Jan 2nd I ended up back at the hospital due to another major bleed (the biggest one yet) which had me stay in the hospital for observation for 4 days (double my stay of last time). At the time I was quite bummed out, but instead of trying to just get through it, I decided to re-frame my thinking and make each present moment my friend (thanks to reading Eckhart Tolle’s New Earth at the time). And so I decided to think of it as a relaxing reading vacation with as much bed lounging as I wanted and some really good room service (the nicest nurses ever), though the food left much to be desired. And in the end I feel extremely grateful because 1) baby is fine and 2) this incident happened after our platinum health insurance kicked in. So yes, for the first week of working towards FIRE we probably spent about $3500 for our out of pocket max for the hospital bill, but at least it’s not the $7000 of last year’s bronze plan (ouch!). And in other news on the FIRE front, at least we minimized our eating out (yay for free hospital food), I didn’t shop (though I did spend time browsing what to add to my January list from the hospital bed), and we’re finally seeing the whole picture of our expenses through Mint.

This week we’re focusing on moving to Walnut Creek (that’s about 1 hour from our current home) and I’m busy packing (though I’m also trying to take it easy). It’s been an uber stressful time for us so please wish us luck that everything goes according to plan and we are able to make the move without a hitch.

And here’s another quote from New Earth to keep my (and maybe your) no-shopping resolve strong (and to hopefully lessen my time thinking about material stuff):

“One of the unconscious assumptions is that by identifying with an object through the fiction of ownership, the apparent solidity and permanency of that material object will endow your sense of self with greater solidity and permanency…The ego tends to equate having with Being. I have, therefore I am. And the more I have, the more I am. The ego lives through comparison. How you are seen by others turns into how you see yourself…You need others to give you a sense of self, and if you live in a culture that to a large extent equates self-worth with how much and what you have, if you cannot look through this collective delusion, you will be condemned to chasing after things for the rest of your life in the vain hope of finding your worth and completion of your sense of self there."