The New Christmas

My family is extremely traditional.  My parents still live in the house where my brother and I grew up.    (It’s always refreshing and familiar to visit home and my mom always puts a package of Ferrero Rocher’s on my pillow before my arrival.)  Up until last year, holidays have been the same familiar routine.  We all congregate at my Grandparents’ home (built by my Dad and Grandpa in the 80s) on five acres of land with two dogs, ten chickens, one rooster, and eight vintage Farmall tractors (Grandpa’s hobby is restoring them) and stuff ourselves silly, no matter what we’re celebrating.   Last year things in the family started to change.  All of the grandkids are now adults.  The first great-grandchild, Baby Theo, joined the family last October.  My cousin Edward put down roots in China.  This year things are even more different.  Edward is now in India and Andrew, his brother, has joined him for a few months.  Elizabeth, their sister, is in Africa for a year, so the big family gatherings are considerably smaller.

My brother Nicholas is going to graduate from college in May and is spending a lot of time contemplating what he wants out of life and what is most important to him.  Thanks to his introspective reflection on what he truly values, he suggested that instead of exchanging gifts on Christmas morning, we buy presents for a needy family of four.  My parents and I loved the idea, so on Black Friday we braved the consumer madness and purchased Christmas gifts for our adopted family.  It was a lot of fun to shop as a family, and it was much more fulfilling to give to a good cause instead of giving each other silly presents like kitchen gadgets, coffee table books, or Snuggies.  This new direction in gift-giving was a relief to me, because as a currently homeless person, I have worried about storing Christmas gifts in the trunk of my car where space is limited as well as what to do with the things people give me that I don’t have a place for.

Staying Classy in San Diego

Anchor Man is one of my favorite movies.  The cast of characters is ridiculous and hilarious.  Ron Burgundy and his unapologetic skirt-chasing, hard-boozing ways.  Veronica Corningstone and her non-regional dialect.  Baxter, Ron’s bi-lingual terrier.  The cult classic has some interesting and shady personalities, similar to downtown San Diego, where I stayed last week during another work trip.

The Sofia Hotel is a darling boutique hotel.  The location is perfect: walking distance to Horton Plaza and the Gas Lamp district, and only a few minutes from the airport.  The hotel’s ground floor is home of The Currant Restaurant, an American Brasserie.  The decor is rich and sultry, with dim lighting, velvet upholstery, and ornately carved wooden furniture.  Overall, the interior has a sexy, French feel, swanky enough for Mr. Burgundy himself.  After a long day of sales calls it was an ideal, quiet place to relax and asses the successes and challenges of the day.  Mussels in white wine, tomato and shallot sauce with frites helped too!

Step Two: Organization, Part II

Two posts ago, you read about how I’m legitimately living out of the trunk of my car.  Now I’ll dive into the details of day-to-day living.

Thanks to my wonderful employer and our lovely work facility, I have access to a weight room, yoga and kick-boxing classes, and a really nice locker room!  I try to take advantage of the weight room as much as possible during my lunch break.  I can pop over and put in about 45 minutes, then hit the showers in the locker room, and be back at my cube in an hour.  I was on a waiting list for about a year before I got my own locker!  This is perfect for my current lifestyle.  I have all my toiletries stored there so I can take a full on shower after work before I go out for the evening.  It’s really nice to have a central place to keep my stuff and shower, so I’m not tying up my friends’ bathrooms.  Plus, it's cleaned daily, unlike most residential bathrooms.  ;)

Business Trip

As an electively homeless person, work trips are more valuable to me than ever before.  It’s a nice break from staying with friends and I’m guaranteed my own bed instead of a couch!  On Monday, I flew to Tampa for a team meeting.  The majority of my co-workers are territory managers and work virtually out of their homes all over the country, so it’s a treat for the whole group to get together.  My employer has a relationship with Busch Gardens so we were able to utilize their facility to meet.  Tuesday morning started with an onsite breakfast at the Crown Colonial restaurant in the park.  We managed to squeeze in a meeting between breakfast and lunch (lucky for me my colleagues share my passion for eating) and then had free time to enjoy the park!

