After A Week Long Send Off, My Round the World Trip kicked off with eight days in Maui visiting my sister Sarah who has split her time between Hawaii and Alaska for many years. What an epic way to start this adventure! There was mist falling when my sister greeted me at the Kahului airport on Maui a week ago, so she teased me about bringing the rain from the mainland. We headed straight for Paia where she presented me with a young coconut and a lei, accompanied by the chant for the gifting-of-a-lei.
A number of circumstances collided recently to compel me to move the Lucky Penny to my property in Walla Walla where I have a ground bound small house called Valencia Cottage. So on Tuesday trusted tiny house movers Linh and Stephanie Pham helped me move the Lucky Penny safely from Portland to my place in Walla Walla.
As I packed up recently in preparation to travel cross country in my Honda Fit, I did some downsizing… It was harder than it had been during my last couple of moves because this time I had more stuff. I’d been living in a bigger space…My apartment was a studio, but it was still about 6 times bigger than the Lucky Penny! I talked with several people about the experience and a handful of them said “oh my goodness, I need to do more of that!” So I’ve decided to offer a 6-week Downsizing Tune Up…
Yesterday, as has become our tradition, Isha and I went for a hike (this one urban) and recapped 2018 (what was good, what was hard, what we learned). We also shared what we’re excited about and nervous about for 2019. Since I haven’t been sharing with the greater world recently, I figured I’d share a few of the highlights at this point of transition and some excitement about the year to come.
This weekend Isha and I hosted our first dinner party for six here in T42. And it turns out it was actually trickier in our house than it had been in Bayside Bungalow, but we made it work and had a great time, too!Isha and I spent most of the afternoon Saturday prepping things up, using mostly ingredients from our winter CSA from Full Plate Farm and we had fun working in kitchen together.
I had a great time getting inspired by people in the Pro Session I facilitated on Friday and the Design Tips & Tricks session I presented twice on Saturday. On Sunday I really enjoyed picking the brains of people living in vans and skoolies and attending sessions like the Diversity Panel at the Village Stage and Courtney Carver's Project 333 presentation. I spent most of Sunday morning exploring tiny houses in DIY Village with new pals Kim and Stephanie, whom I'd met in my sessions.
Several weeks ago I was interviewed by Lauren Modery of Good Magazine for a piece on the true costs of building or buying and dwelling in a tiny house... She did a great job identifying the material costs, time costs, labor costs, and parking costs, many of which are glossed over when the media gets captivated by tiny homes.
If you're ready to take a good look at your Stuff, this e-course is for you. We'll address our relationship with Stuff, discuss needs and wants to figure out what really matters, set priorities, and evaluate our possessions. We'll identify old habits and clutter magnets and tackle problem areas in our homes. Then we'll develop organizational systems and new habits to reduce clutter. And the best part is you'll get to do this with the encouragement of other people who are embarking on a similar journey.
If you've been fantasizing about a small space of your own (whether that's a backyard cottage, a converted vehicle, or a tiny house on wheels), this course is a brilliant way to dig deep and have a great time exploring the possibilities. I hope you can join us! Please share with other small space enthusiasts who might be interested, too. The more, the merrier!
We're really excited to move into our new tiny house, T42, as soon as it's ready and create shared space here in the big house. In the meantime, over the past four weeks Isha and I have been composing a list of all the reasons we know we're still in the tiny house phase of our lives. We've made a handy reference list so that you can determine whether you're ready to transition from a big house to a tiny house (or know what to prepare yourself for if you ever need to make the transition from a tiny house to a "normal" American home!)
Isha and I are Creating a New Tiny Cohousing Community and once we got the keys to the new house we began our minimalist move... In the weeks leading up to our move Isha and I both went through our Stuff again. I'd been teaching another round of my Downsizing E-Course, which meant that my collection of stuff was pretty well honed. It took me less than 2 hours to pack the contents of The Lucky Penny! But since Isha and I both had our own households worth of stuff and we moved in together for the first time (after a year and a half of living in his and hers tiny houses). there was some decision making about which things to keep and which to pass on.
If you're ready to take a good look at your Stuff, this e-course is for you. We'll address our relationship with Stuff, discuss needs and wants to figure out what really matters, set priorities, and evaluate our possessions. We'll identify old habits and clutter magnets and tackle problem areas in our homes. Then we'll develop organizational systems and new habits to reduce clutter. And the best part is you'll get to do this with the encouragement of other people who are embarking on a similar journey.
