alternative:
a chance to choose between two or more possibilities;
one of the two or more possible choices.

Sometimes I forget that our little family is not normal. I forget that our life is a little on the “alternative” side…because it’s just us. It’s just life. But the more people I meet on the road…the more I realize just how different we are than the typical American family.

And yet, we are all so similar. Everyone longs to be free. Free from the burden of a mortgage. Free from the constraints of a nine to five job. Free from the pressure to conform. I see that longing in people’s eyes and hear it in their words over and over again…and yet, comfort usually wins out. It’s comfortable to be like everyone else. It’s easier to give in to the pressure to live the “American Dream” because everyone else is doing it too. Everyone else is at the mall. Everyone else is buying a house and cars they can’t afford. Everyone is charging it on their most recent 0% interest rate credit card. But I don’t want to be like everyone else. I want to live in my own little alternative dream world.

Over the last couple of years, we’ve worked towards making our dream world a reality…and it has all come down to choices. We chose to sell our house and move to a smaller apartment so we could pay off debt faster. We chose to move West and simplify our life even more…with the goal of truly enjoying each day. We chose to go on the road full-time and explore the country while teaching others how to live green. We chose to give up the stability of a steady job in exchange for a wild journey of faith. Here are a few thoughts on the alternative parts of our life…and the variety of choices that are before us.

Employment
One of the most common questions we get asked is “how do you make money?!”. Most people are so accustomed to thinking about making money in the most traditional of ways…so making a living without a 9-5 job is a completely foreign and scary thought. The reason that it’s so scary is that we are constantly told by the media (and sometimes our family/friends) that to be accepted, we must appear to be successful. We must own a house. We must own a new vehicle. We must have a job with a fancy title. None of these things are bad…but they really aren’t necessary to have a happy life. When I started thinking about what was motivating us to have the big house, the car, the fancy job, etc…I realized that it was mostly driven by other people’s expectations. So, we left the very nice steady job and now we make money doing lots of small jobs. And we couldn’t be happier…because we are doing what we LOVE. Demos for the tour, photography, life coaching, handyman work, graphic design…everything adds up, and by the grace of God, we are able to pay bills and stay on the road! God has been so faithful throughout this journey and continues to amaze us with His provisions every day.

Housing
If you browse around my blog a bit…you will quickly notice that I am WAY into alternative housing. Yurts, cob houses, earthships, tipis Anything that looks a little quirky and I’m all over it. So it wasn’t a huge jump for us to move our entire life into a teeny box with wheels and hit the road. And we LOVE it. We love the smallness. We love having our home with us wherever the road leads. We couldn’t imagine it any other way! When we do settle down again somewhere…I’ll be checking one of my favorite books out from the library: Mortgage Free: Radical Strategies for Home Ownership. Love it.

Faith
Relying on something other than yourself is a foreign concept in our culture. We are constantly bombarded with messages of self-sufficiency and using our own “power” to create a new reality. And while I agree that we have amazing power within…I believe that power comes from Christ. He alone gives us power to pursue those dreams and He opens doors and opportunities beyond our wildest dreams when we abide in Him. Living a life focused on Christ is not always a popular choice, but for us…it’s the only choice.

Parenting
It’s a crazy thing…this parenting job. We are trying to do the best that we can with the information that we have…and adding a whole bunch of love and kisses along the way We are a homebirthing, cloth diapering, non-vaxing, gentle disciplining, babywearing, co-sleeping, extended nursing family…whew! That’s a lot of labels. I prefer to think of it as natural parenting. We believe that children are to be treated with respect and mercy. It’s not an easy road and we’re not perfect by any means…but we try to treat Bella the way we want her to treat others….with respect and kindness.

Education
Another question that we get asked a lot is “…but what will you do when Bella needs to go to school?”. And to that my response is “…she is already in school!”. The school of life, that is Bella is learning new things every day…in the last week we have learned about railroads, numbers, seasons, food, money, and more…just by living life. She is learning about the world around her in every interaction we have. She constantly asks questions and I do my best to teach her new things each day. We fall into the “unschooling” camp and it fits perfectly with our lifestyle and beliefs about how a child should learn. For some great reading on this topic…here is a great book to start with.

Food
We definitely go against the flow when it comes to food…we’ve been vegetarian for almost 4 years and are most recently eating all raw vegan foods. We feel amazing and we’re having a great time teaching others along the way!

Beauty
To be considered beautiful in our culture, it might appear that one needs to be a size 2, have long flowing blonde hair, and wear designer clothing. These are all things that the fashion magazines tell us…and it’s probably the most difficult thing for women especially to overcome. But for me, it’s much more fun to love myself for who I am, in the clothes I found at Goodwill….with hair that doesn’t have to be combed.

I love the definition above of “alternative” listed above…“a chance to choose between two or more possibilities”. A “chance to choose”. There is so much possibility in that phrase. What is your ultimate dream in life? Are you pursuing it? Are you taking steps each day towards that goal? Or do you just lay in bed at night and think about it? Do you think about how impossible it is? How life just isn’t fair? No more thinking. JUST START NOW. Take one step. And then take another. And another. Until you are living your dream and you couldn’t imagine it any other way!

God places passions and desires in our hearts for a reason. He wants us to be in the center of His will…pursuing the passions that He has placed in our hearts. Abide in Him. Listen. Dream. Take one step toward the alternative.

