Too Busy To Care

August has been a busy month already for my wife and I. I can't think of a weekend that we were last home. We started the month down in Ohio at what I believe is the largest Irish Festival outside of Ireland. I'll write a post or two about that another time. Then last weekend we took another camping trip (you should also keep an eye out for that post), and then this weekend we are finally home before we spend the next two weekends camping again.

Then August will be over.

Crazy right?!

We went out with my wife's family last night to a new Mexican (American-Mexican) restaurant that recently opened. I went with the Enchiladas Carnitas that you see above and they were quite good. The pork was tender and well seasoned. While their chips and salsa weren't my favorite, I would definitely go back to Mangos.

Tuesday we got a new roof on our house. If you have been reading my posts, you have likely been following this saga. They showed up early Tuesday morning and had the entire thing finished by about 5 PM that night. The good news is, they said all the boards underneath looked great, so I didn't have the added cost of $75 per sheet of plywood to replace the decking. I did have to have them come back out after the dumpsters was picked up to do a quick sweep with their magnets for nails. There were quite a few under where the dumpster had been.

They were actually really great about it and had one of their crew members out there within twenty minutes of me texting our project manager. I'm really happy with how it turned out. I'm not happy with the loan I now have to pay off, but that's a sacrifice we make I guess.

Now we have to turn our attention to new windows for our house. I'm still waiting for a quote from my buddy, but the neighbors across the street are having some new siding put on their house. I got talking to the guy who was doing the work and he mentioned he also does windows. I plan on getting a quote from him at some point.

Amidst all this craziness, I haven't really had much time to pay attention to what the markets are doing. Sure, I have heard the news that HIVE is now down below $.04, but I honestly haven't had enough time to lament what that might mean. It's just another one of those things that you really can't control.

I know it seems funny, but for me, all this stuff still feels a bit separate from the real world. I joke sometimes about it being "fake Internet money", but I've learned over the years to kind of separate it from my actual expectations of what my fiscal life is going to look like.

One thing I have been dancing with regret about is how I played the last true cycle of the crypto markets. I really should have sold my NFTs and paid off my house when I had the chance. All of these big home improvements have along with the absolute crap show crypto has become has me realizing I should have been considering the real world back then more than this online world that was supposedly going to give me long term passive income.

Speaking of the real world, I haven't looked at my traditional investments in a while, but I expect they are chugging along in the background doing the sorts of things you would expect them to do. I really need to sit down and talk with a financial advisor at some point. That isn't to say I don't have a pretty good handle on my finances, but as I inch closer to retirement, I want to make sure we are set for whatever comes next. I don't want to be in a position where I pull the pin then realize too late that it's not going to work and I have to go back to work. Of course I may go back to work one day, but I'd rather go back because I want to not because I have to.

The problem is, the state education employees retirement system is pretty complex, so I need to talk to someone who is familiar with it enough that they can give me some adequate guidance. Obviously, the longer I work, the more I can build my savings, but with that mindset you could be working yourself to the point you can't even enjoy it anymore.

I apologize, this post is a bit all over the place, but honestly, things just seem kind of funky all over right now. There is no clear path forward for this crypto thing. The hype and excitement is mostly gone for all intents and purposes. It's all just kind of "meh". Even some of my bigger side investments have closed up shop for a bit. I don't know if they will ever recover. I kind of wish I would have just put all my money in BTC at this point.

The good thing is, with a new school year starting, I'm probably going to be too busy to care!