What. A. Cluster.

So, hey there! I apologize for the silence, but the last few weeks have been nothing short of insane.

The day before our lease was to begin, we went over (with the landlord's go ahead) to check the place out again. I wanted to make sure our area rugs and a few other things would fit. While we did that, Liam (my 3 year old) went out into the little fenced in area to play. He was digging in a patch of dirt with a tiny backhoe toy.

Seth comes in the other door and tells me the weirdo kids from next door are in the trees in the brush making noises. Brush and trees are on 'our' property. I go to head out the back door, just in time to see a rather large 12 year old attempt to pelt my son with rocks. Like, slunk all creepy out of the brush and began pitching rocks over the fence. I yell at him to not throw rocks at my child and then holler for Seth to go get the mom or whoever is home next door.

He does. Mommy dearest doesn't believe the sweet little angel would ever do such a thing, until my husband tells her I watched it happen. She literally told my husband to go home. Well, not ten minutes later, we get a knock at the door from the next house over. That's where the little shit actually lives. Again, no one believes this fucking kid would ever do such a thing, even though I SAW IT!! So, I email the landlord. She says "He's such a kind soul and would never!" And then she demanded that I go apologize to THEM, because the kid was "very traumatized over this".

Long story short, fuck that. We got our money back. I don't want to live next to some little psycho who would hurt a tiny child. Or those ineffective piece of crap parents. Or give money money to a landlord like that. I didn't call the police, but in retrospect, I wish I had.

In our scramble, we made a choice. We're going home. The Ithaca NY area isn't for us. We have had nothing but issues in the 2+ ears we've been there. Shady people. Everyone is holier than thou. And even if the very few people who are awesome were more plentiful, that won't change the cost of living being 3x what it is everywhere else in this part of NY. I get it, Cornell. Whatever. $1500 or more for rent? No thanks. It just ran it's course.

You can get these bumper stickers there that read "Ithaca, NY. 10sq miles surrounded by reality." Well, that's true. But not in a good way. I found that Ithaca is 10 square miles filled with people who believe they are better than everyone else, and would love nothing more than to tell you why.


So we are now on day 2 of our $575/month trailer, ten minutes from every member of my husband's family. Who I adore. My job, which I quit to move, affords me the ability to walk into any similar agency and be hired nearly on the spot. I'm already through 6 layers of background checks that would typically take a month or better to come back. And if it came right down to it, I could work a minimum wage job, or a couple part time deals, and still pay all our expenses on my own.

This isn't ideal. It isn't what we wanted. But, it's okay. And I can deal with okay. We're in a 4 unit little park thing. As soon as we pulled in with a truck, a group of guys rolled out of the trailer across from us to unload our moving truck for us. The wife of one of the younger ones gave my kids snacks and brought her own toddler out to play with mine. I've been greeted every morning by the neighbors. These are things I've NEVER had happen. Maybe living in this postage stamp sized town, in a trailer in a teeny trailer park, won't be so bad.

We move the rest of our stuff this upcoming weekend. Which is nice, because in our scramble to load up my dad;s truck and trailer after U-Haul cancelled our truck, I managed to bring no dishes.

We get the keys today!!

In 90 minutes, we will meet up with the owner of our little house and get the keys. I can't even fully articulate how excited I am. Our three year old has spent the last two weeks asking daily (sometimes multiple times) about when we're moving into our new house, why can't we move today, and so on. My mom was worried the transition might be hard on him, but he's as stoked as we are.

Speaking of my mom, she's awesome. We went yesterday for a visit that turned into her throwing together a bbq for dinner. She and my stepdad will be coming down Saturday to help us move. Mostly so Mom can wrangle the little dudes while the rest of us move furniture. My bio dad is supposed to be coming as well, because he has a large truck and a massive utility trailer that could move us all in one shot. I have a feeling he won't show. I feel like he has good intentions, but a weak follow through. And that sucks. But, he's nearly 60 and he's certainly not changing anytime soon. So if we need to rush down and pick up a u-haul truck for the day, so be it.

I wanted to share the furniture inventory of what we have now, and what is actually moving with us.

