TT Updates And Our Travels
National Front:
We got back from Kansas City with a great big win! I really do think that is the biggest hurdle to this whole thing but we do have one big step left. The hearing got us the right to have a national vote. The 8th-21st building officials across the country will be voting to incorporate the tiny house appendix into the national building code. The best overview of what happened is Andrew’s post, HERE.
Local Front:
We got a 90 day extension on our eviction. This is great news, it means that the city is a willing participant in finding a solution to this issue! I have many ideas spinning around in my head but a few of them are dependent on how the outcome of this next national vote goes. I hesitate to list what I see as my options just yet, we should know the outcome of this vote by early December so I am waiting until then.
Until then PLEASE do NOT call the city on my behalf. Please don’t call anyone on my behalf. I have recently been made aware that someone may have taken it upon themselves to do just that and that is likely going to be MUCH more damaging to me than helpful. Just know that this is a situation I have been fully aware would probably come about. I feel very grateful that I have had 3.5 years of relative peace in my home but this is also a needed discussion. I could not anticipate the City taking it any better than they have, honestly. We are in discussion of how to resolve the issue and I see this as a HUGE opportunity, for me and others. I would hate to have that sabotaged by someone who thinks they know better and feels the need to call and reprimand the city for doing their job. The fact is that they are tasked with a job. They have limited amount of tools to work with, we are desperately trying to get them the tools needed to address this stuff (this IRC appendix), we’re all in agreement that SOMETHING needs to be done. It is just a process, the city and I are willing participants and working toward a solution, this is not the time to puff up or get disrespectful. That will be VERY damaging. While I appreciate the support emotionally I have been working toward this solution for over 5 years, I have what I need at this point and I need to be the one to work through things in this situation since I am the one effected.
Trailer Update:
I have been pretty zapped emotionally and mentally, both trying to juggle the things I have been juggling AND my wonderful little one year old has been SUPER needy. The kiddo nap schedules are off, Miles is switching from two naps to one and it never lines up with his sisters. Then he’s up all night (likely growing a few molars) and I have so much to do and very small pockets of time to fit them in… The logical thing is to drop the trailer build so we can focus on other stuff but I refuse to do that for a couple reasons… we may well need to take off sooner than expected and we need it done to be able to do that! Second, it is my only form of therapy at this point! Building is a release for me and sort of zen… so build we do!
James and I have been very symbiotic builders lately. We’re both pretty high strung and opinionated so there is a fair bit of ‘clashing’ when it comes to making decisions… lately there has been none, it’s almost scary how ‘synced’ we are :D. I was not feeling it last weekend. We made the big trip to the build site (mom and dads barn) and I just wanted to sit… he let me, I watched the kids inside and he caught up on a few things that needed attention, like the wheel wells and adding some blocking (around the windows, frame and for the awning). Hazel had just watched an episode of Daniel Tiger that morning where the mom was sick so Daniel had to help by playing independently and getting tissues for his mom… SO… she got it in her head that she would try it out, she brought me drinks, a pillow, tissues and a trash to throw them in and kept me covered with a blanket and ‘played independently’ so I could rest… I wasn’t sick but I played it up… and it was fantastic! Ha! I had a day of rest when everyone else worked hard…
Here are some pictures of James’s handy work:
The Family Front:
The kiddos did amazing on our trip… I may have re-broke my heel… I need to go visit a doctor… which I hate so I keep trying to convince myself that I have learned how to hobble on it just fine… until I forget and man it hurts! I need to go before the end of the year because I may not be insured next year… it costs me WAY too much (and I don’t make enough to be penalized much)… That’s a longer discussion and I like to breeze past politics… I need to fix my foot.
I’m going to be honest and say I am freaked out a little bit because of something that happened today (images of my kids were found on someone else’s site portraying them and their kids…), I am concerned I share too much of my life online so I am a little gun shy to write too much below but this is still my personal blog where I like to update loved ones on the happenings in my life… so here are some pictures of our adventure, sans the descriptions I normally like to have for when I look back on things:
Macy, I am a big fan of you and your blog, and I’m very happy to hear about your extension and the progress that was made at the conference. I found a video about you building your tiny house this summer and it remains one my all time favorite tiny houses. It inspired me to say yes to buying a trailer on the beach. I am 60, and hope this will be my permanent home. It’s a little bigger than yours, but it’s my own version of tiny house living with the ocean close by. I just acquired my second Silken Windhound. I figure if you can have two kids an a great dane, I can fit an extra dog i here! Thank you and all the best to you and your family.
Sounds like heaven to me! Very cool!
sorry for the typos. I also wanted to say that I am an artist and I really appreciate your eye for design.
Good luck on all fronts! A time of change locally and nationally.
On the pictures, you may want to watermark them with your web URL. You can also add meta tags for ownership but thats pretty easy to remove.
Some of that weirdness is fake sites that copy images from one place and content from another and cross-link each other for Google placement. Then then make a tiny income from google ads. This adds up with hundreds of sites.
You can often tell with those as the content is inconsistent and out of place. Kind of like some spam emails.
On the other hand, I’ve seen entire doctors sites copied just to get the ad hits. And there are also simply weird people out there.
You can also put in a plugin that blocks copying of images but that may not work with the slideshow you use. And its not hard to bypass. Especially if they use Google Images or similar.
I was finding my content was being lifted and copied to such sites under someone elses name. I much reduced that by putting my name inside the content. But you can’t avoid it fully. Anything you put on the net, stays on the net.
Hi Macy, I was just wondering how it was you found your content elsewhere under someone else’s name? I have just recently started my blog as a way to keep in touch with family, but would like to try and prevent this from happening as I do post lots of pictures of my Wee Man as well. So glad things are moving forward for you, and I hope that you and the city can come to a solution together.
So good news and bad news. The kid in me wishes for a world where we can share and not have our lives hijacked…by doing things “on our behalf” or by taking our things for their own purposes. Hopefully the City can keep in mind that you and the Tiny Home people in general aren’t all hotheaded and impetuous…
That trailer looks great! Your family looks happy and healthy. Thanks for sharing, as usual. 🙂