The Tiny House Movement

We bought our house in June 2009. Ian was just learning to walk, and Eli had about 5 1/2 more months to go in the oven. It was such an exciting time. I felt like such an adult as we signed the papers for our little brick home. I was ecstatic because it was my dream to have an all brick house, and Cole was ecstatic because he was able to make my little dream come true. We were also one of the first among our friends to buy a home, and that was kind of neat to experience, too. It went with the trend. Some of the first marry, definitely the first with kids, and now the first to have our very own mortgage!

The months continued to flash by, and more and more of our friends began purchasing their own homes. And as excited as I was for them...because I truly was. I get excited over everything...it was still hard to not feel kind of jealous. My cozy, charming, little brick dream home suddenly seemed down right small...half the size of everyone else's house. It seemed too old...50-60 years older than everyone else's. And all of those charming features? Well, they seemed much less charming and more frustrating or just down right ridiculous.

But it became quite easy for me to look past all of those things because this was our house. It had kept us warm in the winter, cool in the summer, and dry in the rain. It was filled with our memories. Memories of long days with just me and the boys snuggling and laughing and playing and nights with the whole family gathered around the table.

It's OUR home. Cole and I bought this house without a penny of help from anyone else, and I'm darn proud of that. When we were in the market, we knew we wanted a house that we could easily afford on one income. We were lucky to be ready to buy after we had kids, so we could see that our number one priority in a home was one that would allow me to stay home for an indeterminate amount of time. Had the house come before the kids, I'm sure we would have been looking for square footage or fancy finishes instead, and I probably wouldn't have had the luxury of staying home with my boys. In such an impatient society, it seems to me the days of the "starter house" are over, and we're quite the anomaly because for us, this little brick ranch will most likely be our forever house. I can't wait to host our Mortgage Burning party. About six months ago we refinanced the house down to a 15 year mortgage, and it felt amazing to knock 11 years off of our mortgage in a matter of minutes. But apparently I'm in a very restless state right now because despite being more than a decade closer to owning our home than we were six months ago, I wonder what else we can do when I look at our house and lifestyle.

Our house is smaller than the average American home but it's plenty for a family of four; it's 1388 sq ft. And I can honestly say we have a lot of wasted space. Our laundry room is 140 sq ft, the vast majority of it being totally wasted. Nobody goes in there except to do laundry. Why such a big room? The boys have also been asking to share a room, so next month we're working some new furniture into the budget to make this happen. Cole and I have talked multiple times about what to do with the soon-to-be empty room. We can't come up with anything. We don't want a playroom because we don't keep enough toys available to the boys to require a whole room, and I like having them play in the living room where Cole and I spend all of our time. We tossed around the idea of an office, but I don't want Cole and me to be on opposite ends of the house in the evenings. We have no idea how to utilize another 100 sq ft of house. How many Americans would feel like 1388 is too much house? My guess is: not many. But there are others, for sure.

Lately I've become absolutely obsessed fascinated with a new-to-me trend: The Tiny House Movement. It's all about downsizing, downsizing, downsizing. Living with minimal stuff and very, very low expenses. The freedom you get from the lack of financial obligations allows you to do so much more living and less existing. (<--My words. I don't know that any THM followers actually phrase it like this). I love the idea so much. We could sell our house and build our own small (I can't go all the way down to 100ish sq ft) house...be mortgage free, have more money to travel or for continuing education. Last night I tried to pitch it to Cole, and while he, too, finds it very interesting, he's not that into the idea. I think it's his engineering mind...which bought this lovely little brick house in the first place, and, of course, his concern for taking care of his family well.

So for now jumping on the Tiny House Movement wagon (quite literally, as many are built on car trailer frames) will have to wait. I just live my simple life dream in my thoughts.