What's going:

Queen sized bed and frame
2 toddler beds
1 click clack couch (that needs replacing at some point)
1 wing back chair
1 desk
1 desk chair
1 folding chair
1 125gal aquarium and stand (where my hermit crabs live)
3 large pet cages (where the rats and rabbit live)
1 large sterlite chest of drawers
3 kid sized "office" items (2x bookcases, desk and chair)
1 book case
space saver dining table and stools (the stools slide under the table)


Going, but into storage is a 3 piece dining set that was a wedding gift to my great grandma in the 1920's. We could cram the buffet and china cabinet into the house, but I'd rather store it.

Not going:

Several shelves that basically exist to hold stuff we don't need or want
Crappy recliner
L shaped desk
Coat rack with bench
Table that currently holds the rats' houses


Eventually, we will be building a couch. I'm on the pallet trend. Shocked?! Me either. ;-) My stepdad gets pallets for free at work. Heat treated. And made from Brazilian hardwood seconds. The company he works for is based in Brazil, and everything they send up is on those. Specifically, he gets some that are thinner width-wise, but longer than a typical pallet. So my plan is to stack 2 sets of 3, bolt them together, shove them into an L shape in the living room and make cushions. Our only cost will be the bolts ($3), canvas drop cloths for the covers ($25), upholstery foam or even foam crib mattresses ($50-100), and decorative pillows if I should  want some. So, under $150 for what I think will be a really cute couch and storage option. I don't think that's a bad deal at all. We'll live with our crappy futon for a couple months at least, though.

I'm not sure how much other stuff will be going with us. I have the entirety of our four person wardrobe in that one Sterlite unit. Our winter gear is packed into a single XL space bag. I have 75% of my clothes packed up for donation or to give to a coworker. I just never wear any of it. And I'm tired of moving clothes I wear once or twice a year. I think my next post will be about the great clothing purge of 2014.



Hey, so 1200 people looked at my last post. Thank you! My hometown is Penn Yan NY, which you may have heard was really eff'd up by flooding a couple weeks ago. Photos and Stuff My parents were spared aside from some driveway damage. But a childhood friend of mine and her two children lost their home. They had to be rescued from their home due to the flooding, and it has since been condemned. They have nothing. I'm trying to setup a fundraiser, but have zero experience in doing so. Any tips?

Tiny House Path

If you're here, it's likely from a post I made on www.reddit.com/r/tinyhouses yesterday. We're not complete strangers to small houses, but packing all 4 of us into one will surely be an adventure. When my husband and I moved in together, it was into a fairly large apartment for two people. Two bedrooms, kitchen, formal dining room, huge living room and bathroom. When I became pregnant with my oldest son, we moved out of the hood and into the tiniest house we'd seen up to that point.

It was a converted carriage house. While technically two bedrooms, the second bedroom was just big enough to hold a twin bed and small desk. The bedroom we used help a king sized bed and dresser. The downstairs was an open living space, and tiny kitchen and bathroom. The pull to that house for us was a massive stockade fenced back yard. We LOVED that little place! And had we not moved for a job change, we'd still be living there.

When we moved to the area we live in now, we moved into the coolest little cottage community. www.boicevillecottages.com for anyone interested. Whimsical is an understatement. These houses are built with construction grade materials, sustainable, and the landlord is awesome. Plus, his wife is the lady who took over for Dear Abby. The issue for us is the price. We live near Cornell and two other colleges, and the rent here is obscene. This little place ran us $1400/month.

This is the actual cottage we lived in. That's our snow shovel. ;-) I know they aren't everyone's cup of tea, but I loved living in a lime green house. So fun.

So, we moved last spring from the candy shack to the apartment we are in now. 1200sqft. Three bedrooms, one bath, living room, dining room, and kitchen. All the rooms are spacious, too spacious in fact. I'm realizing as we go that we have been filling these rooms with nonsense. Toys that never get played with, things we never use, closets full of clothes we never wear.

Well, all that is changing. all of it. Because while our ultimate goal is to build our own home, our current goal is to simplify our life.

So there's where we've come from. And I want you to join us while we see where we're headed!