Step Two: Organization

My first "secret-revealing" post, The Purge, told you all about how I narrowed down my possessions to just the essentials.  Now here's the fun part!  I am an organization geek- I get overly excited about nesting boxes, file folders, and containers of all shapes and sizes.  I got rid of nearly everything I owned, but still have necessities I need to easily access while storing them somewhere.  My personal challenge with my living experiment is to operate as efficiently as possible as I go from one place to the next.   My goals are:

1. Be organized and look nice (I don’t want it to be obvious I’m living out of my car!)


2. Don’t leave anything (for more than a couple of nights) in my friends’ homes


3. Leave a place better than I found it (life lesson from Girl Scout camping trips)

I have three places I store my things:

1. Trunk of my car


2. Locker at work


3. Boyfriend’s garage (original plan was to rent a storage unit but I'm taking my time to shop around for the least sketchy, most convenient location that is safe to visit by myself in the evenings... it's like searching for a needle in a haystack!)

What I access the most often (once or twice a day) is the junk in my trunk!  This is where I store my toiletries, pillow, blanket, accessories, and some clothes.

Nomad Life: One Month Down!

Yesterday I celebrated one month of living a nomadic lifestyle.  When I think back to how I was living a couple of months ago, it’s dramatically different!  My house, roommate, her dog, and all possessions are gone!  So far I love the freedom- staying at different places, no chores, no bills!  The month of November brought some travel opportunities with it which has made the transition a bit easier.  Luckily, my first official night of homelessness was spent in the beautiful Hotel Rex in San Francisco!

Step One: The Purge

My decision to become “electively homeless” or “nomadic” was relatively painless.  I simply decided I’d take it one day at a time and when I get tired of it, I’ll get a home again.  Easy.  The difficult decisions had to do with my stuff. 

In our culture, though we may not want to admit it, we often correlate a person’s success with the things that they own.  Cars, clothes, and homes are the most obvious examples, when we don’t know if the person living in a pent-house and driving a luxury car is maxed out in debt.  We live in a land of consumer-culture driven by big businesses placing ads everywhere to entice us to purchase.  Have you ever bought something to “reward” yourself for an accomplishment or to “treat” yourself on a bad day, even if it wasn’t the right thing to do financially?  I definitely have! 

Over the years, I’ve amassed a nice collection of stuff.  Some of it has sentimental value (souvenirs from trips, gifts from special people in my life) but most of it is purely functional (even if that function is to make my home or self more aesthetically pleasing).  Moving, whether you’re downsizing or not, is the best way to streamline the things you own.  Each time I’ve moved, I’ve been amazed at the little things I’ve found.  My roommates and I would say, “Wow, I had no idea we still had that!” Or “What is this thing and how long has it been in this drawer?”  The opportunity cost of not knowing what you have is that you are missing out on a chance to sell things before they’re outdated or to donate to someone less fortunate who could benefit immediately. 

My very first step in the purging process was to make a mental list of everything I owned and decide if I needed it on hand as I stay from place to place, if I wanted to store it, or if I wanted to get rid of it.  It seemed simple at first, but it was a much more complicated process than I’d anticipated.  The knick-knacks from my trip to Spain.  The bottles of sand from Costa Rica, Bermuda, Australia.  The pictures from high school and college (pre-digital camera).  My journals.  These were things that I don’t need, but didn’t know how to part with them because they can’t be easily replaced, or replaced at all.  I finally decided that all my souvenirs had to go, and I would refer to digital photos when I wanted to reminisce.  Done.  Pictures and journals would store, and everything else, literally, would be sold! 