We sell our stuff, build a small cottage with our own hands on my parents' farm, decide to home-school the boys and become professional hobos, writing as we go to support ourselves. We travel the entire world while teaching language and math on beaches and mountain tops or while riding the train between cities and villages. Coming back to our cozy cottage to rest and catch-up with family and friends between adventures. Our bookshelves are brimming with photo albums full of pictures from our experiences in dozens upon dozens of countries. The well worn soles of our shoes, resting on a reclaimed wood floor warmed by a gentle fire in the wood burning stove, just waiting to make contact with the soil of another new and exciting country to discover. Ah, if only it was really that simple...

The Loring - My Dream Cottage

Or how about The Whidbey?

The Power of Early Detection

Initially, I was not going to share this story on the blog. It wasn't even a consideration. I prefer to keep the blog pretty superficial. I like for it to be full of stories that are happy memories that aren't filled with really personal details. This story is very personal, and quite frankly, it's nobody's business except mine and my family's. But, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that my story and my experience could actually be the encouragement or nudge other women might need to take preventative medicine seriously. We are so lucky to live in a time and a place where mammograms are available, and yet, there are still women who don't get them on a regular basis. So, if you've been reluctant to schedule an appointment to get squished or someone you love has been putting it off, please, please, please keep reading and share this story with anyone and everyone. It all comes down to the old adage: "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

At the end of September I began having regular chest pains in the left half of my chest. I couldn't really tell if the pain was internal or external. All I knew was it hurt! After about three weeks of pain, I went to the doctor. He asked all the normal questions; I gave all the answers I could. Ultimately, the doctor believed the pain was from inflammation where my ribs connect with the cartilage on my sternum. He guessed that it became inflamed from spending so many hours on my bike getting ready for the 43 mile bike ride I did at the end of September. He was pretty certain it was nothing cardiac related because I had just completed a 43 mile bike ride and someone with a weak heart probably wouldn't be able to do that. I was happy to have a diagnosis and left.

Well, things didn't get any better. In fact they just got worse. So on November 14th I went back to the doctor. This time I saw someone else because I felt like the pain was more in my left breast I wanted to see a woman. She gave me a breast exam and said she couldn't feel anything. This did not surprise me as I had just had my annual exam exactly one week before, and  that doctor didn't feel anything either. However, she told me I have very dense breast tissue, and she couldn't feel all the way to my chest wall. She thought the best next step was to have a mammogram. This was a little surprising. Even though I thought the pain was in my breast, I thought she was going to say, "Oh, I think you pulled this muscle" or something like that. I had JUST had a breast exam a week before!

We started talking about the mammogram. The Nurse Practitioner told me she wanted me to have a bilateral diagnostic mammogram and sonogram, and I started getting really freaked out. She wanted me to go to Mills Breast Cancer Institute at Carle Clinic. She told me that most mammogram equipment would not read well through tissue as dense as mine. By having it done at Mills, my images would be read as soon as they were taken so I would be guaranteed to have good images before I left and wouldn't need to come back. My mind was going crazy. I really did not want to walk into a cancer clinic. Just the word is terrifying to me, and makes my mom's lowest-lows come to mind, which was a far-from-average cancer experience, but it's the only one that I'm familiar with.

A week later my parents came up for my appointment. At first I thought it was a complete overreaction, but then I thought, "What if it was Ian or Eli?" and knew I would have insisted on being there for them. I appreciate that they were there for the appointment and waited with Cole while I disappeared at Mills for two hours on December 4th.

I had my mammogram and went to wait for my sonogram. However, the mammography technician came and got me out of the waiting room. She told me she needed to redo the images of my right breast. Something was showing up in the image and the radiologist wasn't sure if there was actually something there or if I had moved. She did two more images and sent me back to the waiting room. This was very creepy to me because the pain I had been experiencing was on the left side of my chest, not the right. Again, I waited for my sonogram, but the mammography technician came and got me again. This time she told me that something was definitely showing up on the right and the radiologist wanted magnified images of the area. She did three more images and sent me back to the waiting room. I waited for my sonogram, and the mammography technician came and got me again. This time the radiologist had requested images that would allow her to determine the depth of the "thing" in my right breast. She taped a little metal b.b. to my skin and did three more images. I went back to the waiting room and was finally called for my sonogram where everything went smoothly.

