For the Love of Rice

For the love of Rice!

I can’t believe it has been over a week now since I last wrote. So many movements going on, and Cyle has been an amazing coach/teacher/host. We are supposed to help him with the electrical then put the walls in. I can not wait!

So this one is a two parter. Jason and I are on day one of being vegan and I am so excited. We went to the grocery store yesterday and I thoroughly enjoyed exploring Whole Foods with him. He wandered through the isles in awe, collecting all the flax, chia, and hemp he could, hah. After a massive food haul and a few gadgets (including a Ninja!) we wandered back home to clean our glassware and cut up our big watermelon.

To give you guys a very vivid image of Jason he is a 6’6″ muscular Marine. I.e. he was eying every sasquatch meat stick in the store while holding tight to his veggie wrap and matcha green tea. He seems very excited about the whole thing, and I hope to be his support system because lord dropping all those habits will be hard.

I was vegan for a 7 month period previously and I really enjoyed it. My body felt better and I think my stories made him want to give it a go. Now we are stacked with all the berries, watermelon, edamame, and nuts. Can not forget alllll the nuts. Also! We found Len & Larry’s cookies, you know the like $2.00 a cookie for vegan protein cookies? We found them at Trader Joe’s for 86 cents each. We may have bought two whole boxes… Haha.

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On to the second topic, Rice Love. This is a beautiful company that sustainably produces bags and other products to help feed the hungry in Nepal and India. They are trying to grow to support the homeless in Hawaii too. But it is a beautiful thing. They employ and train local women in India to sew the bags out of used jute rice bags that would normally wind up in a landfill just contributing to the neglect. So with buying each bag you are helping to preserve the earth’s resources. Getting to why it is called Rice Love. Each bag is essentially a 1 kilo bag of rice donated. As they make the bags they donate a total of 20 kilos of rice to one family. That could essentially feed them for one whole month. They donate the rice before the bags are even sold as well.

Overall there literally is not a thing you could say wrong about what this amazing company does. Also when you get your bag there will be a tag attached with a red number on it. If you go to their website and enter in the number it will generate the actual family that bag helped feed. So beyond inspiring.

“If you can’t feed a hundred people, then just feed one.” – Mother Theresa

Please check them out and support:

https://ricelovebags.myshopify.com/

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She’s Too Much

I read this yesterday and had to share it moving passage in another capacity.

There she is.. the ‘too much’ woman. The one who loves too hard, feels too deeply, asks too often and desires too much.
There she is, taking up too much space with her laughter, her curves, her honesty, her sexuality. Her presence is as tall as a tree, wide as a mountain. Her energy occupies every crevice of the room. Too much space she takes. And there goes that too much woman making people thin…k too much, feel too much, swoon too much. Oh that too much woman… too loud, too vibrant, too honest, too emotional, too smart, too intense, too pretty, too difficult, too sensitive, too wild, too intimidating, too successful, too fat, too strong, too political, too joyous, too needy – too much.
If you have ever been called too much, I implore you to embrace all that you are – all of your depth, all of your vastness, to not hold anything in, to never abandon yourself, your bigness, your radiance. Expand, breathe, lift yourself up.

One of the best things I’ve ever read, be too much, express yourself. You bring color to this world.

 

Ecofriendly & Sustainable: Cook Stove to Charge my Phone

It’s been two days since my parents told me I should move out. By no means are they forcing me, but it needs to occur, for all parties involved. So after reviewing my options I decided to go buy a $50 Coleman 4 person tent and sleeping bag from REI and go on an adventure. I am moving my residence to a tent on my extended families farm while switching jobs. I have an interview later today for a biology internship in Arizona, and I am hoping that is promising. Either way my new home will be the earth and surprisingly I feel invigorated.

While searching how I was going to make this work while working a normal 8-4:30 office job I need to be able to be presentable like any other coworker who lives in more ‘normal’ living conditions. So I found the Coleman solar shower to bathe in, but people kept asking about how I was going to charge my phone and other appliances while on the farm. I was reading a tiny home article the other day and found BioLite, they have plenty of off the grid appliances but what stood out to me was an amazing appliance that converts the heat energy from fire into electrical energy that is able to charge your laptop or phone. I have been completely captivated by their innovative design and efficiency. Also they are affordable, which is the most amazing part.

