Simple Livin'

Simple living. I was going to say tiny living, but that doesn’t quite fit what I’m thinking about. In many cases, people condense their lives down from a typical sized home to a tiny house to live a simpler lifestyle. However, it’s perfectly possible to live simple in a normal home. Tiny houses are an up and coming trend that I’m always excited to learn more about. Sometimes when I feel like going down a good ole YouTube rabbit hole, I’ll watch video after video on tiny houses and van conversions. Anything from tours, day in the life, or sped up footage of the conversion itself. I love the idea of leaving a small ecological footprint. I also like the idea of having low costs of living, virtually no bills, and no debt. Living simple with only the essentials, not wasting money on needless things that make you lazy. Traveling is a big plus too. Sometimes my friends make fun of me and call me a hippy, but I stand firm in my belief that as Christians, we should be aware of our lifestyle choices and how it affects the world God told us to care for. I’m not saying that my using of reusable bottles and shopping bags is going to save the world from all its pollution doom and gloom, but I sure want to do my small part in not contributing to it when possible. I’m by no means perfect, I don’t think I could ever live the “no waste” lifestyle, although I admire the people who can pull that off. Look into it, it blew my mind. 

Anyway, when I first discovered the tiny house movement, I was convinced it was the thing for me. I wanted to live and travel in one around the states after high school. Obviously, I didn’t. Over the last couple of years, I’ve realized that the tiny house lifestyle just doesn’t suit my actual priorities of being a wife and a mother. It’s certainly possible to travel in a tiny house with children (trust me, I’ve watched countless videos on it) but it doesn’t match up with the type of life I’d want for my children either. To commit to a tiny house, you are typically committing to a life of constant traveling. You also face the problem of space once those little kids are not so little. Of course, you can switch back to a bigger home, but then you have to decide if the money going into a tiny house is worth just a few years of use. Beyond that, it doesn’t make sense for me even as a single person. To sustain that type of lifestyle, you need a job that can travel with you. As of right now, I want to continue taking care of children until I have children of my own. Who knows if that’s what I’ll always do, but it’s the plan right now. Anyway, sometimes I daydream about converting my little car into a living space. There is totally enough room for me to comfortably sleep in there. If I end up a lonely old woman, you’ll probably find me traveling around the world in a van, just me and my dog, doing some random occupation I managed to discover. There's also the option of living tiny in one place and having a consistent job. It's usually pretty easy to find a cheap or free place to park. I’m constantly needing to remind myself to put my trust in God, and these are just some of the wishful thoughts I create in my brain to cope with an unpredictable future.