It was both scary and liberating to pour my life’s possessions on my front lawn, watch strangers rummage through it all, and challenge my prices.  How could someone NOT think my Pottery Barn vase isn’t a steal at eight dollars!  I paid almost fifty for that!  It amazing how quickly things we purchase depreciate in value.  Garage sale experts say to price your belongings at 30% of what you paid, but my experience was not that fruitful!  After two long, hard days, it was all gone.  No more furniture, books, pictures, dishes.  All I owned were my remaining clothes, laptop, camera, basic toiletries, a suitcase, backpack, and towels.  The garage sale was successful as a) I got rid of everything and b) made more than enough money to pay off all my credit card debt! 

The last few nights in my empty, echoing house sleeping on a borrowed air mattress were depressing.  I told myself to cherish the time, as I still had a roof over my head that I could call my own and would have a lot less alone time as I stay with friends every night of the week.  Admittedly, I never made it through a full night at my house because it was way too quiet, and I prefer the company of my peeps to being alone.  Fortunately I had people to call anytime I wanted to see a friendly face.  Without any stuff or even a home of my own confirmed my feelings that I’m at a point in life in which I measure my success by the relationships I have, not the inanimate objects that surrounded me for years.  This makes me happy and on Thanksgiving I thought of you all and how much I appreciate you in my life!  From the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU!  xoxo

The Journey Begins

This is a story about a girl who sold all of her earthy possessions except the clothes off her back (ok, she kept a decent amount of her wardrobe, a girl has to dress!) and simply lived life, one day at a time.  Yes, I am this girl, and this blog is intended to chronicle my journey as well as provide advice or inspire others of the same mindset.

I’ll start by providing some background information.  I have never done this before.  I have a regular Monday-through-Friday office job that I’m keeping.  For the most part, I’m staying in my current city.  I’m not a hippy or having a quarter-life crisis.  I am an individual with incessant wanderlust.  I enjoy challenges and get bored easily.  I value experiences over possessions.

The “opportunity” to become a nomad came in late September.  One afternoon, my landlord called and simply said my roommate, her dog, and I must move out of our house by the end of October.  We’ve lived in our 1200-square-foot- two-bed- two-bath-one-car-garage-with-a-yard house for three years.  It’s in a prime location too, so it served as Grand Central Station for our friends every weekend.  We’ve loved it!  Now the owner’s daughter wants to move in and because I negotiated a month-to-month verbal agreement last year (there’s currently no lease), we’re out!

My roommate is moving to another city in a few months so it didn’t make sense to get into a short-term lease with her.  A couple of acquaintances approached me about renting extra rooms but their locations were a problem.  I started weighing my options and talking to friends.  One close friend is a pilot, and he kindly offered his place to me while he’s out of town several days a week.  Other friends mentioned I could stay with them for short periods of time or when they’re traveling.  Holidays are coming up and I’m going home for Thanksgiving and Christmas, in addition to a couple of pending trips for work.

I talked to a co-worker who couch surfed for ten months last year.  He had a place to stay every night (friends, girlfriend, co-workers, etc) and as word got out that he was nomadic, people started reaching out to him, asking him to house-sit or simply offering him short-term places to crash for free.  From my research online (my inner nerd is out), most people who adopt a vagrant lifestyle are college students backpacking around Europe on the cheap.  There aren’t many people who drift in their hometowns while holding down a steady job.  I’m a planner, so I’ve had to thoroughly prepare myself mentally for this change in lifestyle.

I’m currently living my third week as a nomad.  It’s been an adjustment but the experience has been positive so far.  Tonight I’m in a quiet, cozy apartment in my favorite part of town while my friend is gone on a work trip.  The keys to my success have been planning and flexibility and not sweating the inevitable hiccups.  Most importantly, my solid and supportive network of friends and family has made this possible.  You know who you are and I thank you!  I’ve had so many people ask me questions on how I’m brigning modern day nomad life to fruition, down to the nitty gritty, so my next few posts will reveal all the juicy details....  Stay tuned!