Now, I was under the impression that I would be leaving Mills with answers. That didn't happen. After two hours of imaging, I was told to go home and someone would call me with results that afternoon. I was totally freaked out by this point. I walked into the waiting room where Cole and my parents were sitting, took one look at them and totally lost it. They scooped up their belongings, and we all rushed away as fast as we could. I said, "They found something. I don't know what is going on. They said someone will call me later, but there is definitely something in my right breast." We left. We went to lunch and then my parents came back to my house to wait for the results with me.

After five hours of waiting, I finally got a call from a nurse at Mills. She said, "I'm calling about your results, do you have time to talk?" I thought, "Well, this can't be good," and was kind of right.

The "thing" that showed up in my right breast was a calcium deposit. Calcium deposits are totally normal. By the time women are in their 80's, their breasts are full of them. However, my calcium deposit is forming in a very peculiar way. It is growing linearly, following a milk duct. This is not good. Generally speaking, when calcium deposits grow this way, it is an indication of cancer. Ductal Carcinoma, to be exact. That's pretty freaky...especially at 31 years old. The good news was there was no visible mass or tumor that would be cancer. So, there were three possibilities:

1) I'm a weirdo, and my calcium deposits grow in a freaky way but are totally normal.
2) This area could quite possibly develop cancer in the future.
3) There were already cancer or precancerous cells in my breast, but there were so few of them that they couldn't be seen by a mammogram yet.

In order to determine which of the three possibilities applied to me (hoping for it be #1), I was scheduled for a Stereo Biopsy on December 12th. My mom took me to my appointment while a very dear and caring friend watched the boys. I showed up for the biopsy scared to death, but feeling overwhelmed by how incredibly kind and supportive the very few people who knew I was dealing with this were and still are.

Before the biopsy began I had to have ANOTHER mammogram because the doctor wasn't sure if she would even be able to perform the biopsy due to the location and position of the calcium deposit. Then I got a big surprise...there were actually two calcium deposits.

Now, I'm going to make a VERY long discussion VERY short. Trust me, this was a much more involved, in-depth conversation than it will appear to be. Here goes...

The second deposit was most positively identified as being vascular. Think Arterial Sclerosis or hardening of the arteries. The original deposit was still there, but the surgeon deemed the biopsy to be too risky since it was in a highly vascular region. She was afraid that I would bleed more than they would be prepared to handle in the biopsy room and would most likely have excessive bleeding after I went home. However, given the presence of the "new" deposit, it's location and close proximity to the original, and the "new" deposit being deemed as vascular, there was a good chance (more than 50%) that the original deposit was, in fact, vascular as well. So after a long discussion, the surgeon and I agreed to cancel the biopsy and move forward with mammograms every six months for the next two years.

So what does this all boil down to? Well, I don't really have an answer right now. I'm not sure what is going on in there. But the good news is, I know something is going on in there and that's huge. I have the amazing luck of knowing that I have something that needs to be watched and monitored. The questionable area is so small and contained that if I go back in six months and things have changed, I'll have a simple surgery and be done with it. And I'm not scared anymore. I've had enough time to process the news that I'm not afraid of walking back into Mills Breast Cancer Institute because even if the worst case scenario plays out, I'll know that I took my health seriously and so did my doctors. And that will only continue.

I heard back in October that a mammogram can detect cancer TWO YEARS before you can feel a lump. My experience is such a testament to the importance of regular mammograms. I'd had two breast exams by two different doctors in the two weeks leading up to my mammogram and there was no way they could have felt such a small calcium deposit. Who knows how long it would be in there and growing before it could be felt.

