The Waning Days of My American Maternity Leave

The days of sweet maternity leave freedom are nearing their end and we at chez Tiny House are now faced with the not-so-pleasant conundrum of trying to figure out what we’ll be doing with the babe on a daily basis come mid-August. Ideally the plan would be I stay home with the Little Bean and we eke out a living on what James makes sewing canvas or, better yet, I stay home and we oomph up our canvas bucks with money made through farming! Or I stay at home and write books in the twenty minute spurts of baby-sleep and someone somehow pays me for that! Either of those ideals could go down (maybe not that last one) but most likely I’ll be back at the REI, slinging tents and teaching classes, for awhile yet. I’ve had such freedom since she was born that it will be quite the change to have to schedule every little thing out and coordinate with so many people in order to go through our daily lives. The millennial Catch-22, of course, is that childcare is too pricey (I might as well stay home) so it looks like Hubs and I get to have opposite schedules for awhile if we can swing it. Cue stress! I don’t wanna think about it yet BUT I HAVE TO.

How I'd rather be spending my day.

You know every other country aside from us and six teeny tiny developing nations in THE ENTIRE WORLD has some sort of mandatory maternity leave? Every other country. Even the ones run by dictators and the ones which don’t let women drive cars and the ones which are basically one giant refugee camp. It’s nuts. The United States is the richest country in the world and somehow this is such a non-issue that 1. People don’t even realize that we’re the odd man out and 2. People that hear the phrase “paid maternity leave” think it’s some undeserved handout. Why would investing in a good start for children be considered a handout? How can we wonder why there is such inequality in our country when the only people who can afford to stay home with their child after birth (fundamental in child development, states many a study) are those who can do so without fear of losing their job or not being able to pay rent? I am “lucky” my job gives me 6 weeks paid and 6 weeks unpaid leave, and I put that in mega, very exaggerated air quotes, because I had been told how “lucky” I am to have that at least three dozen times. By Americans. My European friends are like WTF, six weeks??? How are you supposed to bond with your baby? How can you miss those milestones? Are you even feeling well enough to go back to work? 

NYT don't lie

Oh yes, this is another thing I should add to the ignoramus count above: We are a country that has ZERO IDEA on a culture-wide level of what it means to be pregnant, give birth, and raise a baby. I am a brainy 33 years old and had to study up, take a six week class, and hire a doula because I was never taught about pregnancy or birth since it’s not in our culture to go through that kind of thing together. So since no one even knows how long it’s supposed to take to form a good breastfeeding relationship, to bond with your babe, or to heal after birth how are we supposed to expect the dudes making our laws to prioritize that? A flashback to my awesome birth story here—do you REMEMBER where they stuck that needle and where I had that tear?! How can someone be expected to go back to work within a couple weeks of that (and, in the case of many women, within days)? So yes, I am lucky because I had a not-too difficult birth, a few more weeks to heal, and a supportive hubby and family around to be ordered around by yours truly for two weeks after Beancake was born. But that’s not the norm.

And since my “luck” is quickly running out, we’re in go-time to figure out a way to get me back home with the babe. If we budget like crazy we could do it now—the $435 house payment doesn’t exactly break the bank each month, though my bi-weekly Central Market shopping sprees sure do, but most likely I’ll need to have some sort of home-based income. My years of farming would certainly come in handy here but naturally we need some land to get started (Seriously…Do you have an acre or two in Kitsap you want to see full of heirloom veggies and sweet little Stapletons? Let me know in the comments below and I’ll give you as much kale and tomatoes and gratitude as your little heart could desire). When my internet pleas for vacant pasture land fails, there’s always the possibility of building up the catering biz, or going to a farmers market to sell something value-added, like homemade pasta that we make with eggs from our chickens and roll out for custies right there at the booth. All this stuff I could do on my own time and still have my sassy little sidekick along for the ride.

 Future noodles?

