Really excited! A little scared.

Today was real. Our backyard was torn up and new sewer and water lines were laid down. We have a fresh water tap out back now, ready and waiting for the tiny house hook up. And the sewer is all situated. I don't know all the details of what actually happened, but here's some pictures to give you an idea. This is our official first step toward the tiny house!!

PS- we returned last night from the tiny house workshop in Santa Fe, NM. Conor and Patrick say they learned a ton. The workshop was a classroom setting where an instructor (a woman who has lived tiny for 8 years now) walked them through the entire construction process step by step.

Clio, Joanie and I enjoyed the warm weather and the art scene. A very nice weekend indeed.

no idea. a big hole.

The aftermath. Those poles lying around were used to hold up the tent Conor put up for the after party for our wedding two years ago. sigh. They have been an eye sore for about that long too.

Clio Pea-O in Santa Fe

little cutie

Financial Freedom Perhaps?

Tension. Inching up between your shoulder blades, tightening your neck muscles, creasing your forehead. That was the general feeling during the talk given by a financial advisor yesterday at MOPs. Sure, there were the moments of joking and laughter during the presentation, but I would say the Q&A time was a little heated.

Everyone has a unique financial situation and some people were very open about theirs. It made me think about mine.

Conor told me (somewhat jokingly) about a year ago that he had always dreamed of marrying someone who would totally take over the bill paying, cash flow and money management. Let's just say his dreams didn't come true when he married me.

Our bills are something that I basically try to ignore. I buy the groceries and I try not to worry about the rest. I ask Conor for money for this or that occasionally. I know it sounds irresponsible. However, this tiny house has made me be more involved. We have been talking about our future and "where we want to be" in five or ten years. One woman at MOPs told me she thought our plan was "clever." And we think the tiny house is our key to a certain level of freedom.

Freedom from a mortgage. Freedom to pay back debt. Freedom from a massive utility bill because our house is 100 years old and leaks energy-literally. Freedom to live wherever we choose...whenever we choose because the tiny house has wheels. Freedom to give more. All for the price of living in close quarters with a lot less.

I can't wait.

The Backyard Project

My wonderful mother-in-law, Joanie, drew up this map of what she thought would be a good layout for the backyard, and we like her ideas. It shows where we will park the tiny house, and some other nice little touches like grass, plants, and two new patios- one for each house. Oh yeah, my in-laws are going to rent our big house! 

I may have mentioned cutting the yard in half with a privacy fence before, but now we are thinking it would be nicer (and less expensive) to have it all open. Clio will be able to trot down the stone steps to Grandma's house whenever she wants... or whenever we need a babysitter. We are reusing all the materials we already have from our previous landscaping so it's really a matter of pushing the dirt around, so I have been told.

The space on the left is the driveway and access for the trailer bed on which we will build our house.

We may change our minds about where exactly the patio and the grass will go, but this is a great start.  And now back to the bit about my in-laws renting our house...

They are currently renting in an apartment complex and that lease ends in July. We were going to look for renters, but who could be better than people we already know and love? I feel like this is a great way for us to help each other out. They are really doing us a favor by renting the big house. 

Conor and I talked about this a lot and we decided that we are meant to have close relationships with one another. Love your neighbor like you love yourself? How about your family? Parents who dote on you, are proud of their son, who love their grand-baby to pieces, and who would like nothing better than to live next door? There's no time for "arms-length" relationships, and I expect it will get messy and hard sometimes but I don't think we're here to be perfect.

If you want to see the house we are going to build click HERE.

Tiny House Transition

I jotted down these thoughts last November (2011) when we were cleaning out the closets. I never posted it because honestly, I wasn't completely sold on the tiny house at that point. I thought it was a good idea but I didn't know yet if we were actually going to do it.


Challenges of skimming down on clothing:
1. Pregnancy
Since I plan on having another child, there are some clothes I want to keep for the various stages of my body. I am still reserving a selection of underclothes for when I shrink back to normal...someday.
2. Sentimentals
I have all these old shirts from track and cross country teams at school, student council etc. Do I save these and use them as my workout clothes? How many shirts do I really need for working out? I'm down to 5 long and 5 short sleeve cotton shirts, and then a couple synthetics. This is hard for me.


I am donating 18 pairs of shoes. The crazy part is that I don't wear any of them. Maybe once or twice a year for a couple of them but others, almost never.


*Just watched a 60 Minutes segment on homeless children in the U.S. then came back upstairs with renewed determination to get rid of all the extras in my life.

The Tiny House: It's Really Happening

We bought the plans for the tiny house today. Last weekend, my father-in-law pulled up the patio in preparation for our back yard re-landscaping project. We arranged for a place to stay in Santa Fe for the tiny house workshop where Conor and his dad will learn how to build a tiny house. I'm looking around, deciding what to sell next.

Our backyard, from the kitchen window. That's the dirt that was beneath the flagstone patio.