My dear friend, who watched my boys and was a great support during the scariness of all these doctors appointments, has had her own cancer diagnosis and one night she said to me, "You might be the first of your friends to go through this, but you won't be the last." And that's so heart-breakingly true. I won't be the last. So, my most heartfelt wish is that everyone I know and everyone that they know and everyone that those people know will take early detection seriously and not take it for granted. Not everyone will be as lucky as me and find out so early that something, which could very well turn out to be nothing, is going on in their body. But, you'll never have the chance to be lucky if you don't take early detection seriously to begin with.

2013 In a Nutshell...or Ornament

We finally got to make time capsule ornaments for 2013! Although the tree was packed away in the basement before these ever made it to completion, I'm still so, so, so happy we have another year of memories encased and ready to hang on the tree year after year.

Up first, Eli's ornament.

Red School House - First year at his Montessori House

Owl - Participated in Little Sages Preschool in Spring 2013

Waterslide - Took swimming lessons for the first time and on the last day got to do the big waterslide

Putting Green - Got a Hole-in-One on vacation in August

Seashells - Outer Banks Vacation

Chicken - Chicken Pox

Bible - First year attending VBS

Lincoln Log - Lumberjack birthday part

Pail - Began composting this fall

And now for Ian's ornament.

Red School House - Second year at his Montessori House

Paper, pencils, ruler - Began kindergarten work at school

Water balloons - Backyard water bash birthday party

Bible - First year attending VBS

Cake - Golden birthday this year...5 on the 5th!

Turtle - Turtle level swimming lessons

Seashells - Outer Banks vacation

Pail - Began composting in the fall

Baseball gear - First year playing t-ball

All tied up with 2013 ribbon and ready to adorn the tree next year. Oh, and I bought two extra ornaments so I will already have them for next Christmas and we won't be making them after the holidays in 2014.

My First Paper Project!

I finished my first paper crafting project!

Quite awhile ago I saw this print on the wall of a Mom's Group member's house. I was instantly head over heels in LOVE!!! I adore every single teensy detail of this illustration. Words just can't describe how infatuated I am with this.

The girl who did the original illustration has an Etsy shop called The Wheatfield by Katie Daisy and I stalked that thing desperately waiting for it to come back in stock. Eventually, I got antsy and contacted her. She had to quit selling the print because of copyright laws. My heart was shattered. I wanted this more than I've ever wanted anything. I knew there was no way I could EVER come close to duplicating it because I have zero art skills and zero creativity, so I accepted that despite its ability to reach my heart like no material object ever has, I would have to live without it.

Fast forward a year and a handful of months later. It was time to come up with my first paper crafting project, and despite the fact that I could never replicate the genius of Katie Daisy's illustration, I realized the more important part of the print truly was the words...for me anyway.

I have mentioned it countless times, but Cole and I feel so strongly about making our kids' lives all about their experiences and not in any way, shape or form about stuff. Sure, it's cute that they have a few toys that they swear they will play with for the rest of their lives, but what's more adorable is listening to their bucket lists. So young, but so full of dreams. BIG dreams. They are completely fascinated by travel and have a long list of countries they want to visit and things they want to see there. Paris and the Eiffel Tower, London and Big Ben, Ireland's pastures, Italy and The Leaning Tower of Pisa and Rome, the beaches of the Caribbean, the mountains of Peru, a long train tour across Europe and on and on and on. (Can you tell we love travel books, Travel and Leisure magazine, and the PBS shows Travel with Kids and Rick Steves Europe?) They can't wait to zip line and hang glide and SCUBA dive (I'll sit that one out, thank you very kindly) and ride dune buggies across the desert.

This quote, and I am not into quotes, is more or less the perfect representation of how I want to raise my kids. "Tell me, what is it you plan TO DO, with your one wild and precious life?" That's what it's all about for me. "What is it you plan to do?" It kind of breaks down like this for me...

Who are you going to bless with your time, talent and treasure?

What causes are you going to support?

