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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bouncing off the bottom

sometimes it’s a very short distance from high to low. In a few weeks where things seemed to be working out better than we could have planned them, it took us a bit by surprise.  Things recently have seemed amazing.  Our remodel project seems a success and has bookings, we …

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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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Hitting the Reset Button

sometimes you just have to know when to say when. This last week was one of those times.  We’ve been burning the candle at both ends and holding a torch under the middle for a bit too long.  It’s slowly been becoming more clear, but moving into last weekend it …

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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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Getting there…

We’re continuing to make/finish our home base.   Funny how it’s the little things that make your house (okay, our garage) a home.  When we were in the thick of this project we were making absolutely everything by hand.  I had grandeur dreams of that being true down to the …

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Final stretch Home

A lot sooner than we expected. We spent the next day driving around chico breaking our “new” engine in.  Stop and go driving, highway driving, fast, slow, stopping, starting, idling…you name it- we did it.  We actually know our way around chico better than most towns we’ve visited, and we …

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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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Between two worlds

Now that we know when we’re leaving it’s all about checking things off the list.  We’ve done this before.  Been through the experience of literally wrapping up life at home in order to take off for an extended trip.  We should remember the feeling.  But it feels as if it’s …

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Oregon Wine Country

We finished up our week away with a few days in oregon wine country.   It was a perfect getaway, and another chance for us to experience yet another small home. It’s funny how our time away from home also works out as “research” for zenbox.  While someone is staying …

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Marketing 101

The last week for us has been an interesting experience in local marketing.  The Serving up Style event was unlike anything we’ve done before.  We didn’t fit in exactly as most of the booths were interior decorators and we were promoting physical items such as furniture, the teardrop trailer and …

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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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Diving into the business pool

We’ve finally made the plunge.   I still cant say that i have a clear answer to the “what would you do if money were no object?” question.  Nor can i say i have a plan for how to change the world for the better, or any idea what my …

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Family beach trip

Our next AirBnB guest was set to stay through memorial day weekend…what better chance to get away.   So far we’ve been really pleased with how the AirBnB experiment is working out for us. We open our place up an entire month on the site, and once someone books a …

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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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