30 Days in 168 Square Feet with Mark three dogs and a fish

After being obsessed for the last few years with living small I finally got my chance. How small you ask well we are in 168 square feet if you want to break out a tape measure it would be eight feet wide and twenty one feet long. That includes everything bedroom, bathroom, kitchen-living room-dining room. And I love it!!! admittedly it is not a lifestyle for everyone but it is working very well for us. So well we decided to build a deck instead of starting construction on a house. There are a few things I have learned about living this small, the first being that it is totally amazing the "things" I can do without. What you need vs what you want. And how it proves a theory I have had for years that if you are not happy inside "more" will not make you any happier. And so we have been laughingly calling out new space the Mini Mansion.

So what is it really like to live in 168 square feet with a husband, three dogs and a fish. There is a lot of bumping into each other dogs included, more frequent trips to the grocery store as there is not a pantry. Weekly visits to the Laundromat, where I meet the most fascinating people, like the guy who asked me if it was ok to use his fragrance free laundry detergent to wash his hair. And a lot less cleaning! We do not have cable, dish or satellite instead we have a digital TV antenna and a 17 inch TV which picks up a beautiful digital signal for CBS, NBC, FOX, PBS as well as Create TV and Me TV. I get Internet through my iPhone and if I want to use the laptop I head to the local coffee shop where they happily serve me coffee while I surf the Internet. Instead of hearing ambulances and people walking by the house at all hours I now hear the stream in the backyard cows mooing, roosters crowing and the train go by a few times a day. When I open my front door at night to let the dogs out I am greeted by the big dipper shining in the night sky. So are you ready to move to the countryside yet?? Well as Paul Harvey use to say "And now the rest of the story." I had told Mark last summer that I couldn't wait for the first snow storm I envisioned myself on the couch looking out the big windows at puffy white flakes gently drifting down in the moonlight while I sipped coffee and counted my blessing. This was not to be my first snow storm, we moved in January into the middle of the field because the electrician/plumber was not done setting the well pump or running the electricity. That meant we did not have power or water, no worries we are self contained we have propane and batteries and we will buy water, life is good!!!! For two days anyway, then the temperature dropped for the South it got cold in the single digits at night and not above 20 during the day and then it snowed. We were burning through propane and in the middle of the night everything quit working, dead batteries, so start the Nissan back it up to the Mini Mansion plug in the power and let the car idle for a few hours. Life is good!!! For two days anyway, it warmed up just in time for the toilet to plug up, our fault as we were not putting enough water through the system because we didn't have any water because the electrician/plumber doesn't work in a blizzard. Finally about two weeks in we had water and power and let me say that when you are taking spit baths with cold water the fact that you can turn on a faucet and actually get hot water will make you do a happy dance!! We are settling in the dogs are falling into a new routine life is good!! For about two days!! Then we had a mouse invade, let me just say I HATE mice, dirty smelly disease ridden yuck!!! I went insane put decon everywhere and Lysoled and clorxed everything and when I say everything I mean everything. No mouse droppings for a day or so then we turned on the furnace and it smelled exactly like burning straw. That's because it was burning straw, my little mouse friend had built the cutest little next in my furnace duct, well dryer vent ducting really but that's not the point. Mark looked at me and asked if I wanted to clean it out or if I wanted new, I just stared at him, right he says lets go to the store and get new. We left things torn apart and went to the hardware store came home reinstalled new duct and put it all back together. No more burning straw life is good, until later that night. We pulled the bed out for the night and my mouse friend is running back and forth behind the bed, I screamed Mark screamed the mouse screamed and ran up over the bed and headed for the bathroom. Mark was yelling to get him a bag to he could trap the mouse put it in the bag and get it outside, I grab a bag while he is vainly attempting to catch the little squatter. The mouse shot past Mark toward me I kicked it back toward Mark as he turned around it darted to the left through Nicks crate and under the bench seat for the table. This encited more caios as the table was torn apart and the vacuum employed to try and suck the little grey devil out of the corner. After the adrenaline rush had passed and more disassembling we discovered a hole which must lead to the great outdoors and realized the offender had escaped. Now we are sealed foamed and mouse free until the next time. Then Blu rolled in something green, slimy and stinky which he does on a regular basis and this required a bath. Did I mention my bathtub is about 3 feet long and maybe 18 inches wide and I have a 7 gallon water heater and that giving Blu a bath is a lot like chasing around a 25 pound little black greased pig. There was water and shampoo and dog hair everywhere but he was clean, until the next time. Cut to a few weeks later and for now things are as calm as they ever get for me. The puppies run and smell and dig and roll and are exhausted at night after keeping track of all the critter coming and goings on 3 1/2 acres. I asked Mark what it was like to live in 168 square feet and he just said that it is cozy. The fish has a great view of everything up on his perch next to the TV. As for me, we have everything we need and nothing we don't well except for the Fig Trees in the bathtub but that is a another story.