Photo credit: Flickr| tonystl

1. edwin and sally, 2. free2beMe, 3. unwritten, 4. Dread attack!!!, 5. sharpies, 6. santa barbara yurt: kid soup, 7. this is, in fact, the real Father Christmas, 8. Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India, 9. 19 Tipis, 10. 25 Yurt, 11. 44 Bridge Out, 12. 67 Nirvana Hostel, 13. 365 : day 7, 14. Yurt build: base, 15. yurt, 16. 365 : day 5, 17. I’m in love!, 18. Home office, 19. my hand, taken by my sister, 20. miss mia pie, 21. trish’s ceiling, 22. Hoodie morado, 23. Falda turqueza, 24. Play cupcakes order 16, 25. red cabin in the fog - Nanjing, 26. cheers to all my flickr friends, 27. Maui, 28. HardTimes pgj, 29. IMG_0897, 30. Plenty to Eat, 31. Queens - (Female Tshirt), 32. shoulder tats and sleeve, 33. Tea pot and cup, 34. me dreadiloos, 35. Petite Venise … again, 36. Hvalba

There is nothing like some Flickr favorites to make you feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside. Here are some of my most recent and here is where you can see all of my favorites (for those of you non-Flickr’ers out there…these are photos that I have come across in my wanderings and marked as “my favorite”…they are not photos I have taken myself). Enjoy!

I’m always looking for clever organizational tools…and I love this one featured by HGTV. Click here for 5 different ideas, including one for the kitchen using pie filling cans…so colorful and eye catching! There are always cool cans at garage sales, antique stores, and thrift shops…I had never thought about mounting them on the wall! A big thanks to Kristi at Good Like a Medicine for passing it along!

When I committed to The Compact in October of 2006, I had no idea how radically it would change my life. I set out on a mission to simply stop buying new stuff…but instead the experiment changed my entire view of our consumerism-obsessed culture, marketing, wants vs. needs, giving vs. selling, the poor…the list goes on and on. While I did not complete the entire year of Compacting by my “rules”… I will be forever changed by this experience. I have blogged in the past about my journey, but here are some effects of The Compact that are still with me today:

• I LOVE buying used. It’s almost physically painful for me to buy things new/full retail cost. I could spend hours and hours at Goodwill…especially if I have a list of things I’ve been looking for. The thrill of the hunt is so fun. Whenever we need something, whether it be RV related, clothing, kitchen gadgets…we always turn to eBay, Craigslist, or Goodwill first before ever looking for it new. I would have to say that this ONE THING has been the biggest change for us.
• I’ve become appalled at the price of things…and have started to realize the crazy profit companies make on our purchases because we are just too lazy to search out the alternative. My current pair of jeans (yes I only have one pair) were 99 cents at Goodwill. Matt found them for me in the men’s section and said “here honey…these will be cute on you”. I LOVE them! And now, when I go in and I’m browsing the jeans, a tag for $3.99 seems ludicrous! Ha ha! How dare they think they can charge $3.99! This also happens when I’ve been to too many garage sales…I get used to the LOW prices and it’s hard to go back to eBay or consignment stores after that!
• I started to give a lot more stuff away. I think that when you come to the realization that it’s the STUFF that is bogging you down emotionally, mentally, and physically…you just want to get rid of it! So I got very good at filling boxes and going to Goodwill. Is there anything that feels better than handing over boxes of stuff that has been cluttering your home to the Goodwill attendant in the back of the store? I love it…a natural high!
• Handmade gifts are where it’s at…if it’s a handmade/recycled/found object art gift, even better! I think it was during my Compacting days that I discovered Etsy. Oh my goodness. How can you not love Etsy?!
• I am so much more sensitive to the marketing teams whose main goal is to make me feel like my current state of being is not good enough. They want me to want something. They scheme all day long on the by putting “want creators” on TV, internet, billboards, junk mail…it’s rampant.
• Because I am more sensitive to these things…I can hardly stand to set foot in a mall. The bright lights, the busyness, the insane amounts of money being exchanged. It’s overload.
• I can now walk into a Target or any other store and actually only buy what I went in for. Prior to The Compact, I almost felt like a zombie as I walked out of Target…wondering what just happened in there! Last night, we went as a family to buy a few items that we’ve had on our list for weeks. And it felt so good to come out with just a few things on the receipt.
• Now that Bella is at the age where she can understand purchasing, money, wants, etc…it has become more time consuming to go into stores because I need to discuss everything with her as we go. She amazes me with her self-control though. When we walk by the $1 section in Target, she likes to stop and look, but is not thrown into a frenzy if we decide not to get something there. We talk through it and it becomes a teaching moment about consumerism, money, and priorities. We talk about whether or not we need it…does she already have something similar in the RV? And if we were to get that item, would she be willing to give something else in her toy box away to make room for it? Young minds are hungry for teaching…I try as hard as I can to teach her things that aren’t in a normal school syllabus! Of course, it’s pretty rare that we even go to Target, so I think this is the key to success. Keep children focused on the abundance they DO have…not what they don’t have. Gratitude breeds contentment.
• And oh what JOY will come if we can learn contentment! Pray for it…Christ wants to give it to you!

Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.

Philippians 4:11-13 (New Living Translation)

I would LOVE to hear from all of you who have committed to The Compact at any time (and for any length of time). Let us know how you felt about it and how it has stuck with you even after you were officially “done”.

Photo credit: Flickr/Creative Commons: ATIS547

For those of you who don’t read actively over at Happy Foody, I wanted to make sure you knew about our One Week Raw Challenge…with prizes! I have also just begun to offer “Raw Life Coaching” for those foodies wanting to take it up to the next level…there are so many exciting things happening over there. Be sure to check it out!