I’ll keep you posted on our budget plans and what scheme comes out on top in the short term. For now I will be pinching the pennies, preserving food we’ve grown for when the Little Lady starts on solids in a few months, and put all dreams of traveling with her while she’s still free to fly on hold. Fingers crossed the joys outweigh the money stresses! 

Zero Waste (tiny) Home

SHHH! It's mid-morning here in the mini house and Stella's snoozing away, allowing me maybe a minute or ten to get an entry in for you. I managed to cook myself breakfast and wash the spit-up out of my hair (will she get to brush her teeth today? Crap shoot!). During our 5am breakfast sesh (hers, not mine) I realized I wanted to write about James' and my Zero Waste goals that we've been trying to implement since pre-babe. In fact, I schemed up what would probably be four or five different blog entries-- our motivations to go zero waste, my low waste shopping habits, our baby's impact on our goals, what a zero waste baby registry looks like, the impact on environmental toxins on my life, adopting a Euro attitude and efforts towards the environment and the babe, etc. etc.-- but let's be real, finishing this one in a single go is laughable so they're all going to get squashed together.

I have been an environmentalist for as long as I remember. But until the last few years most of my efforts were directly related to how easy they were to accomplish. Bring bags to the store but don't think twice to get plastic when it was a spur of the moment trip. Schlep around the Nalgene bottle but accept a bottle of water from someone's fridge to be polite. Recycle when someone is willing to come pick it up from the curb. Etc. Etc.

It was only in the last few years that I started to realize how much waste I was creating (and finally began to consider my plastic-laden "recyclables" as waste) and here I was going over and above what the majority of my peers were doing to lessen their impact on the planet. Living on the farm and getting in the habit of reusing everything possible and my time in Germany, seriously one of the world's foremost enviro-meccas, pushed me to put the effort in to go further.

Have you read the book Zero Waste Home? Turns out a lot of Bea Johnson's methods had become my new M.O. The basic philosophy is you can manage to live (in America) and make hardly any trash and this not only affects your impact on the planet but also your own well-being. With less need for consumption, you have less need for bucks and thus less need to work as much as we Americans do. Your space is tidier when you have less stuff and more aesthetic without the plastic crap cluttering every corner and that leads to a more sublime attitude towards home. And naturally you develop a pride (smugness? sometimes) at being able to live a life with less of a footprint. For Johnson, she has a waste hierarchy that I can get behind: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rot.

Now, with the babe here I have somewhat stumbled out of my laudable habits in order to ease my transition to motherhood/ I forgot the canvas bags while carrying the carseat full of crying baby, the diaper bag and my water bottle to the car, damnit! But now that I'm a month in to this new gig and obviously a pro (ha!), it's time to get back on my trash-reducing track. So here are some of the ways in which we aim to live as close to zero waste as possible pre-baby:

Refuse: Sometimes this one is easy, other times you have to really train yourself to say no, and still others refusal of stuff leads to awkward encounters, maybe even hurt feelings. What I've done in the "refuse" arena is saying no to vendor schwag that often comes my way at work, turning down papers I don't need, like cancelling my address on junk mail lists and writing down doctors’ appointments rather than having the receptionist write it out on a business card. Good to ask yourself questions: How many water bottles do I actually need? What on earth will I do with this sticker? Attempts have been made to limit the amount of stuff coming into our house from beloved others (definitely hard with a new baby, but also difficult around holidays) and for the most part this has been alright. If not, we just accept and then covertly take stuff to the thrift store! Of course, it's way easier to just refuse it outright and saves your friends and family bucks. Reassessing my own wants vs. needs means I have refused all sorts of stuff that would have just been bought because it was a good deal, or I felt like it at the spur of the moment. This saves money, space, and means the stuff I DO buy is well thought out and truly worthwhile to me.

