Material things.

January 19, 2016 / erin / 2 Comments

We’ve been plugging along these winter days 🙂 Some of us have gotten sick, and SOME of us (me) are hoping that we don’t catch the bug. Here’s hoping! And hoping you and yours don’t get sick either!

Recently, we attended a Tiny Home meet up here locally and had the opportunity to listen to the President of Tumbleweed Tiny House Company talk all about the tininess. 🙂 They also brought along a house on wheels that showed the different stages of building one. It was really cool to get together with a bunch of like minded enthusiasts and see how else others are doing it.

Overall, the meeting really just gave me some more inspiration and energy to keep this momentum going, and let it evolve into whatever it may. Once this “micro home” is done, it’ll be the perfect getaway trailer for camping or guests even, and hopefully we will be able to move one to something just a bit bigger. All the same, I’m fired up to finish this one!

I went to Ikea the other day (for the very first time) with my cousin to just look at different set up options for cabinetry, storage, and shelving to get a better idea how I would like the inside designed for our micro kitchen! Way to many cool ideas — and I had taken pictures of what I liked …. then my phone was ran over by a car… soooo… not anymore 😉 That’s just an excuse to go back and get more Swedish meatballs!

— oh, and the phone I’m using as a back up doesn’t have a fully working camera (only front facing) so we may lack pictures until that gets fixed. And geeze I didn’t realize how much I took pictures until I can’t.

Something I am learning….

To let go of the material things.

I have downsized what I own enormously… but I still have some sentimental items I like to keep. Not too long ago we were moving the trailer over a few feet from where it was located at… We have our things on shelves / cabinets that aren’t nailed down. — I underestimated the amount the trailer would shift during movement and I didn’t brace the shelves .. and everything crashed down. If it was breakable.. it broke. Everything.

I didn’t care about most of it breaking.. its just things. But I did have a few pieces I really wished didn’t. But that’ll just remind you that nothing is permanent.

Nothing lasts. BUT while it did… they were beautiful pieces to have!

Colorado the Beautiful *

October 25, 2015October 25, 2015 / erin / Leave a comment

I crave fall like some people crave chocolate. Cold crispy days that leave the tip of your nose red, running and just a little numb; when your cheeks are rosy and pink, a winter jacket is just too much but one layer isn’t quite enough.

I crave these days. The past few days here in CO has been what I’ve been dreaming of since last fall closed down for the winter to move in. I don’t even mind the rain… I am half convinced I could live in a place like Seattle with constant rain and I wouldn’t get depressed, but I don’t have any plans to move there anytime soon so we can’t know for sure yet. But anyways, the last two days have been steady with a light fall of rain, not to windy, not to heavy, fading in and out just enough so Ben couldn’t work and we could get out and explore CO some!

Our mission Tuesday was to head blindly into the Rockies for the day and just figure it out, as we often do when we do some “Sunday driving”. We spent a few hours on back roads winding and twisting and since it was bad weather we couldn’t see beyond the base of the hills and mountains to about half way up… still didn’t take away any of the magic. We came across some signs for a trail head about an hour and a half into the drive so we pulled off and went for a 3.4 mile hike. It was gorgeous and I was BEYOND ecstatic to be back in the mountains again. I promise my soul belongs in the mountains, it just does. So anywho, it was an awesome chilly day with a great hike, the rain didn’t bother us at all and the hike followed a river the whole time so that was pretty cool.

This was a pretty cool church we came across in the mountains not much else around but it…

On Wednesday we decided to head down to explore other parts of CO, so we headed southwest to the Red Rocks Amphitheater. That hike ended up being about 2 miles and was very cool! I didn’t realize (I don’t know where I’ve been) that CO has cacti and had some desert to it, the Red Rocks Amphitheater was full of red rocks obviously :p but it was really big smooth rock formations, and the amphitheater is almost built into the rocks. As you’re hiking along the trails you wouldn’t necessarily notice that there is an amphitheater there if it wasn’t for the signs, random parking lots and enormously big ramp to walk to get to the top.

From the top of the amphitheater, awesome views!

We could’ve used those two days “off” to work some more on the trailer, but we’ve been here for a couple weeks now and I’ve been just itching to get out and go! BUT, I have made some improvements on the trailer since then! I was able to find some individual stack-able drawers for our clothes! YAY! When I went to buy them, I went right back to the clearance spot where they were, and there was only 1 left! I was so sad, buuuut then I turned around and they just re-arranged the place J SO I got all 5 and an extra collapsible box so we have some more organization in our lives!

