Even the best opportunities require work.
Let’s get to it!
love,
melanie
Tag Archives: work
The Small Life: The Peterson Family
I am so pumped about this post! I love to see how families make living small work for them. Today we’ve got Nick Peterson from Livin’ Lightly. Nick, his wife, and two young children live, travel and work from an Airstream! Take it away, Nick…
Hello! We are the Peterson family! My wife and two kids (daughter 3 years and son 5 months) live, travel and work in our 1966 Airstream Overlander. We’ve been living small full-time for the past two years.
For us tiny living was never about the space. (At least not entirely.) We chose to live small so that we can live large in other areas of our life. Life’s all about trade-offs.
Pre-Airstream the daily grind consisted of work, paying bills then we tried to squeeze in some family, friends and fun. After the birth of our daughter we began to rethink our existence and intentionally plan our life.
For us this meant trading a steady income + benefits, larger living space for portability, time with family and pursing work we love.
In preparation for this transition we buckled down and cut all unnecessary spending, got on a strict budget, paid off our debt and saved. We purged and sold all our stuff, bought a vintage Airstream and a big truck to pull it. We worked to build versatile and largely passive income streams to pay the bills.
Now we have the time, and ironically space to share life as a family, the freedom to travel and explore and pursue what matters to us most.
Here’s to living the small space large life dream!
Aren’t they just the cutest?! You can read more about Nick and his family on their blog, Livin’ Lightly or on IG: livinlightly. And remember, If you want to submit your own Small Life, email me asmalllifemelanie @ gmail dot com.
love,
melanie
BIG and EXCITING News!
The bun gives me super librarian powers.
I’m happy to report that after a long, hard journey I finally got a new job! I will be moving closer to my family and to a big (to me) city. I couldn’t be more excited.
I was hoping that this summer would be a relaxing one, anddddd now it won’t be, but I’m thankful for the change. I’ve never been 100% happy with my current job. I love being a librarian, but it is a struggle for me to live in a rural area away from most of the people that I love.
Now comes the moving part! I’m dreading the actual process of packing my things up once again. I’ve moved eleven times in the past ten years. Insane? Yes, probably. But so is life.
Do you have any big changes coming this summer? Tell me about them in the comments!
love,
melanie
The Biggest Before and After EVER!
The old library shelving
We had our reference section sitting on our study carrels for 6 months because the shelving collapsed when we tried to move it : /
I’ve been absent ’round these parts because… (dun, dun, dun!) I’ve had a huge project at work (whomp, whomp). But this is no ordinary project. Last year, I wrote a request to the senior leadership team at my school to fund new library shelving. The old shelving was falling apart. Literally. The furniture in the library was all original to the school, so it has been there since 1969! After much fighting, scraping and the occasional tear, we got the go ahead for new shelving!
Today I am happy to bring you the biggest “Before and After” this blog has ever seen!
AFTER!
I no longer feel like I might get assaulted when I re-shelve books!
It has been a long process. We weeded 6,000 books from the collection. We researched and designed shelves. And we physically moved and re-shelved 24,000 books.
I am tired. My body hurts. I didn’t know being a librarian often involves so much physical labor. I actually soaked in Epsom salts last night. I am an old lady, but a happy old lady who knows that hard work pays off.
love,
melanie