Reduce: Well. We live in a 400 square foot house, so we've reduced quite a bit on that score! A tiny space means that if we don't want to live in a horders-esque world of piles, we better get rid of stuff. This is easier for me than my sentimental husband, but oh well :) I usually have an ongoing pile lying in wait to get dropped at the thrift store and feel no shame in tossing well-meaning gifts or old sentimental items. Last year I felt pretty heartened with the Konmari notion of surrounding yourself only with things that bring you joy and my life is much better for it. True, sometimes I wish that an item I unceremoniously sent to the thrifty was still in my life, but that feeling might hit once, maybe twice a year. For how much I get rid of, that's not too shabby! What's the other maxim? "If it's not Beautiful or Useful (to you, I would say!) then TOSS IT!

Reuse: Replacing all the single use items like plastic silverware, to-go cups, etc. is one of the easiest ways to start a move towards zero waste. A challenge for you: spend one week hyper aware of how many items you use that are single use and I’ll bet you’ll be shocked. To help us move away from that, we have a box in the car with two complete place settings (complete with cloth napkins from our wedding) to-go mugs, cups for soda, stainless steel straws, a half growler for beer, and to-go containers so we don’t have to get any from restaurants.  Simply having everything at the ready makes it so much easier to kick the plastic habit. At home we have a Soda Stream so my soda-addicted husband can get his fix and I use loose leaf tea to eliminate the (albeit compostable) tea bags. Shopping is a major exercise in "reuse" in this fam; in addition to the ubiquitous tote bags, I bring in my own jars and containers and hit up the bulk section at the grocery store. I rewrite the bin numbers on there over and over and can see how many plastic bags I've saved. So what if now I'm (affectionately, I assume) known as the "Jar Lady" at Central Market? Point of pride, peeps! Also, I'm a super bag washer when I do need plastic bags, such as when I freeze food. The mail that does make its way to our house then becomes scratch paper and old t-shirts that do have a super sweet memory attached to them (NFTY convention shirts, some college shirts, that great 'I <3 Horticulture tee') turn into cleaning rags rather than get sent away completely. There are all sorts of ways to repurpose stuff you have rather than toss it outright. See Pinterest and enjoy your trip down that crafty rabbit hole. Also, acquiring stuff from the thrift store or from a "Buy Nothing" online community is a great way to reuse while still feeling like you are getting something new.

Our "wedding china" has been transformed into part of our zero waste tool box.

Recycle: It costs us money, takes time to drive it to the dump (we don’t pay for pickup), uses a lot of energy, and isn't guaranteed. Recycling is pretty low on Johnson’s list of "R's" and I can see why. Plastic packaging is still plastic that is going to be around for the next 500+ years, even if it can go through the motions of getting carted off, cleaned, melted down, blasted with chemicals, and reformed into something else. So as much as possible, we try to reuse stuff before it winds up in the blue bin or refuse packaging all together.

Rot: Anything that can be is composted at chez lil' house. We have a nice heap that the chickens happily peck through next to the garden (disturbing when I know I put leftover chicken bits in there...) and we have a composting toilet. And you can compost SO MUCH: meat, dairy, eggshells but also non-foodstuffs like wooden popsicle sticks, cotton clothing shredded up, paper napkins… In fact, I would actually place "Rot" above "Recycle" if this was a Val-Made List, but I live on a farm where composting is easy rather than Johnson’s San Francisco.

There are other basic lifestyle things that make this stuff easier, too-- growing a lot of our own food, cooking rather than buying pre-packaged meals, having one car, having documents, books, movies, and music in a digital format, and, as mentioned, living in our small space. There are also TONS of stuff we do that can't be mentioned in one post-- but it is truly the accumulation of a lot of little efforts that make it so our trashcan barely fills up.

So Val pats herself on the back and dumps her recycling bin full of packaging for the hopefully the last time this month. The jars are in the car, even if they are buried under a BOB Stroller and the babe is dressed in the finest consignment onesie. Library book is at the ready and coffee that was happily brewed in the french press has long gone cold. True, pregnancy and parenthood lend themselves to both the need for new stuff and the convenience of plastic and packaging but OH WELL! Now that my new idea of normalcy is starting to set in, I'm determined to keep up my pre-baby zero waste habits. What do you do to limit waste in your life?