The white stack-able drawers are what I found to be useful to hold our clothes 🙂

My summer wardrobe (the little of it that exists) is slowly being cycled out and my fall and winter clothes are being brought into the trailer. Like I said… I crave this season so I am STOKED! We’ve had some cold nights so we’ve moved the electrical heater into the trailer. It looks like fan and it adjusts on and off with the temperature in the trailer which is very nice for those times we leave it on all night. As you can imagine it doesn’t take much to heat a small space like that, so that is an excellent feature… it does heat up like a sauna rather quickly. Of course that’s wouldn’t always be a bad thing as saunas are basically amazing, but not for sleeping. But EVEN BETTER the heater fan we use is a Vornado VH2 and we got it at a garage sale for $5. Ben insisted that it would be useful, and it has proved to be so far! WIN!

I feel like we are gaining some more order and footing in our lives. It’s a hard thing, change. I’ve said it once and I will say it a thousand times! BUT, it feels oH! So good when things start to chill out and the new routines start to feel “normal” again. (I hate that word, normal. It’s not a real thing.) But for lack of a better… “normal” is nice sometimes.

I picked the right Starbucks to sit at this beautiful afternoon. I’ve been writing this post for a few days, but the weather has been too awesome to stop and finish it. Now that I do, the sky is very clear, and I have a nice widow seat facing the snow peaked mountains in all of their glory, and my mint tea which is bomb.

The mountains are beautiful today, I may have to go explore some more 🙂

**fyi. I started this post on a Thursday and finished it on a Sunday. So if it was confusing that is why 😉

Back in Business.

October 15, 2015October 15, 2015 / erin / Leave a comment

So I’ve been gone for a while.

My family had to say goodbye to my Grandmother so I drove “home” for a little over a week. With all the change going on, I felt the need to have some familiarity back in my life, so it was a very nice trip spent with family and my nieces and nephews I don’t get to see on a regular basis. Prior to heading to Illinois I was with Ben on a job out-of-town for about a week… He was able to fly to Chicago for the service and drive back to Colorado with me. The drive wasn’t all that bad, especially since we have some friends who live exactly halfway so it’s always a good excuse to stop in and stay awhile 🙂 (The drive there all by myself was all that bad. It really was.)

Needless to say not a whole lot of work went into the trailer while we were gone.

HOWEVER.

The best part is that it actually felt like coming home when we got back. That familiar feeling of coziness, and I am so happy. When change is constant it seems easy for me to get down because there is nothing really familiar for me, but having even a tiny space, and my items filling that space, is familiar enough for me. 🙂

Until we get the walls done, we are limited to what we can really do for storage. We have several options we’re looking into that I am very excited about. BUT in the meantime we NEED something that has a little more organization. It KILLS me that we may get something only to not use it after a short time because the permanent structures will be put in and our temporary set ups will no longer be needed. But what we have now (a tall shelf and an end table that holds storage in the inside) was already around us for a few years (and bought second-hand) and anything else we may get will be useful for our storage locker so it’s not all a waste. I don’t like being wasteful so everything we have or will get I try to use and re-use if possible.

This is our current storage situation. This shelf was bought from a thrift store for $5 when we first moved to Washington 2 years ago. I’ve tried to get rid of it because it’s not the cutest, but it’s proved to be very practical and has paid for itself over and over again so I don’t even fight it anymore. I then bought the cloth storage boxes from Target on clearance so things have a place, and it doesn’t look put together so haphazardly. (If it doesn’t already)

The two black buckets (if you can see them on the shelf) are my “sinks” for washing dishes. So far it’s proving to be a decent system. Of course it’s more of a chore and not as quick as it normally can be, but we do the best we can with our current set up. I’ve gotten so used to the convenience of having everything right at hand, it has become a challenge to see what other ways I can get things done. 🙂

Where washing dishes are concerned, I just boil some water so its hot, wash in one bucket, and rinse in the other!

This is what we are thinking for a permanent structure for shelving. Something that is customize-able and is forgiving with change. I like the idea of everything having an open shelving concept which is great for when we’re parked, but when it comes to hauling the trailer around I don’t know how but something will have to be tweaked.

The next order of business for better living is something for our clothes. I am officially tired of living out of a suitcase. I’ll keep doing it IF I have to, but this weekend I am headed out to buy some simple stack-able drawers I found at Target on clearance. I’ve searched some thrift stores, but those are always hit or miss, and I’ve been missing lately.

When I got back from my trip I spent the whole next day getting everything in (better) order, and bringing out some of our things that have been packed away. This monkey I got for Ben when he was in the hospital. We don’t have any babies so he gets to come along with us and just hangs around. 🙂

I also love to have paintings or signs up around the house, so I was able to hang this very fitting sign (it was a wedding gift) up in the trailer by some bungee chords, and my dream catcher that I got from a farmers market in central Washington. (Notice my breakfast cooking on my “counter”)

I am looking forward to being back in Colorado and picking up where we left off!

The adventure continues!

dynomadic life

Dynamic Design. Nomadic Nature.

storage

Material things.

Colorado the Beautiful *

Back in Business.