Hello.... Is it me you're looking for?

I suppose it's been a while since I posted last.  Thanksgiving was a bit of a bear, as was my birthday, and the oh so lovely bout of "the plague" that my parents blessed me with.

So, I guess I should start with my birthday, as it was farther back.  Drove down to Springfield area to see friends and Avenue Q!  It was awesome.  I got to spend time with friends, experience new things (Diwali festival was awesome), and got a few very meaningful and/or useful gifts.  My favorite is one that I actually received today.  My wonderful, artistic, 5-year-old niece drew a picture of herself, and her sister and me, and MY sister framed it for me.  It's wonderful, and pure and childlike, and it makes me happy every time I look at it.

Thanksgiving was fun and exciting, and I got to make dinner for my grandmother.  I love that I got to do this.  Grandma doesn't get around as well as she used to (bit of an understatement), and cooking dinner would have worn her out.  So, I got the chance to spend time with her and help her out with dinner.  It wasn't anything particularly fancy, but it was cooked with love.  On Wednesday, I'll be going back to help her decorate for Christmas (apparently there are a ton of Santas needing to be displayed).

Speaking of Christmas:
I read something on facebook about giving gifts that align with the 5 hands: hand-made, hand-me-down, second hand, helping hand (donation), and hand-in-hand.  Apparently, this is from The Story of Stuff, which is an amazing website and community, and I highly recommend checking it out.  I'm trying to move toward more thoughtful, smaller gifts: things that I can make (and I can make a lot of things), but with two adorable nieces, it's been hard for me to resist buying them the nice things.  This year, there will be some "hand-made" candles (I had bought three huge candles last year or the year before, and when I moved, they melted in my car, so I'm melting them down, and pouring them into smaller containers and decorating the lids), some sewing projects, and probably some Heifer donations. But, mixed in, there's still the book store shopping, and online browsing, and, of course, the dreaded Wal-Mart runs.

Maybe next year I'll get better at gifting.  But for now: enjoy some pictures of Gingerbread Houses!

Mom always makes the dough for the houses from scratch.  25 years of gingerbread!

Molly's house.  Each kid had an adult helper, and I helped Molly.  The fruit roll up is a carpet, and one of the gingerbread girls is named Lady Gaga.  Last time I ever make a bad joke in front of a 5 year old!

Charlotte's house.  Amy was the helper here.  I think maybe she had a little more focus than Molly and I did.

Jake's house.  Last year, my brother's girlfriend, Lauren, made Jake a gingerbread space ship.  I suspect it will become a requirement from now on.

Mom's house.  She almost never decorates a house, and this year, she got to decorate a light house and a light house keeper's house.  (Another Lauren donation to the cause)

This is my house.  Kinda lacking in Christmas spirit, but I have an ecologically responsibly harvested shake roof, natural sandstone chimney, a rainwater collection system and organic garden, and a tilapia pond.  Off the gingerbread grid, baby!

William's house.  Since William lives in Maine, and the house didn't entirely survive the shipping process, we decided that Sandy did the damage.  At least they have a rock wall to help ease their pain.

Developments

So, for my birthday/Christmas present this year, my parents are paying for my ticket to a Tumbleweed workshop!  The one I plan to go to is in Austin, TX, and I will be staying in a tiny house, and probably biking around town once I get there.  I'm very excited!

My Birthday Present!

The guy who is running the workshop is crazy-go-nuts.  I'm hoping that I get a good foundation for my own build.  I'm still not sure what I officially want to do, but I think this might help me to clarify my plans.

I'm hoping that someone will be able to come with me, because it'll be more fun to not be alone, but now that Mom and Dad are paying for the workshop, I can really afford to do what I want.


On another topic: I've been working on some commissions for quilting, which is nice.  And the fencing club is going really well now!  We've had a lot of new students and many have come back! 

Next thing to decide: Where do I want to live?  I guess this really depends on where I find a job.  If I can't find a job in this area, I suppose I can go wherever I want.  Really thinking about the Pacific Northwest.

Daunted

I have been exploring my options for tiny housing.  I know that I should be looking at the next step, not 40 steps down the line, but the part that interests me is the building of the house, not the job to save money for the land, or the apartment to get out of my parent's house while I save the money.  There are literally thousands of decisions to make between now and when I finally finish my house, and I'll let you in on a secret.  I'm not really very good at the details.  I like big picture, and by big picture I mean, I can make a decision on the size, and the location, but siding, or roof shape, or windows just kind of give me anxiety.

I would have liked to have built my house to be 9' x 15', but due to zoning laws and the like, I would have had to have hired a contractor, or at the least had inspectors come out to make sure it was up to snuff.  While being up to snuff is not necessarily a bad thing, inspectors and contractors cost money, and my plans would have needed to be approved (not bloody likely).  So, now I'm thinking 8'x20', so I can put it on a trailer.  I like the idea of a loft, but unfortunately I don't know how to design that myself, and I haven't been able to find plans that work with my idea of what I want my house to be. 

I think maybe I've been going about this bass-ackwards.  I have actually drawn up the floor plans, and I'm deciding what furniture will go where.  Maybe this is limiting me in certain aspects.  No, I know that it's limiting me, because I know how I want things to look, and where I want things to go, but I can't find a blueprint that will accommodate that.  The biggest problem I'm running into is road clearances.  I'd like to have the bed on a loft, because it's a separate space, and I feel like I'm more likely to sleep better, and be productive if I have to climb to a loft or out of a loft in the morning.  But, I'm not sure how tall I can build it.  I don't know how I can appropriately pitch the roof, or really anything about it.  And thinking about it is giving me stress.

But, to give you all an idea of what I've been working on, here are my drawings of the floor plans.

(Ok, I have scanned in my drawings, but I accidentally scanned them in the wrong format, and I've been planning to re-scan them, but I'm lazy.  So, most of this post was actually written about a week ago.)

Another option that occurred to me today: buying a pre-existing tiny house.  There are a few in a friend's neighborhood in Olathe.  I wouldn't have to worry about zoning, and I could renovate it.  It doesn't allow me to do the whole "mini-homestead" thing, but I could do a small garden, and maybe it would be a good compromise between tiny house lifestyle and city living (or suburb living, as the case may be).