Dang 2018! Where did you go?!

Another year has flown by....it's hard to believe that it's been a full two years since living tiny! Some days I wake up and feel like it was just a week ago that I could reach up and touch that beautiful reclaimed ceiling. Do we miss the Pod? Heck yes! Do we regret moving on, starting a new chapter? Not in the least. Change is growth. And if you're not growing, then you're stagnant and dying.

I've placed a great deal of focus on that concept this past year. With every moment, life presents us with the choice to either learn and grow from our experiences, or to deny and decay. Back in 2012, I was feeling quite stagnant. I did feel as though my spirit were rotting. It was infiltrating all parts of my being and had become unbearable, suffocating, heart crushing. I desperately wanted more from my life...more from myself. I wanted change and I wanted to grow as a person.

Tiny house we toured at Fuller Craft Museum's Fundraiser

The tiny house movement was my answer. All of my top concerns and passions seemed to roll neatly into this way of living. We could have our own home, we could build it ourselves, we could afford a project of this size.We didn't have to wait for land, we could get our finances under control, we could live well below our means and still in harmony with the environment at the same time.

I remember desinging the framing of our tiny house on graph paper. The pencil shaking in my hand as I thought to myself, "Is this really happening? Am I doing this?!" And in each of those moments of intense emotion and self-doubt, a strong voice would come through, reminding me why I wanted this change to begin with. And through every new challenge, and every triumph that followed, that voice grew stronger and stronger. Some would call that voice self-efficacy. It is your belief in your ability to succeed in specific situations or accomplish a task.

Speaking to a crowd about our tiny house adventure!

Our tiny house experience launched me into a incredible trajectory of self-empowerment, self-growth, and ever higher ambitions. Every major accomplishment from this point foward, I owe in part, if not entirely, to the tiny life adventure. It has taught me to be bold, to believe in myself, and to look nowhere else but within, when seeking answers to what I should do next with my life.

Happy faces, we got to hang out twice with Ethan :)

I'm excited to share that, later this week, I will be doing a podcast with my good friend, Ethan Waldman, of Tiny House Engage, and we will be touching upon this very concept. More specifically, we will be chatting about how the tiny life often leads to entrepreneurship, and what that has meant for me. Go check out his page for updates on when the podcast will be posted!

And now, here's a slew of pictures from the tiny house events we enjoyed in 2018! We may not be living the life (right now), but we are still very much in love with the community and the way of life we created for ourselves during that time.

First night at THSC6 around the fire..

The "Women of Tiny" fundraiser event for the Fuller Craft Museum was a lot of fun. As one of the badass women of tiny, I had a great time speaking to an eager crowd, sharing our best bits of wisdom, and reminiscing about the journey. As always, Deek of relaxshacks.com put on a great event, chalk full of education, demos, and hands on projects for all levels to learn.

Our great little shelter for THSC6, built by campers in previous years!

Later in the fall, we headed out to our fourth year at Tiny House Summer Camp in the woods of Vermont. This has become one of our traditions that we truly look forward to every year. Not only do we get to spend time with our favorite tiny house friends, we get to meet new people with a fresh dose of zeal for living tiny. It always ends up breathing more passion into what Dan and I share with these great campers, and each year we leave with a renewed sense of just how awesome this journy has been for us. This past year, I got sick while at camp, so I was a bit bummed that I wasn't my best self, and wasn't able to pitch in as much. We still enjoyed morning forage walks, songs by the campfire at night, and yet again, some crazy fun random things too, like making a forge on site and melting beer cans to make bottle openers. Yep, Matt Gabriel, The Animal Man Survivor, put on quite a firey show at THSC 6! I recommend you come check it out this year!

It was the year of fire! Between flaming arrows, forges, and Palo's blow torches, THSC6 was full of excitement! 