The Tiny Bean is Now Earthside! Here's My Sacred Birth Story!

Hello friends! It's been a whirlwind of a week here-- our little daughter decided to join us in the early morn of April 20th (showing up well past fashionably late) and we've been healing and cuddling and learning how to be parents ever since. Her birth was amazing. I want to get this down before the bliss fades and the Bean starts crying for me but I also want to take some time with it. Giving birth was truly, without a doubt, the single most important and sacred experience of my life. Even the painful bits were nulled in the moment by how awe-some the whole thing was. I always used to roll  my eyes when my mom would write "thank you for making me a mom" each year on my birthday cards but now I 100% get it. One day I was "me" and now I'm always going to be a "me+".

The week leading up to Bean's birth was gorgeous here in Western Washington. I started taking off work at the beginning of April and did a lot of sitting outside in the sun with the chickens while I waited in anticipation for the girl to give me some tell-tale signs of labor. Every day different birds came out, trees flowered, then leafed out, and the ground was finally getting dry enough to plant. I decided Spring is a pretty amazing season when you are able to watch it slowly do its thing day in and day out. 

But after awhile my patience started waning. Yes, the babe will get here when she gets here but maybe she just wants to do it now. NOW. HURRY! YOUR MOM WANTS TO MEET YOU! I knew she was going to arrive at just the right time but my due date came and went and after a week things started getting pretty real. One week late? fine. Two weeks late? induction. And that was a route I certainly didn't want to take. From before the Bean was even conceived I knew I wanted an out of hospital birth with midwives rather than an OB surgeon guiding me through pregnancy and delivering my baby. I found some real gems at Salmonberry Community Birth Center and together we used all sorts of midwifery magic to have this baby get here before my Friday/hospital time deadline. I had my membranes swept, I did three rounds of acupuncture, I danced, I gardened, I walked. Oxytocin levels were pumped up with sex (fun) and nipple stimulation (not as fun as it sounds) and then the coup de grace-- a castor oil and verbena juice drink favored by German midwives who, if I know anything about the no-nonsense Deutchers, meant shit was about to get real.  That and all of my breakfast decided to blast its way out of my mouth an hour after drinking it and, in true tiny house fashion, wound up in several rooms. How to puke with a composting toilet? Just aim for the walls, I guess!

James blasted out of bed and, in the first of what must be hundreds of help-me-through-this-disgusting-mess moves for the day, scrubbed it off the walls, from inside the pocket door jamb, off the side of the bed... anyway, talk about stepping up (intro to fatherhood, eh!)

Contractions started sometime after that and I made my way to Salmonberry to get acupuncture. Marina from Moonstone Acupuncture, which works out of the birth center, came in especially to help me. She had to bring her sweet little two year old daughter along in order to get there at all and was all apologies about it though I was simply thrilled that she managed to keep the appointment because my contractions really started getting more oomph by the time I got home. James was waiting in the car for me and we got ourselves some maybe-birthday donuts at Sluys before heading home and resting. I was smart and kept a bowl nearby and after a few hours started noticing more serious contractions, though still not timeable nor with any real pattern. But they were getting stronger and that felt like a good sign. All week I'd had contractions after a fashion that I thought just might be labor getting started but those felt MUCH weaker than these new characters. I talked to my midwife, Louisa, and my doula, Jen, who urged me to distract myself, go for a walk, eat well and rest, rest, rest, since I'll need my strength once labor kicks into gear. I hung out, we napped, James went and got a movie and some ice cream, and by the time he got back the gear was truly kicked. I tried to focus on the movie and pretty early on it was clear that the antics of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler were not registering. 