Where are you going to travel?

What customs are you going to adopt?

What are you going to learn about?

How are you going to spend your time?

Who are you going to share these experiences with?

So, with this in mind, I got a canvas (24x36) and painted it a charcoal gray, kind of like a chalk board. I chose bright, bold colors of paper with "wild" and "precious" being covered in glitter and made my own version of the quote.

I'm pretty happy with it. I like that it sort of looks like a chalkboard drawing. I wish I would have chosen a different shape instead of the green flowers in the corner. Perhaps the scale is just off...I don't know, but it just doesn't work for me. But this little baby now hangs over the dining room table where many a dreamy discussion occurs. I plan to get a variety of colored frames, fill them with pictures of us on vacations, doing exciting new things and surround the canvas.

Hopefully, when the boys get older they'll appreciate the fact that they never wore clothes from anywhere fancier than Old Navy and they never owned their own iPads, but by-golly Machu Pichu was a heckuva lot more impressive standing on top of it in their Target duds than it ever could have been sitting at home, wrapped in North Face on a high-def retina display.

New Year's Resolutions

I have NEVER made a New Year's resolution. I just don't get into New Year's. To me it is just another day, and I really don't understand the excitement other people have for the holiday, but to each, his own. I'm sure a lot of people can't understand why Valentine's Day is my second favorite holiday. On a scale from 1-100, 1 being the worst and 100 being the best, Christmas is a 100 and Valentine's Day is a 99.3. I just LOVE it! But, anyway, this year I'm making some resolutions that are sure to be valuable.

1. Read a book on my Book Club's list...don't just show up at the meeting.

My mom's group co-director has a burning passion for reading. This year she decided to put together a book club. I read the June book and the July book. Since then...uh, yeah...not a lot of reading going on. HOWEVER, I still attend the meetings. Basically, I participate (I am using that word very loosely) for the company. I don't try to trick anyone. Everyone knows I just show up, but I WILL read the January book. It might be the only one I read for 2014, but that's okay. Apparently, I don't like reading as much as I thought I did.

2. Continue my silent protest against songs that boss me around.

I love to dance, and that is why I LOVE wedding receptions. How often do you get to go somewhere and dance 4-5 hours straight?! After all of your friends get married, like never. A few years ago we were invited to 20 weddings in an 18 month span and attended almost every single one. It was a great run. I got to bust out all of my dance moves for hours at a time, and I was always in heaven. Until...songs with directions started blaring over the sound system. Talk about a buzz kill. I loathe songs that tell me what to do. I don't want to stomp my left foot twice or slide to the right. What kind of dancing is that? Crappy dancing, that's what kind. When I hit the dance floor, I'm about 99% sure that I look like a Lakers Girl under the creative direction of one, Paula Abdul. I basically black out and my muscles take over. If I feel like swinging my arms in large circles, I go for it. If I feel like shaking my head back and forth until I'm motion sick, I pop some Dramamine and shake it. If I want to gyrate all over like someone dropped a jar of spiders down my back, I gyrate until I'm on the verge of pulling a hammy. My point is, these moves can't be tamed, and I don't like some DJ and a bunch of people clogging up the dance floor interfering with my need to express myself through the art of dance. So, I will continue to sit down and look very surly when these ridiculous songs are played until they exist no more. Of course, these dance breaks can be psychologically dangerous for me as I often find myself wondering as I re-hydrate if, in reality, I look more like the Caddyshack Gopher than a Lakers Girl on the dance floor. But, I'm pretty sure these unfounded, delirious thoughts that creep into my head are just due to my elevated body temperatures from doing wide, lunging jumps while pumping my arms like I'm running.

3. Take my paper crafting to the next level.

Levels. I remember the first time I talked about taking something to the next level. We were in the homewares department at Macy's, and I found some giant cookie cutters. I held them up and yelled across the department to Cole, "I have to get these. They would really take my cooking to the next level." Cole gave me the strangest look and said, "Making pancakes...in different shapes...is what you consider taking it to the next level?" Initially, I was hurt. But, I eventually saw his point and agreed that maybe, just perhaps, my "levels" were spaced a little too close together.