I guess it's really happening. Our quest for financial freedom, better stewardship, and building better relationships has truly begun. It is a big deal. We are changing the way we choose to live. We are admitting that we are not entitled to anything, especially that which we cannot afford. We are not in "trouble". We are grateful for all that we have been given and we want to give back even more.

Living in 117 square feet will be a challenge, but only because we have lived with so much more our entire lives. I'm excited about it, although I was not at first.

This is where we will park our tiny house once the ground is leveled. We will have access through the ally that's behind the fence. That's our shed/garage to the left.

Last summer when Conor first pitched me the idea of living in a tiny house I started crying thinking about all the stuff we would no longer have. I would just look around the living room and the couch made me cry, thinking of it gone. Yes, very silly of me to be attached to mere things, right? I realized that I was finding part of my sense of security in the items in our house. The dining room table, the lamp, the dishes (that I hate cleaning anyway!) and the list goes on and on....and on. A few months later, Conor and I decided to do a little purging. We ransacked our closets and donated or sold most of our clothes....the crazy thing about that is we still have so much laundry to do every week!

Our backyard. We will build a fence somewhere in the middle to cut it into two properties. One for the tiny house, one for the big house, which we plan to make available for rent.

We have a long way to go and a lot of stuff to sell. I have recently been having weird dreams where I am confronted with items that I have to choose from. I always have to give something up, usually to someone who needs it more than I do. I think I failed in the last couple of dreams because I chose to keep the best for myself. My subconscious is clearly not on board yet. But I suppose it's obvious that this won't be an easy process.

to be continued...

Just as Beautiful, Just as Precious

Clio and I went to the grocery store today. As I was arranging Clio's legs into the child seat on the cart, a nice lady who works at the store came over and gave me a red balloon for my baby. Clio immediately started giggling and reaching for it.

Seeing her so happy made my morning, especially after the last two nights have been spent stressing about her body temperature, not having the right thermometer, spilling liquid baby Ibuprofen all over my pillow at 3am in the dark, and worried that I won't be able to hear her after Conor turned off the monitor when it started making screeching sounds, randomly, sometime in the night.

At nap time I picked up a book I have been reading, and God is changing my heart as I turn the pages. The author, Katie, wrote about caring for the sick children who live among her and her family in Uganda:

     My heart really does hurt for them. But it doesn't hurt the way it hurts when I think one of my own children is close to death... Somehow, when it is one of my children, there is a bit more urgency, a bit more panic... I am not proud of this. I have held several children as they died of inadequate medical care. It was horrible and I grieved, but I promise you that I wasn't as devastated as I would have been had it been one of my own daughters. It's ugly, but it's true.

     It's just different when it's your child who's suffering. But should it be? This is what I have been struggling with. I believe that this is a normal human reaction. I also believe it is wrong. I believe that every human being on this planet is God's child, perfectly made and beloved and cherished by Him. I believe that His heart hurts, even more than mine does when my baby is hurting, for each and every one of the hurting, dying, starving, crying children in our world. So I have to believe that if my heart was truly seeking to be aligned with the heart of God, that I would hurt for each of these children as well. But sometimes, I forget. Sometimes I'm busy. Sometimes hurting for my own children just feels like enough. I believe the world says this is okay. I believe it is wrong. 

[pp.220-222 Kisses from Katie, Katie Davis]

Reading that, and remembering that there are thousands of children dying and suffering each day while I moan about waking up to give my very slightly ill daughter medicine that I just grabbed off the shelf while I was at the grocery store....well it makes me praise the Lord for my truly healthy, happy, beautiful child. And it makes me stress about those that are not healthy or happy, but are just as beautiful and precious in His eyes. And in the midst of my day to day comforts, I am so sorry that I would sometimes forget to care (as much as I care for my own baby) for those that desperately need my help. 

When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required.

Luke 12:48 (New Living Translation)

In a Poster Contest Frenzy!

Maybe it was my seldom seen competitive spirit resurfacing, or maybe I just needed to make something, or maybe it was the $500 and VIP tickets reward! but I entered a poster contest for the upcoming 2nd annual USA Pro Cycling Challenge.
Vote here!
Colorado Springs is a host city for the race (stage 5), so I spent every tiny spare minute I had last week and made a few posters for my town. My house was in shambles by the time I submitted my artworks, and I think my husband and my child felt slightly neglected in the process, but I think it was worth it, even if I don't win. I do need to thank my mom for watching Clio and Conor for letting me borrow the new mouse!

This is my personal favorite, and the last one I created. My brother, Adam, was my model (thanks, Dude!) on a sunny day the other weekend. We took a ride through Garden of the Gods and I snapped a few pictures, which I then manipulated for the final posters. 

                      

If you think of it, please vote for my designs on Facebook! 

It's very simple to vote and the public vote is going on now through March 30.