It's at this point where I enter the time warp that is giving birth. I called Jen, who came over around 5:30 and she and James helped me through contractions that were getting more regular and stronger. It's amazing how one would just roll in, encompassing everything, and then once it was done I felt such a sense of "phew!" breather time! My dear friend and fellow April mama Jamie gave me the book Mindful Birthing which, incidentally, I started reading just around Beancake's due date and finished just before she was born. I didn't realize that I would take so much of it to heart but I found myself inwardly counting my breaths through the contractions, knowing that by the time I hit 11-ish it would all be done, I was that much closer to  my baby, and I could sink back into happy hormone city for a few minutes. 

Blink, now James is putting the chickens into their coop. Blink again, it's dark outside and the moon's coming out. Blink again, I'm in the shower, feeling awesome in the steamy hot water and moaning through a contraction. Eventually I notice that we're taking naps (?) and Jen, our "tiny doula for our tiny house" is snoozing on the kids' bunkbed to preserve her strength before we head to the birth center. From what James tells me, we left here around 11:30pm, stretching my time laboring at home to the midwife breaking point (which is something like 'stay home until the moment you feel is the last time you could ride in the car.') Lucky for us, Salmonberry is a whopping 5 miles from here so the car ride wasn't terrible. I did, of course, puke all over their parking lot upon arrival, apologized profusely to Louisa and Lauren, who arrived just in time for that, and let myself be led into the birth suite. Morgan showed up a little bit later and the time warp is now really in full effect because my memory of so much of this is super vague. James and Jen held my hands and rubbed my back. They pushed on my hips and everyone worked with me to figure out good positions. I was about 4 cm dilated when I arrived which I took with a grain of salt. It took about 4 hours to get from there to 9+ and in the meantime I moved around the dimmed room, James' old itunes mellow playlist on repeat, surrounded by sweet and supportive people who were all working tirelessly to bring this sweet babe into the world. I labored for awhile on the toilet, backwards with my face in some pillows, my glasses sliding off with every contraction. I kept my counting going, reaching into the 20s at one point, and then surfaced from the mega waves with an embarrassing "holy mackeral" or some such Val-ism. What did I call it? kid swearing? kindergarten swearing? I don't remember. 

I also labored on hands and knees for a bit, using an exercise ball for support, or leaned on James who, if I haven't mentioned already, did so splendidly during this whole event.

What I really wanted was to get to that big, beautiful birthing tub but turns out we tried filling it without putting the stopper in so I got about 12 inches of warm water to get me going. I still wanted it, though, but once I climbed in my labor took a relaxed pause that can sometimes happen. Whoops! At this point it's probably 4:30 and I had already been pushing for about a half hour before the pause happened. They gave it up as a bad job after another 30 minutes and it was on to the real deal. They were trying to speed up contractions since I slowed down so much in the water and it was back to the bed (or the toilet, James is trying to remember since I have ZERO memory of this).

Some point somewhere my water obviously broke but I don't remember when, just that it was when I was kneeling on or beside the bed and Jen had conveniently covered herself with an absorbent pad right before the gush. It felt way better to have that pressure out of there. Sadly, the toilet was the method that got me back on track (not glamorous, but oh well) and I started pushing with gusto, a difficulty since I had been trying to hold back the pushing previously and it was hard to switch on to full force. At some point we were on the bed and I was so tired I could barely hold my legs up like they asked. Apparently there is commonly a resting phase at this point and I was already snoozing between some of the contractions (I don't remember this at all). The midwives and Jen took advantage of our little pause to try and get some sleep in the other room but of course I roared back to life in ten minutes, yelling at James to go get them through my super pushing instinct. The midwives talked me through the contractions, telling me to really push, to really give in to it and not fight it and after a brief while that's just what I did. Some primal screams ensued and they or Jen made low noises for me to mimic, since that doesn't tense me up. Phew! 

