These are my Momentos, short personal diary entries I write daily – since 2013 – and publish monthly. Some links are affiliate links.
1
Moving to Andorra is expensive. Many move here for tax reasons, but we’ll be on the hook to pay way more in taxes here compared to Georgia. We’re counting on it being worth it though. Happy to pay a premium for a much higher quality of life.
2
Trying to wrap up this deal with the estate agent and send them €1000’s yet they treat us like shit, as if we’re a big inconvenience. Later, trying to buy a €25 kettle in a store and they’re bending over backwards to provide excellent service.
3
Viens, gagnons le bord,
Où la source dort et
L’oiseau, l’oiseau chante.
Sous le dôme épais
Où le blanc jasmin,
Ah! descendons
Ensemble!
4
Our new place is completely unfurnished, and we have to move in there in ten days. We’ve spent the weekend researching beds and tables and desks and fridges. Never felt more poor, looking at the cost of all this basic stuff.
5
In there for seven hours today measuring everything, masking tape all over the floors and walls, figuring out what will go where. Exhausting work. Would have been way easier to rent furnished. But if we want this place to feel like home – and we absolutely do – then this is the way.
6
After constant headaches with real estate agents here, we were overdue a run-in with someone really good at their job. We met her today, a force of nature. People like her make me want to build multiple businesses and always be hiring, so I can get them on my team for the long-run.
7
Squeezing this van out of the underground parking, the biggest thing I’ve ever driven. No rear view, takes a bit of getting used to. My anxiety spikes a few times driving home. Have this beast for two days, for furniture runs.
8
Made the pilgrimage to Ikea in Toulouse. Realized when we got there how unprepared we were. Ended up rushing around the store looking at lots, buying little. We’ll need to come back next week.
9
Coming back over the Spain-Andorra border today, van loaded up with stuff we ordered online. We already paid tax in Spain, but we’ll have to pay tax for Andorra as well if they stop us. I’m almost through when a border guard yells after me.
10
That big Google update has finished rolling out, and I haven’t seen any impact of it on my site. That’s a relief. By the time the next big update comes around, I will have diversified my income so I’m not so dependent on search traffic.
11
The last six weeks have been some of the most hectic and stressful I’ve ever had. Juggling work stuff while moving to a different country, finding a nice apartment in a tough market, furnishing the whole place, dealing with the language barrier, spending a ton of money…
12
Words from Bruce Lee…
One of the greatest adjustments the novice athlete must make in competition is to overcome the natural tendency to try too hard—to hurry, strain, press and try to blast the whole fight at once… The body performs better when the athlete lets it go than when he tries to drive it. When the athlete is running as fast as he can, he should not feel as though he ought to be running faster.
13
There’s a €15,000 entry fee (per person) to move to Andorra. We paid it, felt it was worth it. Now they’ve announced the price is going up to €50K. Looks like we got in just in time. €50K a pop would have been out of our reach.
14
Moving into the new gaff today. It’s still fairly bare. I’m working from the kitchen and sleeping on an air mattress. It’ll be a couple of months before it really starts to feel like home. But it has the potential to be the best place I’ve ever lived.
15
Evening walk around the town and it’s easy fall in love with the place. Everything super tidy, lots of pedestrian walkways and community spaces, trails through the fields, flowers everywhere… I have to stop every two minutes to take photos.
16
A neighbor considers the rent here expensive. Makes me realize: I don’t really think of things as cheap or expensive any more. If I find it a stretch (or impossible) to afford something, I just think that it’s not for me… yet.
17
Got a parking ticket in Valencia. Wouldn’t mind but it’s apparently impossible to pay the thing. Spent an hour already trying to figure it out, lost the head a couple of times. Bugs the shit out of me when I let molehills become mountains.
18
Fucking hell, losing the head again over a little thing, almost punched a hole in the roof of the rental car. I reckon it’s the last several weeks of constant stress and little rest, catching up. All it takes is a tiny inconvenience and I’m left reeling.
19
Almost lost a bag at the airport yesterday as well, a comedy of mishaps. Now I’m back in Ireland, rambling around a musical city, stopping to take a few breaths and appreciate the moment. Feels like I can finally relax a bit.
20
Growing up in Ireland during the boom times, with great parents, been able to travel the world, still in good health, now earning good money, doing work I love, living in one of the best countries in the world… big picture, my life’s amazing.
21
Ever feel reluctant to go visit relatives when you’re back home but then you make the effort and you’re glad you did? That was me today, just wanted to stay in and watch kings and dragons, but it was the aunts and cousins that filled me up.
22
Last time I was home I reverted to my teenage self, got lazy and ate too much crap. I wrote out a document for myself after, a kind of SOP to keep me on the straight and narrow next time I came home. It’s served me well this trip.
23
I can feel the batteries recharging from these days of down time and few responsibilities. It was hard to sit down and do the work in recent weeks, but now I find myself looking forward to it again. One step back, two steps forward.
24
Getting more courses lined up to review. We’ll need to come up with a different algorithm for courses that aren’t primarily about making money. SEO courses, programming courses, social media courses… we’ll eventually review them all.
25
We get hit with some serious turbulence on this flight back to Spain. Feels like the plane is dropping out from under us a couple of times. I keep my eye on the flight attendant, and he seems relaxed, smiling at a colleague. So I guess we’re fine.
26
Twenty-minute walk across town to pay this stupid parking ticket. The Google Maps listing for the place has tons of complaints about a scammer at the door sending you to the wrong office. Sure enough, she’s there when I arrive.
27
Just looking at an affiliate program that shut down about a year ago, but they kept tracking my stats. If they were still paying out, I’d have earned an extra $23K since. That’s one of the downsides of affiliate marketing; partners can cut you off whenever.
28
You have to pass a health check to finalize your residency in Andorra. Which is why I ended up in the hospital this morning, getting an x-ray to make sure I don’t have tuberculosis.
29
Had to get the newsletter done today but forced myself to do a bunch of less-essential work stuff first. If I had done the newsletter first, I might have gotten lazy and arsed around the rest of the day, wasting that time.
30
Showing a friend behind the scenes of how we rate and rank courses at eBiz Facts. Seems simple enough on the surface, but there’s a lot of complexity there, put a ton of thought into it. I’m quite proud of what we’ve built, and eager to build more.