I will probably wait to get one of their cook stoves but it will definitely be a purchase in the near future as I plan to have a completely off the grid tiny home and I think it might be a cool addition to the home. If you want to check out their solar power units, cook stoves and lighting options for sustainable energy check out their website! The link is below and they are not paying me a dime I just think it’s amazing.

http://www.bioliteenergy.com

As for the move. I will surely be including how it goes when I post. But wish me luck on this crazy adventure I am about to go on. Into the wild I go.

 

– Live Inspired –

Getting the Plan Together

I keep feeling my chest tighten when I think about where I am at. I am 24 and moved back in with my parents, working a job that is not pertaining to my degree. Everyday there is another bird call I forget. In congruence with that I have been halted on all sides when it comes to the freedom of my tiny home dream.

Working on paying off my student loan debt has completely just stopped all progress towards that as well as the Zoning Administration for the City of Chesapeake. I have been reading this book, Tiny House Living by Ryan Mitchell. It was kinda my way of making ground towards the build, but there is a section for getting to understand the building and zoning codes of your area. I did it completely wrong.

So the plan was to build and live on my family’s farm which is out of the way and secluded from any suburban areas of Chesapeake. So when I called the zoning department I was supposed to be vague, not give away my name and plan, and find out if tiny homes are allowed in my area. Instead I got so nervous I told them that it was my family’s farm, provided my full name and my entire plan. As soon as the words “tiny home” came out it was a done deal. They immediately shut down the operation and stated ‘absolutely not.’

Back to the drawing board and I began looking online for other options but all the options lead me to moving. Oregon, it has always been my dream but now it seems like a need. They are so supportive and I have found so many inspirational stories of successful people building their own tiny homes with the help of their communities. It was awe inspiring. Now Jason and I are applying to jobs all over the US and attempting to find a place we can call home that will accept our ideal living situation.

If any of you guys have thoughts, stories, opinions, advice, it is so appreciated. If you would leave a blurb I would be forever grateful.

– Live Inspired –

Found a Tiny Inspiration

Yesterday the spark of tiny home living was reignited in me. My name is Brooke, I am a 24 year old American girl one year out from university with a Bachelor’s of Science in Organismal biology. I have spent the past 3 years dreaming of my tiny home, where I would park it, what color stain I would use on my wooden kitchen counters and studying day in and day out on renewable, environmentally friendly energy sources that could enable my home to be off the grid. Recently it has been exceptionally challenging facing student loans that my parents cosigned on halting the progress towards my dream of travelling the states in my tiny home, but last night while on a walk with my extremely supportive other half we stopped to check out what this guy was doing in an old white church bus.

Jason was the first to stop and ask the guy clad with unique arm tattoos, “Hey, what are you building?” The man standing in the bus working with some wood quickly looked up and smiled, “A tiny home.” My face lit up like a child on Christmas. This was a guy in my childhood neighborhood and he was converting an old church bus into a tiny home. Literally a riot. In Chesapeake, Virginia it is few and far between that you find people even interested in the concept of tiny living. Even more rare to find someone actively accomplishing it.

We must have spent 30 minutes to an hour talking to him about his process, where he was going to take it, the process of going solar and all the deals he got salvaging materials off craigslist. Turns out he is a bomb ass photographer who travels the world doing crazy insane amazing things. He also has a blog site with some of his work if you would like to check them out it is – https://cyleodonnell.wordpress.com/

He is so down to earth and is allowing Jason and I to lend a helping hand to learn some helpful things for our own build. Today will be day one of work after my day job. Can’t wait!

 

– Live Inspired –

A Tiny Spark

Hey, I’m Brooke. I am 24 and out of place. I finally got by B.S. in Organismal Biology and moved to Waco, Texas. I began to discover myself, my freedom when suddenly my little cousin back home in virginia began having bad seizures and I couldn’t imagine not being nearby to help her.

I moved back and now she is fairly well. It was a small episode which now has subsided and we don’t have any further signs. So here I am in Chesapeake, VA living at my parents and darkened by student loan debt. I haven’t meditated in a long time, or even done yoga. I can’t believe how far I have gotten off track.

But I feel things getting there, and i’ve been dreaming of this tiny home. I have looked forward to finding someone who will live that life with me. And I have found him.

Then there was a tiny spark.

 

– Live Inspired –