I remember going to the bed and getting on hands and knees and being nervous I was going to poop, then I remember going to the toilet and actually pooping with a push (convenient and I think I gave myself a half-hearted little cheer) and after that was where the real magic happened. I got up and had started trickling blood and while Lauren was on her knees trying to spot a baby's head I had a MEGA urge to push and gave in to it. I pushed down on her shoulders for counter pressure and James pushed on my hips. I felt bad pushing down on her so hard but she said it actually felt kind of good. I gave her a little shoulder rub after and we all zoomed over to the bed before the next one hit. The next contraction came and I roared from my spot on the bed which I now shared with at least two of the midwives, James, and Jen. The baby's head appeared midway through and that was all I needed to see to finish the job, pushing her completely out in the one contraction. HOLY MACKEREL! Apparently with that last oomph of a push, and all of us piled on the bed, one of the slats holding up the mattress broke but no matter. I pulled the Little Bean to me and Morgan untwisted the umbilical cord from around her neck. She gave us some adorable cries and I pulled her little bod up to my face, not caring about all the blood and funky stuff that came along with her (not posted: the pictures of me looking like a cannibal with blood smeared all over my face). She instantly came out wanting to breastfeed and we did pretty quickly, though not before the midwives swooped in to help me deliver the placenta and start the work of stitching me up. 

Here is where unmedicated birth was amazing. I apparently have a 3-4 inch tear in my vagina from the little girl twisting on her way out and while they were sewing up down there, even giving me a shot of local anesthetic in a VERY inconvenient location, I only felt the amazing surge of oxytocin and mama love that came along with this little babe. And in truth, the whole birth was like that. I was surprised it didn't hurt as much as I expected it would; even me who entered into the situation without any real fears or hang-ups assumed it would still be pain worse than imagining. Not the case. I was surprised that the contractions felt so fleeting, and I'm so grateful for the women there with me who made the environment, and my entire pregnancy, really, so conducive to a fearless, sacred birth. 

James and I laid there on the now slightly lopsided bed and they cleaned me up while the little one ate her first meal. I guess we laid there for a few hours, resting and gazing at each other, before all hugging it out and heading home. They kept saying that this was a remarkable first birth and Louisa even said I gave birth "like a fifth time mom". Morgan said a few days later that she still gets tears in her eyes remembering me smiling during labor. I don't have a conscious memory of this, but how could I have not? I had everything to smile about that day and it was, hands down, the best experience of my life. I'm so thankful that I had the strength to go about it without needing a hospital, or drugs, and that doing so connected me in a way to this universal female experience that's gone on forever. 

And now... Pictures!

 Trying to garden that baby out on a beautiful April day.

Prayer flags made for me by my sweet friends at my baby shower. Great birth affirmations like, "You are enough", "My body knows how to birth this baby like my body knew how to grow this baby", "Every single moment brings you closer to meeting your beautiful baby", and "You are giving birth with 300,000 other women today", amongst others, got me through the rough post-due date waiting period and the beginning phase of labor beautifully. 

Smiles still with a rice sock soothing my crampy contractions. Merino wool, obviously.

Jen getting creative in our small space. As midwife Mel said, we had a "tiny doula for our tiny house"

The glorious tub... Alas! Not meant to be this time around!

James and I share the moment just after our baby came into the world.

Louisa telling me what a badass birther I am.

Lauren giving her the once over after the Bean and I had some sweet bonding time.

Weigh that babe!

9 pounds, 2 ounces. Holy Moly!

3 days old

8 days old. 

The Nesting Instinct Is Strong With This One

Greetings! Spring is here! And the babe is right around the corner, meaning I'm huge, achy, and super duper anticipatory. And SO NESTY! I've cut my hours back this week in order to rest up rather than walk the 5-ish miles around the camping department for 8 hours straight each day and while there is a lot of loungey couch time in my life right now, I'm also trying to get some stuff done around the house before YOU KNOW WHAT! After today the little lady will be full term so she can come any old time she wants; I'm cool with having her cook a bit more but how exciting/ crazy to think that I could go to bed today as normal old Val and wake up to the day I become a mom.

Flowers from James' fam, who threw us a sweet party last weekend.

So today I put together most of our birth bag (slash basket) and got the kid room, for the most part, ready to roll. My baby shower is this weekend so we're still waiting to see what we'll be gifted as far as cloth diapers, clothes, furniture, and books but the babe will be in our room for awhile anyway so no big thing. It just feels so good to move the construction-zone out! 

