This turned into a week of too many lost days – late nights, cold and discomfort, and alcohol stealing away days for recovery. It started with the return from my camping trip (day 120), then again later in the week with a halloween party (day 124), followed by halloween itself (day 125). The events were fun, but it was a little too busy for our tastes. Also, having to write off three days of the week to recover is not a desirable approach to life.

FIRE: Day 120 (10/26)

Gym, Spanish, not much else. I was in recovery mode today following the return from camping. JC and I went on a couple walks, and I took a nap. In the evening I cut my hair.

FIRE: Day 121 (10/27)

Today was a great day. I got an 87 sleep score last night and felt rested and ready to go.

My Spanish work was at peak performance. I was killing it in DuoLingo, and understanding a ton in Dreaming Spanish.

In the afternoon I got productive on things that needed to be done around the house. I made a Lowe’s run to pick up supplies. The task list included changing lightbulbs in two bathroom vanities, removing and reseating the toilet in the half bath that the flooring guys put in crooked, putting together a quick connect attachment for the car tire attachment on my compressor, airing up the car tires, and putting new blades in our utility knife. The one I’m really happy about is straightening the toilet. That has bugged me for over three months now because I see it multiple times per day.

I watched the nuggets game from last night. They got killed by the GSW.

FIRE: Day 122 (10/28)

After Spanish I started looking into “The Great Courses” available through our library. It has recorded lectures on a variety of topics. The one that caught my eye was game theory. I watched the first video, which was about the basics of game theory and how simple games can be a model for complex world situations (thermonuclear war, etc.). I think I can only watch two videos per month, so any topic I’m really interested in will require more in depth time outside of this platform.

Our sink faucet has been drifting crooked from repeated use and it’s connection to the base loosening. I tightened that in hopes it will stay put.

FIRE: Day 123 (10/29)

Gym, Spanish, ACA planning.

I received an email today from connect4health CO saying they need me to provide income documentation. At first I thought “ugh”, because it will probably be a chore to figure out how to show them what we will make in 2026. After going into their website though, they simply want me to enter a number and attest it is true, and it’s for 2027 not 2026. That will be easy enough, but I need to figure out what the $88K of 2027 will be. Once enrollment opens on 11/1 I’ll run their estimator tool to figure that out.

That email prompted me to begin determining our MAGI number for 2026. We need to have that nailed down across all income sources so I know exactly how much Roth conversion will be required to hit $88K in MAGI, to maximize subsidies. AI has made this task so much simpler than it otherwise would have been. I hooked Claude up to Monarch and was able to have it pull much of the interest and dividend info. I gathered other income sources and fed it to Claude and it is keeping a running ledger with a status on each item. We will have to finalize some of it when the final real amounts roll in at the end of the year.

I watched the nuggets game from last night vs the Pelicans.

FIRE: Day 124 (10/30)

Gym and Spanish.

We had a halloween party to go to tonight at our neighbor’s house, so I spent some time getting my costume ready.

The halloween party was pretty good. We saw some people for the first time in over a year, and even two years for some people. While it was good it was also a bit of a bummer in a way. Time marches on, and many of the stalwarts of that group now have small kids and are less involved. The rest of us have kids that are getting older and we actually are more able to hang out. That means we’re also getting older though, some of our bodies are degrading, and the enjoyment of parties is dimming.

That’s life I guess, and I’m glad that JC and I always have our own built-in one-on-one social circle that anchors us through it all.

At the party I was talking to a guy from the neighborhood who is a chief revenue officer at the company he works for. Even though I told him I wasn’t looking for a job, he started checking around at his company for architect positions. It was really nice of him, but I really don’t want to go down that road.

FIRE: Day 125 (10/31)

JC and I were recovering from our late night. I skipped the gym, and we kicked off BC’s birthday festivities. He opened his presents, one of which was a new scooter. We took him to the skate park so he could ride it while JC and I just walked laps around the skate park.

In the afternoon we started getting things ready for trick-or-treaters, for BC’s sleepover with his friend, and for AC bringing friends over to get ready for trick-or-treating. We had about 20 kids stop by our house, which is more than a typical year. BC and AC both brought home a decent haul of candy.

FIRE: Day 126 (11/1)

After a better night’s sleep and less alcohol, I went for a run this morning. Around 9am after I returned, we told BC and his friend no more video games. The sleepover came to a quick halt after that, which was expected, because his friend went home (next door) to continue playing. We don’t want to have anymore sleepovers at either house between BC and him, or to even encourage a friendship between them. The kid is super inappropriate and exposed to weird crap with no limits to what he does online.

JC and I raked leaves since it is going to rain soon. We ended up with four giant bags full, some of which were leaves from last year that the tenants never got out of the rocks and flower beds.

In the afternoon we watched the Broncos vs Chiefs and it was a great game.

JC and I ended the night reconciling the numbers on our October budget.