Have you ever just been so fed up with the rat race of modern life that you just wanted to scream? Living in a house that is totally not the right fit for your crew, car payments, cell phone bills, cables bills, credit cards that are sucking the life blood out of you, working long hours at jobs that don't value you or the time you invest so the bottom line is always profitable. We were there!
I'm a gypsy at heart. I love to move to new places. EK, not so much. He likes to be settled in one place where he can put roots down. When we married in 2007, I don't think he really grasped that he married a gypsy soul. The second year we were married I talking him into leaving Colorado and moving to Arizona. He had lived in Colorado most of his life. Now, although Colorado is beautiful, I must confess I really did not enjoy living there. The bi-polar weather & high living expenses were two major draw backs. It just felt like a poor fit for us.
Buttercup was just 6 days old when EK got the transfer to Arizona with the telephony company he worked for at the time. The transfer happened fast. We only had 8 days to pack everything we owned and be completely moved. We made the laborious journey with 5 kids and 2 cats to start the newest chapter in our life.
We settled in to the routine that most families find themselves in these days. EK was going to work before the kids & I were awake and he would get home just in time to eat dinner, help settle the 3 babies in for the night and go to bed. I was a stay at home mom at the time and I was struggling. It sounds selfish, but I got no reprieve and I was spent. Our marriage was not in a good place and we had to really evaluate what we wanted. We knew that we wanted to be together so we decided to focus on the positive things in our world.
I decided in 2011 that I wanted to go back to school, something that had always been important to me. I literally tell people I went to Hogwarts. I enrolled at the Southwest Institute of Healing Arts to pursue my degree in Transformational Psychology and get my 200 Hour Yoga Teacher certification. Along that path I also became a Hypnotherapist, Reiki Practitioner & Wellness Coach.
In the study of Yoga there are principals that at the core are all about simplicity. Being able to see, feel & know the simple way of life. It was mind blowing for me and of course I would come home and gush about it to EK. The "Tiny House" movement was just starting to become a reality TV favorite. The dreams of young wanders broadcast for the world to see. A simple life with a small portable cottage, going where the wind takes you.... it spoke to my gypsy side..... A LOT!
Fast forward to October 2015. On a wonderful staycation in Scottsdale, the weather was perfect, sitting down by the pool watching the kiddos swim, chatting about where we were in life. (Knowing that my job in the international banking realm was coming to a rapid end & EK's firearms training (www.CevenTactical.com) was still in it's infancy) We decided to simplify.
We actually left our trip early. We got home and began the process of weeding through our S.T.U.F.F. We sold both vehicles that we were making payments on, cancelled our cell phone & cable contracts, and began the liquidation process.
We used the theory that if the house was on fire what would we save. By the end of the process we had a small 10x12 bedroom that now held everything we would be keeping out of our 2400 sq foot rental home. We opened the house for an estate/yard sell and sold everything we owned. It was amazing to feel so liberated from the weight of S.T.U.F.F.
At this point we also knew that the schooling system our kids were in was not working either. We sat down and had a real heart to heart about what was really happening and that our kids didn't seem to be as happy and there was so much stress that they were under. We knew then that taking them out of school was our best option.
We stayed with my parents for the first 3 months of our radical life revamp. We found an older 24 foot 5th wheel trailer and gutted it and turned it into our first "Tiny House". (Side Note: Arizona is not very tiny house friendly... yet.. so legally you can't live in a true mobile tiny house. In order to get around the legal issues you go the travel trailer route.) We have since upgraded to a 40 foot 5th wheel that we are in the processing of remodeling as well. Life is simple and we are closer as a family then we ever were before. There is magic in simplicity.
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