Birth Basket full of baby clothes, Val's birth loungies, prayer shawl, jam for sandies, water bottles, and more to come. (camera, slippers, more food, affirmation prayer flag, ipod with playlist of love songs for baby, etc.) Hippy dippy, yes. That's how I roll.

Kid's room/ Construction Random Zone Before shot.

Ta Da! Still a work in progress but baby stuff mostly put away and bottom bunk ready for cousin sleep over time! It's not super thematic, but I love the woodsy bear comforter. 

And before my Nesting took a turn towards cleaning, it was all cooking and baking all the time. 

Yep. In an attempt to control anything to do with birth, I've stocked both freezers full with tasty food for post-partum time. Granola, blueberry pancakes, rhubarb scones a plenty, meatloaves, pasties, sweet potato and black bean burritos, breakfast burritos, baked ziti, challah, and more and more. Our chickens are producing ridiculous amounts of eggs so two quiches made their way to the freezer and hopefully I'll have enough warning time on D-Day to heat one up before heading to the birth center so we can feed all the awesome ladies of Salmonberry who will attend my birth. Fingers crossed! 

Probably two or three days worth.

And the garden is giving us a little over-wintered tastiness, too. I had planned on planting potatoes tomorrow for my REI Yay Day (where they pay me to get outside a few times a year and let's be real, I'm not using it for backpacking this time around) but the soil is still so wet that the tiller would probably sink halfway up its wheels if I tried.  Alas! But nice to eat some fresh veggies again! 

Poldy and Henrietta checking each other out on our sunny spring day. 

9 months pregnant! Still in loungey wear today! So sue me :)

Bed Time!

Hello! It's been a true grey PNW winter so far, though the temperature has mellowed enough that Spring feels right around the corner. Of course Spring this year will bring us a little more than April showers, May flowers, etc. which means we've got a lot of work to do before new baby D-Day arrives! Even though I titled this post "Bed Time", James is hardly resting on his days off (I manage to fill my days with walks and books and prenatal yoga classes... lucky me) But the big project that wrapped up this past week was the building of the bed!

Oh hi, Little Mac.

James had most of it built within a couple weeks, borrowing pieces a la Dr. Frankenstein from an old IKEA bed frame and a dvd shelf he'd built a few years back as well as some knotty pine and plywood which he painted white (there is such a thing as too much light-stained pine... and anyway the existing bed frame was not going to jive). It was so nice to move off our temporary aerobed and on to the real McCoy, especially since I've started building pregnant lady pillow forts around me at night and a queen size bed helps in that regard. I didn't realize I would need pillows holding my belly up, pillows between my legs, a pillow putting pressure on my back... Seriously, basically all the pillows on that bed are utilized. Poor James. Extra bonus at night when the cat settles down on the back pillow, providing furry warmth and pressure. Bliss!

Won't you be my pillow?

Anyhoo, the real star of the Bed Time Show is the storage. Storage! Sweet, sweet storage! James built in four really deep drawers and then two smaller drawers (which are probably normal-dresser sized) on one side of the bed, leaving a gap on the other side for bags, bins, hiding cats, and other randoms. That is good, since our kid's room has turned into Random-Central and we've got basically T-2 Months to put the kibosh on that. 

Huge drawers hold all our clothes save a few we hang up in tiny closet.

Really there was no way we could have drawers on both sides, seeing as the bed itself barely squeezes between the door frame and the wall. Luckily I'm tall and my pregnant belly rides over the top of the mattress when I scoot in the gap on that side to make the bed. It also fits right over the counter tops, meaning I don't have to reach out like crazy when doing the dishes or chopping. Score!

Barely squeezing in. But what's a bedroom for, amiright?

We'll paint the front of the drawers some non-rainy, non-pregnant day in the future but for now we're moving in. I put down some contact paper yesterday and then Kondo'd all my clothing into three of the six drawers. Not too shabby but of course my pregnancy wardrobe is certainly a wee bit smaller than my norm so I shouldn't pat myself on the back too much.

