Jordan and I recently went on a ten day vacation to New York City and to Washington DC. We had the best time and experienced so much! It was wonderful to have some time away together and even better, we rented a huge house with a group of my friends from college, and all had a long weekend together. It was just what we needed! It was restoring to be with people we care for so much and who know me so deeply. It was wonderful to get away, see and do and eat new things, and take a break from our everyday lives. We weren't ready to return when we did, and the day we came back, we realized we had made one very stupid mistake.
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Jordan and I recently went on a ten day vacation to New York City and to Washington DC. We had the best time and experienced so much! It was wonderful to have some time away together and even better, we rented a huge house with a group of my friends from college, and all had a long weekend together. It was just what we needed! It was restoring to be with people we care for so much and who know me so deeply. It was wonderful to get away, see and do and eat new things, and take a break from our everyday lives. We weren't ready to return when we did, and the day we came back, we realized we had made one very stupid mistake.
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Though winter was kind of rough for us in the tiny house, spring came early! We have enjoyed a major thaw the past month or so with warmer temperatures and happier living. We no longer are in fear of our water freezing or quite as concerned with our heat sources. We've already packed away our winter coats (though it may still be a bit premature for that) and are looking forward to a season of enjoying tiny living without constantly being in survival mode.
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Hot chocolate is my favorite hot beverage. I don't drink coffee nor do I like anything coffee-related or flavored. So that limits what I can drink as both a treat and to warm up. I enjoy herbal teas, I love hot cider, but nothing quite beats the creamy deliciousness of hot cocoa.
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Today I'm starting what I want to be a recurring segment on A Terracotta Life. Every month I want to write on the importance of Nurturing Nature. I think it is our most important responsibility as humans to care for the world around us. That includes the earth: water, soil, plants, and air. It includes animals of all kinds (even annoying insects!). And it definitely includes the people around us, especially ourselves. It is so easy to not think about all of these things or how they affect each other. We need each and every part of these ecosystems for nature and the world to function. We can't poison one part, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, and think that that won't have a chain-reaction.
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Well, I wouldn't necessarily say that this winter has been a particularly hard one. We have had worse winters in the past with lower temperatures and a lot more snow. But it also definitely has not been an easy first winter in the tiny house. Every day feels like WINTER VS. TINY HOUSE and we are constantly losing the battle.
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The biggest difficulty and the hardest transition for us living tiny has been our constant challenge of getting water. Our house is hook-up ready which means we have a spigot on the outside of the house that we can connect a hose to in order to have instantly running water. However, where we are parked, there is no water source to connect to in that way. We knew this when we decided to park here and realized that that would be a big learning curve to work through.
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I made a few different things to use for my Christmas decorations this year. The easiest and most fun was my felt tree that I hung on our curtains. I thought I took more pictures of the process than I actually did...but I will post what I did do and hopefully that will help anyone who wants to make their own.
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I wrote my Christmas Part 1 post in November and promised to have another part to show all that we did to decorate Lil Blue for the holidays. Even though Christmas and New Years have both passed, it's never too late to enjoy the season and some decorations.
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We have had such a warm start to winter here in Iowa, it's basically been a long long fall. Which has been nice and kind of a relief as we are nervous for tiny house living and what that entails during a rough and cold winter. Even though we have enjoyed the warmth and greenery, I was longing for a white Christmas and was certain it was not going to happen. Then we woke up on Christmas Eve day to the perfect big-flake snowfall and a couple of inches covering the ground. It was gorgeous!
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Merry Christmas everyone! My beautiful and talented friend, Mickaela, took some photos of us for our Christmas card this year. You should check out her new blog, shedabbls to see some of her work. She is crafty and starting her own photography business. Thanks Mickaela! We love our pictures. :)
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It is mid-December and we are finally finishing up getting Lil Blue ready for winter. Granted, we have had a pretty warm start so we haven't been too motivated to get things finished. It's hard to prepare for snow when you barely need a coat.
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Today is a dreary, gray, December day. It's been beautiful and unseasonably warm here all fall and winter so far. The fog never lifted today and it has felt cozy inside Lil Blue. The farm is still and quiet. I couldn't resist a walk with the hubs out into the pastures to see the animals. Some of the cats followed us around as we said hello to the chickens, were startled by the old-man-cough of a goat, watched the sheep bury their heads in hay, marveled at the always beautiful horses, and laughed at the huge boogers coming out of the cows' noses.
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I’ve mentioned before that my husband and I live in a tiny house. I still need to go through the history and journey that led us to this life but I will wait until another day for that. This blog isn’t going to be only about our tiny house, though that will obviously be a lot of what I write about. It’s our life, and it’s strange and new and different and exciting for us so it’s often on my mind to share with others.
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OK peeps, I can’t keep putting it off. The thing I have most dreaded writing has been what is supposed to be the “first” blog post---the “let me introduce you to me and my blog” post. I have been dreading it just because I haven’t been sure how to write it or what to write in it. I’ve even Googled “how to write your first blog post” and it still hasn’t helped me! So, instead of putting it off and thus putting off the things I really want to write about, I guess I will just oblige already.
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OK peeps, I can’t keep putting it off. The thing I have most dreaded writing has been what is supposed to be the “first” blog post---the “let me introduce you to me and my blog” post. I have been dreading it just because I haven’t been sure how to write it or what to write in it. I’ve even Googled “how to write your first blog post” and it still hasn’t helped me! So, instead of putting it off and thus putting off the things I really want to write about, I guess I will just oblige already.
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Well, my “tomorrow” came and went and I still couldn’t conquer my second bird. Here I am, two weeks later, after sweating over drafts and drafts, still not sure how to start this thing. But, instead of trying to craft the perfect real “first post” of this blog, I’ve just decided to hell with it all, skip the rules of blog-land, and just keep writing something that may not be exactly introductory. So, here is bird number two. (If you aren’t sure what birds I am referring to, check out my first blog post here).
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I am a dreamer. I am an artist. I am a storyteller and a writer. But I am terrified to start. The blank page, the unblemished canvas always seem insurmountable. I teem with ideas, goals, fantasies, and yet when it comes to taking that first step, I find that I am so afraid of failure that I cannot even try in the first place.
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