Weekend Reflections: 7/29/2018

Weekend Reflections: 7/29/2018

Sunday 7/22

It was a good day at work today. What? Working on a Sunday? Yeah. I’ve been picking up a few extra weekend shifts this summer to make a little bit more money. Since my wife is on a 14 month long maternity leave, we are essentially a single income family for the rest of the year (she was only paid for the first three months of leave). While we can comfortably live off of less than half my income, it’s nice to earn a little extra. Plus weekend shifts are a little bit more relaxed with the potential for more downtime.

During downtime I had the chance to catch up on my favorite blogs. Dr. Money Blog wrote a great post titled Life In The Rowboat. She describes how marriage resembles a rowboat and how a marriage can row smoothly if both partners are rowing in concert with each other and in the same direction. She also notes how it doesn’t work if partners fail to row together or if one of the partners drops a huge anchor or pokes holes in the boat. Dr. MB’s post is a lot more eloquent than my makeshift summary. You’ll have to read it for yourself.

Because she’s Canadian and her post contains an analogy with rowboats, Dr. MB’s post took me back to when my wife and I vacationed in Banff exactly 11 months ago. It was our first of two baby moons (the second was in Portugal and Andalusia, Spain). My wife was about 9 weeks pregnant, so we were still able to do quite a bit of hiking, rowing, and other fun outdoor activities. It was a fantastic trip!

Monday 7/23

Today I did pain management procedures. It’s a welcome change from being stuck in the operating room doing anesthesia all day long. One of the reasons why I enjoy my work so much is because I get to do a variety of things. Sometimes I do anesthesia. Other times I do pain procedures. Variety is the spice of life!

After work, I read an article by Joe from Retire By 40 titled Recommended Travel Destinations By Age. The title itself piqued my interest because I love traveling and at some point I would like to take my daughter on trips too. He outlines the best destinations by age from the perspective of the traveler. According Joe, for a traveller aged 0-10 years old he says: “At this point, you really can’t control much. You just go where your parents take you.”

So I guess we’ll take our daughter wherever we want to go. Easy peasy, right?

I don’t know. We’ll see. I’m still impressed that Dr. Linus of Dads Making Cents was able to take his daughter to India, Paris, and Hawaii when she was less than 2 years old. He indicated this in a recent comment on my blog and I give him major props!

Tuesday 7/24

To be (anonymous) or not to be? That is the question…

I can see why many bloggers (especially physicians) would want to stay anonymous. If you write about FIRE, it may not be the best idea for a physician to put themselves out there and announce an early departure. What would your patients, co-workers, and employer think? And if you disclose your net worth, salary, or anything related to finances, quite a bit of privacy will be sacrificed. It’s already a little too easy for the general public to look up specific doctors by name.

Meanwhile, other bloggers see the value in being not anonymous. Putting a face and name to a blog makes it more personable, relatable, and enjoyable to read. I totally get it.

After more than 4 months of blogging, our friend TJ at Half Life Theory chose to reveal more of himself (and beautiful pictures of his family) in his post Taking Off The Mask. He is a rising star and a blogger who has so many wonderful stories and valuable lessons to share. There is no doubt in my mind that this bold move will pay off big time for him!

As for me, I choose to remain relatively anonymous. At least for now.

Wednesday 7/25

Today was a long day of work for me. I did a 12 hour shift from 6:30 AM to 6:30 PM. When I came home, my 4 month old daughter welcomed me with a broad gummy smile (she has no teeth yet). It’s so adorable to see her face light up when she sees me. It makes all the hard work in caring for her worth it!

While on the topic of babies, She Picks Up Pennies has a 1 year old baby boy and she also wrote an interesting article today titled The Opposite Of Easy. As an educator, she recalls teaching a group of 8th graders that they shouldn’t laugh at another person who is struggling with a task that they think is simple and easy. It is a great lesson on empathy. She also points out that when a behavior becomes a routine, it is more likely to be perceived as simple. And before something becomes “easy”, there is often a hard and long process that requires dedication and execution. The process is often challenging and difficult, thus the opposite of easy.

Thursday 7/26

Speaking of educators, one of my best friends came to visit. He teaches at a high school in Northern California and is on the last two weeks of his summer break. He wanted to see our baby girl before going back to work. It was a lot of fun catching up with him. We cruised down to the beach in my Tesla, and I even let him drive it!

There were so many highlights today. One of them includes having my article on side hustles featured in Passive Income MD’s Journal Club 7-26-2018, which was totally awesome.

Friday 7/27

We took our daughter on a nice walk around the community today. It was nice chatting with our neighbors and seeing their toddlers and young children play with each other. My wife and I are the youngest parents on the block. Seeing the neighborhood children gives us a nice glimpse of what it will be like when our daughter is old enough to play with other kids.

Frequently I check out Rock Star Finance for some great content to read. One of the featured articles today was titled Surviving Traveling With Kids. It was written by Jenny from Living Life Loving Us. In her article, Jenny outlines very helpful tips for traveling with a baby. One specific section caught my attention. She said: “We tested out our first 8 day cruise with the babes recently and I have to tell you that it was INCREDIBLE. We got to see exciting new ports and explore multiple cities, but we always had a home base. You don’t have to pack and unpack, hustle to travel to a new place, or worry about ANYTHING.”

I was particularly interested in this because we may go on a cruise with our baby later in the year. My parents and siblings have talked about going on a family trip in the Fall for awhile. At first, I suggested that we go on a road trip through France. This was something that my wife and I really enjoyed a few years ago. However, the idea of renting multiple cars and driving the baby to different cities in France sounded less and less appealing the more we thought about it. With a cruise, everything is taken care of, making traveling with a baby potentially easier. It’s something we are definitely considering.

Saturday 7/28

Today was a big day of activities for our baby. We drove 100 miles north to visit my parents, who haven’t seen their grand daughter for several weeks because they were vacationing in Africa. My sisters came to see the baby too.

Baby was very happy to see everyone. Everybody in my family had a chance to hold her and make her smile. It was especially delightful to see baby giggle profusely at my dad who was making hilariously funny faces.

After visiting my folks, we drove to a birthday party. My wife’s childhood friend has a son who just turned 1 year old. While the party was fun and all, the highlight was seeing baby interact with my wife’s parents. Lucky girl, she got to see both sets of grandparents on the same day!

We are incredibly grateful that our baby is surrounded by a family that loves her so much.

Another thing that made my day was being featured in Frequent Miler, one of my favorite points and miles blogs. My article on side hustles was featured in their weekly recap, which can be seen here.

 

Readers, I hope you all had a great week too 🙂