep from thinking of it as purchasing an expensive toy. :)

I haven't said much about the place, but it essentially borders the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Northeast Minnesota. I can go out my door, down to the water, and paddle a few hundred feet to enter the park, and then if I want, keep going for about 8 miles to reach Quetico Provincial Park in Canada without even having to portage. The place is about 20 miles from Ely, which is an interesting little town. I think I'll be very happy there from May-Oct every year once ER commences. And in the interim it will be a nice vacation place for myself and my family. Closing is scheduled later this month and there appears to be no roadblocks.

It does sort of scramble up my neat and tidy little ER plan. I think putting myself under financial pressure is good for me--I was starting to get a little sloppy once I saw that I basically had the game won. I'm going to really have to concentrate on keeping things simple for the next 2-3 years to get myself back on track. So I'm on a journey to discover the next deeper level of contentedness for myself. In the last couple years I've pared away a lot of the clutter that gave me an ongoing sense of unease in life. Now that I have a more specific path laid out in front of me, I think I can refine my ability to wallow in the present. No better way to do that than to get out my bag of tackle-making equipment and tie myself a fresh set of walleye spinners for next spring.

IlliniDave
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstr

Post by IlliniDave »

Well, Friday I signed documents in the presence of a notary and wired off a gob of money. Although I'll have mortgage debt for a short time and official closing is still a couple days off, for all intents and purposes one could call me the owner of my little cabin on the edge of the wilderness.

It leaves me with a strange feeling. Strange, but good. Several people I know and have shared the event with react with some version of, "Man, how did you do that. I wish I could afford something like that." My answer is pretty simple, one just has to make a plan and execute it. Patience is the most important thing of all. I read an interesting essay by the guy who does the "Dirty Jobs" TV show. Can't recall his name. But he concluded the piece with the notion that a person shouldn't necessarily "follow their dreams", but should go where they need to go and always carry their dreams with them.

I suppose that's how it went for me. When I was eight years old I knew I wanted to have my little toehold in the Northwoods. But there was a lot of business to take care of in between. It took 42 years, and at times the dream was relegated to my subconscious, but I apparently kept it with me. It means I might well have to work an additional 6 months past my 55th birthday, but that's not the end of the world.

There's a strong sense of peace that comes from having what for me is an important facet of my future in place. The process has been highly distracting over the last few months, but I awoke this morning knowing I am again ready to descend into my mindful place. I have the perfect chores for it too--raking pine straw this morning then fixing a batch of family recipe spaghetti for noon (all ingredients purchased for 50% off, gotta love when that happens).

IlliniDave
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstr

Post by IlliniDave »

October 2014 Summary

October is usually my favorite months of the year. But this year it was difficult and stressful. The purchase of the recently oft-discussed cabin is now official.

Net worth is up $23,700 for the quarter, mostly an artifact of the bounceback in the stock market after the September swoon. Invested assets are down $72,000, reflecting a sale of some assets to fund the real estate purchase. Expenses for the month were high, $5622, reflecting most of the remaining cost of my ongoing home renovations and some of the costs of the cabin related to, but not part of, the closing. I have not folded the actual closing costs into my October expenses, but they would bring the total to around $8,000.

The cabin closed on Wednesday, and I've been in an amount of a funk in the days since then. As a defensive measure I've decided to re-immerse myself in my FI/ER quest. I've spent a lot of time repairing drywall wear and tear and applying primer. I'm actueally getting pretty adept at that chore. I like to stream music from a baroque internet station while I'm doing it, which tends to calm me.

I've calculated that the cabin will set me back 6-7 months in my ER. Initially I was good with that but once it became the new plan baseline, it feels like a bit of a nut punch. My initial reaction is to get ruthless about how I manage my life in an attempt to get some of that back. We'll see how that goes.

Definitely going through a period best described as ebbing.

Gilberto de Piento
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstr

Post by Gilberto de Piento »

Congratulations on the cabin! Sorry you're feeling down after all the excitement. Sometimes that happens. It will pass, hang in there and stay productive.

IlliniDave
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstr

Post by IlliniDave »

Re-Centering

I was watching a series on Netflix over the weekend, and during one of the episodes there was a song that dealt with dying alone. It occurred to me that dying alone is likely to be my fate. I imagined myself lying in the woods somewhere, unable to rise, looking up at the sky through the trees. Hemlocks. Swaying in the wind. It's odd that that momentary vision was so detailed. Fortunately the morbidity of my thoughts was short lived. But they jarred me into stepping back and taking a look at my situation.

My focus has been very material for the last several months. I find it necessary at times, I suppose, to attend to "business", but I don't want that to be the focus of my existence. The inherent problem I have is that my thinking mind takes over, and whenever that happens I forget to live. The concept is found everywhere from Zen to the lyrics of Rush: The future disappears into memory/With only a moment between/Forever dwells in that moment/Hope is what remains to be seen. Every time I stray and return, with each breath I consciously take, I find more truth in the notion that all of life happens now, in the present; and allowing my thinking mind to run rampant robs me of life by pulling me into the past or luring me into the future. Thinking is a useful thing that has a time and a place but I don't want my headstone to read, "He thought a lot about it." I simply want to live a fair measure of what time is still allotted to me.

All that might seem off-topic, but for me it is exactly on topic. What has made ER feasible and desirable is the emerging understanding of where the peak of my contentedness curve, or at least a relative maxima, is. The way I get there is to isolate and shelve the memories of when I have been burned (they are there in my brain's electrochemical soup, but they are not present reality) and hold thoughts of the future at bay. A Zen Master once asked the question, "What, in this moment, is lacking?". It's a good one. By making a pseudo-mantra out of that question, I learned my needs are far simpler and humbler than I once thought.

I've stumbled over these last months as I've looked to and made plans so that in the future I can find if not happiness, then contentment. There's nothing wrong with that so long as the process is not one of curing a (perceived) present unhappiness through some scheme for the future. For me recently that is somewhat of a fallacy because I lost my connection to the present which is really the only place I can be content or happy. If I don't wade back into the present, then that future I've planned will pass by while I'm unaware. And, is it not better to plan for a content future from a content present as opposed to distorting the present with past regrets and fears of what could pass tomorrow, relegating that future to some escapist fantasy?

That said, dying alone is not necessarily a source of anxiety for me. I'm a bit of a loner by nature, though not a complete recluse. As I've awakened from this thinking-torpor I've reached out to some people whom I'd let grow far from my thoughts, made a bit more effort to nurture acquaintance with my new "neighbors" in the far north, and even started dialogues with a person or two I did not already know (out of character for me, ha!). So there's no pity party or call for sympathy here. It is what it is and my mission is to embrace the "is-ness" of it, and to thrive.

So, this was a bit of a rant,directed at myself--a self-inflicted kick in the pants. If you read this far I commend your endurance. At times I find it helpful to spell out my thoughts on the page, as it were (supposedly engages 30% more of your brain than just thinking about it). I decided to put it in this journal for some accountability. And that's my thinking quota for the day. For the balance of it I'm going to make an effort to check in with myself and make sure I'm truly present in the present as much as possible.

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