 Pre-pregnancy I did get rid of about two thirds of my clothes, though, and I'm sure another culling will take place once I am ready for the non-stretchy pants again. The idea of everything having a place, and everything you possess bringing you joy has certainly been easier in this house. But still little piles do erupt here and there. The trick, I guess, is to utilize them! 

Need a place for cookbooks? Use them as a night stand!

Two months to go! Thanks for reading!

Little House Tour #1

Hello! The little house is finally here and most of the bits and pieces are in place enough to start sharing it with you guys. We've been in here since just after Thanksgiving so the month has been a whirlwind of projects, from ripping out the original toilet and the bulk of our kitchen cabinets, to building a deck, putting in the electricity, water, and propane, getting our storage situation down (or at least started), mega cleaning, putting in the composting toilet, hooking up our oven and on and on. James is certainly doing the bulk of the to-dos and I'm thankful there is such a handy man in my life.

 

The day after we got it. I can still fit in my carhartts here! And zip up my jacket! This is pre mega-projects... it's crazy to think how much we've accomplished in a month!

Look at all the amazing windows and light! It's a beautiful frosty morning today. James built the deck while I and my coworkers were hiking at Dosewallips for Black Friday. 

My beloved little kitchen. Originally we got the house with a two burner cooktop so James and his dad cut out a cabinet and we put this beaut of a propane oven in. We are taking full advantage of our height and using the vertical space of this place for storage.

Our neat table/ dining area. It's usually set up for the two of us but wings fold out for when peeps come over for food and games! A pretty good look at our knotty pine walls, too. 

Big Men, Tiny Couch.

Our bedroom. The loft is right above it so our ceilings aren't as obscenely tall but still way better than what we had at the trailer! The next big project for James is building a bed with two sets of drawers underneath for all our clothes storage.

Gratuitous loungey cat photo. Little Mac enjoys a sun spot after being "so helpful" while I made the bed.

You can see the chicken coop out back. They are freezing their feathers off today, I bet! 

Alright. This room isn't much to look at just yet. But once the projects are done or the baby arrives (whichever comes first) this place will be the ultimate tiny kids room. Bunk beds are already in and we'll put in tall shelves for books, games, toys, baby paraphernalia, etc. For now it's construction storage zone :)

Our bathroom! More super high ceilings and great light but the star of the show is obviously our composting toilet. Straight outta Sweden, here is the Separette. It's a urine diverting toilet, so the liquid all goes into a gray water system and the solids get dried out from a super silent fan that runs continuously.

When you open the top, a panel hides the poop storage. It just opens when you sit on it and all you have to do is remember to throw the toilet paper back there. Brilliant! I love not shitting in drinking water!Also apologies...  What would a tiny house blog be without talking about the bathroom at length?

We have an on demand water heater which gets things super steamy and also saves some major energy. I attempted to harness the steam room effect by putting a eucalyptus bouquet above the shower head and have convinced myself that I can feel the freshness of it but have yet to convince my husband, who thinks I just "put branches in the shower".

Obligatory pregnant lady selfie. Plus more bathroom! 

These are the steps to the loft with the genesis of our food storage at the ready. We're going to put in drawers for jars and canned goods underneath.

And while I'm excited about the jar storage, I will be sad to leave behind the sweet, xylophone-like sound the cats make when they plunk up and down the stairs.

The loft, which is particularly festive for about one more day. Even though it's only five or so feet tall we love it as a hang out spot. I have the red rocking chair in the corner and James has his black IKEA chair. The table is about the only piece of fancy furniture I own and I bought it back when I turned 19 and thought, as a grown-up, I needed to go buy nice things for my home...

James' chair and footrest, which gets a lot of play from the cats looking into the yard.

The view from the loft. 

Tiny gingerbread house for our tiny house. 

Thanks, guys for taking the grand, virtual tour!