waiting…

its about all there is to do.  Since we realized we’re out of money, things seems to have slowed to a crawl.  We’ve mostly halted the studio remodel except for the contractors we’ve already paid to get underway- not much we can do about those already written checks, and at …

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urban nomads

The week since the ADU Tour has been a blur.    We have been hopping from house to house in between AirBnB guests.  One night sleeping in the bus, a few nights sleeping on the floor of the demoed but not yet rebuilt studio, a few nights back at the …

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Portland ADU Tour

the word is apparently out…  We had blocked out a week without guests in the garage so that we could wrap up some last minute items before the Portland ADU tour came through on sunday.  It was actually a good chance to test out that whole balance issue we talked …

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False deadlines and launch parties

The craziness continues…  The weekend saw us at exactly 29 days since we first stepped foot back into this creepy house and started knocking out walls in an attempt to make it somehow better.  Not long after, we had set the date as a false deadline for ourselves to be …

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Our Crazy Lives

It’s been one of those weeks…  One of those weeks where we spend at least a few minutes each day kind of checking in with ourselves and realizing how exactly un-normal we are.  It’s not all by choice.  We can still remember the days when we had “normal” jobs and …

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Time flies when…

pretty much always   Our attention has been focused primarily on landscaping the last few weeks.  Trying to find a dry window for our concrete guy (hopefully we still want to call him that after the forms come off) to build the frames for, and pour our concrete wall and …

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Hours in the day

There just aren’t enough of them…   Seriously, sometimes I just can’t figure out where the day goes. Let’s take a quick look at my life shall we? I’m unemployed,  we purposefully have no major commitments, we don’t really watch tv to speak of, and to top it all off I …

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Orizaba to Cholula

Traffic jams and shipping containers… We stop in Orizaba for the night and sleep at the Grand Hotel de France.  Makes sense in the middle of mexico, so we made sure to eat a few slices of the italian pizza in the courtyard.  The hotel is beautiful and was built …

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on money and freedom

and finding the balance… These days of long driving hours take us to places of deep conversation and deep thoughts.  Time to reflect and look at the past and the future.  Time to make concerted decisions and alter paths.  What else would we do when driving impossibly slow for hours …

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2014, Year in Review

Looking back so we can look ahead… Last year we stumbled over the “year in review” and learned a great deal in the process while looking back at 2013.  We thought we’d give it another shot this year before we look forward to goals and aspirations for next year.  After …

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Summertime flying by

I don’t think i’ve ever gone this long without a blog post since its inception.  Really not even a solid excuse for it either…just somehow busy.  It seems so odd that we removed 40-60 hour work weeks from our lives and yet can still find a way to be completely …

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Return to VAN

Since Jen’s return its been pretty much life as normal.  Whatever “normal life” means to us now…  I took part in a few more neighborhood meetings and tours, trying to do what we can to make sure our neighborhood develops in a manner best for everyone.  A difficult task in …

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Feeding the soul.

We’ve been hosting a lot of dinners lately.  Seems like almost every other night we are have dinner plan.  We are really enjoying the catch up with old friends as well as meeting new ones.  Since the Times article we’ve had even more people willing to stop and ask about …

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The Antithesis of Productivity

I’ve been spinning out a bit lately.   I think part of my deep reflective (but less-than productive) state this week was triggered by the Times article.  It was fun to read, and we were excited to get emails and phone calls from lots of random friends (many we haven’t …

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the Times

The NY Times.  So big, so global, and yet somehow they find our little casa.   After the excitement of our holiday weekend, we did a bit of beautifying back at the garage in preparation for a photo shoot. Somehow the NY Times stumbled over our writeup a while back on …

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Spring fun in Portland

Been a crazy couple of weeks.  We left costa rica feeling as though E was secure (and once again ours) but also concerned that we might return in a few months to have exactly the same set of complications and hassles.  Part of us felt like once E started up …

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2013, the year in Review

We were invited by a friend to attend a party for the AONC crowd last week.  For those of you who don’t know the AONC (we didnt), the Art of Nonconformity is a book (and website and now large following)  focused on how to change the world by achieving personal …

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the waiting game

we hit a bit of a pothole in the building process. Its funny that it would happen right as we are listing our bus for sale as it means we have ample time to sit and think and stew on the whole if it…but of course that’s whats been thrown …

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Thawing out

Portland temps have been hovering in the 20′s for the last 2 weeks.  Excellent timing for a couple of people who don’t really own cold weather clothing to be working in an uninsulated garage space.  We’ve been literally freezing from morning to night, which is...
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Solid Foundation

Work continues at the garage. We continue to meet/hire contractors and make difficult decisions.  The largest of which so far have been surrounding the floor.  As you know, garages typically have concrete floors.  They tend to be cold and damp- not exactly the living surface we...
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