• About
  • Speaking
  • Consulting
  • Amber Hinds

  • Journal
  • Press
  • Contact

Amber Hinds

Voluntary Simplicity
/
July 1, 2011

Hallelujah and Settling In

Well, if I was feeling down yesterday, today certainly was the very definition of a new day.  Nora and I had a great time with two of our friends and their daughters this evening planning island events for World Breastfeeding Week.  There’s nothing like planning all kinds of exciting breastfeeding promotion and support events to make me feel like I’m able to make a difference.

Oh yeah, and there’s this:

Yes, Chris and one weekend full of a particularly large amount of dishes finally convinced me to loosen up the purse strings and buy a dishwasher.  And I’m glad I did.  Obviously since it’s small it can’t do everything, but by being able to put our place settings in here, I only need to do one sink full of dishes instead of two.  I don’t have to spend time drying and putting away in the middle of washing because we have more than our dish rack can handle; and I now have somewhat of a hope to have the dishes washed when Mr. T’s mama comes to pick him up instead of a sink and counter full of the day’s dirty dishes.  It’s wonderful.

But this really means more than just having an easier time washing dishes.  In deciding to spend the money, we made the commitment to living in this house for several more years.

When we first moved here, I thought this house was just going to be a stopping place until we could find something better.  It felt tiny and cramped, and despite having a great location for walking everywhere it had quite a few annoying quirks that really stopped me from thinking it was home.  It only felt like the best we could get on our shoestring budget and with the shortest two days to choose a house; I thought for sure that we would find something better by the time our lease was up.

For the past year, I’ve been religiously watching the classified for year-round rentals, and continually disappointed by the incredibly high costs.  With no yearly increase for Chris and most two-bedrooms above $1700 per month (ours is less because it’s technically only one bedroom), I’ve slowly realized that a quick move somewhere better wasn’t going to happen.  I did my best to decorate and make this house feel like a home, but it was hard to really settle in when I thought we might be moving again soon; I didn’t want to spend the money to fix the things that I hate about the house (like the laughably horrible paint job).

Chris and I spent time debating the length of time we could live here as part of the dishwasher discussion.  I didn’t want to spend that kind of money if we were going to move somewhere else (which would likely have a built in dishwasher) in a year.  The biggest obstacle to committing to this house longer-term was whether or not we thought we could have a second child in this (less than 800 square feet) house.  When we first moved in, I would have said no, but now I think we could definitely have two kids, maybe even two kids and an infant.  We measured Nora’s room and discovered that it is indeed big enough for a twin bed along with her amoire and dresser, and if you can have a twin bed, you can have bunk beds.

And since we cosleep for at least the first 9 months or so, that even allows for the possibility of a third child through infancy.  (No, we are not ready to have number two, but these are the crazy things I think about…I’m a Scrooge and I want to get my money’s worth!)  Now, I know that some of you may think a family of four or five living in less than 800 square feet is crazy, but I know it’s do-able…just Google “tiny house”.  And it’s totally inline with our commitment to living simply without extra rooms and things we aren’t using.

Plus, when you live somewhere like thisand thisand thiswho cares how small your house is?

So we did it.  We committed.  I planted a garden. We bought a dishwasher.  I might even paint.  It’s about time this place started feeling like a home.

TAGS:Life
1 Comment
Share
  • sarah
    July 8, 2011

    to make our house feel like home, we started tearing out walls and rebuilding…. is that normal?

    Reply

Leave a Comment Cancel Comment

Recipe Rating




Previous Post
Facing Failure (and Moving Past It)
Next Post
Saturday Surfing

Life Right Now

aucoeur

View

Feb 7

8 1
Open
I started a podcast with Chris and our business partner, Steve! We'll be releasing episodes every Monday on website accessibility and craft beverages. Check it out or subscribe at AccessibilityCraft.com.

#podcast #podcaster #accessibility #accessibilityforall #accessibilitymatters #accessible #a11y #WordPress #webdesign #webdevelopment #websitedesign #ux #usability

aucoeur

View

Jan 22

12 2
Open
It's that time again... Girl Scout cookies! And this year we have two selling. Help them meet their cookies sales goals by ordering online. 

If you live nearby, choose girl delivery and help get cookie boxes out of our garage... Otherwise we're going to be giving them Girl Scout  Cookies for birthday and Christmas presents all year.

Addie's link: https://tinyurl.com/2os3rmdy

Zara's link: https://tinyurl.com/2nev4fs3

aucoeur

View

Nov 30

15 2
Open
Bus stop selfie with Nora. This week she moved from her tiny charter school with only 18 eighth graders to the public middle school with over 200. And now she rides the bus.

The charter school wasn't challenging her enough, has a huge percentage of students who are disruptive in the classroom, and has been having trouble keeping teachers. Last year she loved it. But this year it was one thing after another, so right before Thanksgiving she and I went to go tour our neighborhood  middle school, and she immediately wanted to make the switch.

We've never had a kid in public school and I was nervous about how the transition would go from such a small school to a big one, but so far she's loving it and is glad she decided to move schools. It helps that she knows kids there already from her dance team. Hopefully she'll still be happy when she starts getting homework. Coming from a no homework school that may be a shock to us all.

aucoeur

View

Nov 16

7 0
Open
My three year old girl. 💕

aucoeur

View

Nov 1

11 0
Open
Halloween 2022. Two witches, a murderous cat, and a creepy Victorian doll. 

Zara's costume was my favorite this year - Nora did her makeup and she wore my flower girl dress from my mom and step-dad's wedding. She might have worn it better. 😂
  • Start Reading
  • Explore Topics
  • Get in Touch
  • Subscribe

COPYRIGHT © 2020 AMBER HINDS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Site Powered by Pix & Hue.