This is going to be different! Every year, I spend approximately 16 hours, that equates to nearly 2.65 minutes a day, paper crafting. Yowza. This ain't no joke, people. 2.65 minutes A DAY! Anyway, after many, many, many holidays of asking, this year for Christmas Cole bought me...

A Silhouette Portrait cutting machine!!!

This was a totally rockin' Christmas gift! I spent, ahem, eight hours yesterday playing with it. The boys thought I was working, as in, doing things for my part-time job, since I was focused for so long. Not my finest mom-day. I had grandiose plans for putting all of my hard work together today, but it snowed and it's 15 degrees and I just don't feel like going to Champaign for supplies. By one o'clock I might not be able to suppress my creative urges anymore and load us all up in the car anyway. I can't wait to reveal the finished product. Oooooh, the suspense is killing me and I haven't even started it yet! Just know that this time when I say I'm taking my paper crafting to the "next level," I'm talking Cameron Tucker from Modern Family style.

Observe:

Cameron: Our adoption attorney told us it would be a good idea to make a photo-book to show prospective moms.
Mitchell: But he thought that Cam's version was a little to artsy, so we’ve decided to take a few rugged shots at the ranch to balance it out.
Cameron: I don’t think it needs balancing out.
Mitchell: Really?
Cameron: It’s called production value.

If all goes well, I can see my daily paper crafting average going from 2.65 minutes to, gosh, maybe 6 or 7 minutes. The boys' party invites should be totally out-of-this world fantastic (even more so that usual), and who knows what other creations of paper filled goodness I'll come up with. You might just see me on a Vistaprint commercial this time next year talking up the 2500 business cards I ordered to promote my paper company: "Crop till you Drop." Who knows? WHO. Knows?

4. Realize my physical limits.

This sounds like a weird one, but last year I spent a lot of time aching because of stupid stuff I did while trying to impress the males of this family. Like the time I tried to show the boys how to run and jump onto a sled belly first. That was a dumb idea. Not only did the sled move little more than two inches, the boys weren't impressed and for days my back felt like I'd fallen from the top of a four-story building. Mom=FAIL.

Then there was the day that I decided I would REALLY impress the boys by running through the house, essentially kicking open the screen door and landing in the yard where the boys were waiting for me. Yeah, well, this time the boys weren't even looking and when I landed something popped in my foot causing me to collapse to the ground and scream in pain. For weeks, literally WEEKS, it hurt to walk, wear shoes, look at my foot, etc. It was such a stupid idea that seemed so incredibly epic in my mind. Mom=FAIL.

And just last week I decided to test my athletic prowess (quit laughing) by jumping and touching the dining room ceiling. Cole missed my amazing display of athleticism and wanted to see me do it again, and since I was feeling like such a bad ass, I agreed. This time, however, when I landed I twisted my knee (the good one, not the one that sounds like crunching gravel while I walk) and was fairly certain I was going to need crutches for the next week. Wife=FAIL.

5. Blog more.

I remember when I first brought Ian home from the hospital. At that point I was just absolutely positive that I would keep detailed records of every single day of his life. Then I realized that I had more to take care of every day than just my baby. I had a home and husband and dog and MYSELF to take care of every day. I eventually started blogging when Eli was 16 months old, and it has been a great way to document the little and big moments of our lives. It also helps to keep our family connected to all of the people we love but don't get to see very often. Recently, I haven't been keeping up with the blog like I wish I would have. So, I hope to get back to blogging on a semi-regular basis. I love writing so it doesn't feel like a chore, but it seems that I always have other things that take priority over the blog. Hopefully, there is someone who enjoys reading this silly little corner of the internet that will hold me accountable. Time will tell.