Just a few weeks later, we went to check out the 4th Annual BIG Massachusetts Tiny House Festival, run by the amazingly accomplished Miranda Aisling Hynes. It was a great event, and we had lots of fun seeing many of our tiny house friends yet again! It was so much fun to walk around, checking out more than 10 different tinies, a slew of schoolies, and live music, local food, and many different presentations throughout the three day gathering. If you live in New England, it's an event worth checking out this year!

So there's the the 2018 tiny stuff in a nutshell. It fits perfectly, heh heh ;)
Thanks for reading!

The schoolies section was so cool! 

The Box Truck was hoppin the whole time!

Our favorite was the Fire House tiny  house! 

When It Rains, It Pours...In A Good Way

What a contrast from my last post! We went from not having much going on to a whole lot in the last seven days or so!

I'm revved up and ready to tackle a bunch of things on the to do list, so I'll keep the post short and sweet. I'm sure I'll have some rapid fire posts to break up and share all that we have been working on recently.

The Valley Breeze featured us in there April 15-21 issue. It was pretty cool to see our picture on the front page right at the top! We think Sandy did a great job portraying our message and we hope it inspires others to think about lessening their impact. Check it out if you can!


On April 16th, Dan and I presented (okay I did) at the 5th Annual Massachusetts Sustainable Communities Conference! We had a great time and a great group. It was really exhilarating to be surrounded by so many like minded people, and to have the honor of speaking was the cherry on top!

After the conference, I felt that familiar coasting feeling I used to get after completing a big demo for work. Between the Food Manager studying and certification and getting the tiny house presentation put together and practicing what I wanted to say- I was feeling the pressure. 


Then, the next day, what usually happens-- happened. I got a huge surge of energy and the gusto to tackle some nagging projects. I have been wanting to clean out and organize not only our closet, but our two main kitchen cabinets.  The closet just needed some vacuuming and tidying while the kitchen cabinets were a clean out and total re-organization. I was getting fed up with how we originally stored items in there. We have really fallen into a good rhythm in this tiny house of ours, and now that I understand our most common practices/habits, I felt I could organize the spaces more efficiently. 

This past weekend, we did some more long awaited chores and much needed yard clean up. Being spring and all, we wanted to do some "deep" cleaning. Which loosely translates to: let's clean some of the stuff that we barely ever clean. The toilet bench storage fit that bill. The wood shavings don't always make it right into the bucket, so over time, loose shavings build up. We emptied everything out, and swept out all the shavings. 


Through these cleanings, I actually found several useful items I had no idea about. HAHA I know, it seems impossible right? How could you NOT know what you have in just 128 square feet?! Well, even in small places, you can lose track of things. I was planning on henna-ing my sisters hair for her birthday. I had purchased the brown shade, but then decided I wanted to mix in some red after the fact. I was debating on ordering more henna. I'm glad I procrastinated there... I found a jar of dark red henna that I had ordered by accident quite a while ago. SCORE! While doing the kitchen clean up, I found two jars of a very expensive spice blend that I was just about to go buy on my next grocery run. In the closet, I relocated my stash of used gift bags/tissue paper (yep, really came in handy for the sister birthday), and a second box of contacts! I thought I was running out soon. 

This is only about 30% of what fits in there...

We also started evaluating all the goods we have accrued through the last two years or so. Now that I'm doing the entrepreneur thing (aka not earning money at the moment)- coming up with low cost or FREE solutions to our needs has become a seriously fun, cerebral, and very rewarding hobby. Our first 100% recycled build project is a bunny hutch. We want the buns to be able to enjoy some time outdoors during the day, burn off some energy, and hopefully blow away a bunch of hair. haha The less that falls off inside, the happier I'll be.

We rounded up quite a few goods from our various stashes. We will be able to create a deluxe double level bunny hutch for ZERO dollars. Yup, zero. We also have collected just about everything we need for our self-watering container garden set up- again zero dollars. I will have more posts coming up on both of these projects! 

Thanks for reading!
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Look at all the loot!