(Written on the Day of the Dead, November 1, 2020)

I have wanted a “home of my own” most of my life.  Twice I succeeded in owning a home for a few years, but then they had to be sold due to losing a job or moving to take a job. In each case I was forced to sell, to break even or settle for a loss, just to avoid foreclosure.  It was both scary and depressing as bankruptcy loomed. Each time, my joy at owning a home turned into a financial nightmare that put me “beyond my means”.  So, I gave up on the “American Dream” of homeownership for a decade and a half during which I discovered that as a renter I was even more at the mercy and whim of a landlord or landlady. I even found myself essentially homeless during the first 6 months of the COVID pandemic, which was extremely frightening… to have no home when “shelter-in-place” was the mandate for avoiding catching this deadly virus!

Luckily a kindly relative took me in for awhile, then a childhood friend rented me a room for another couple of months, during which I did catch COVID as she and her son (who worked in a supermarket) considered the virus a “hoax” and neither used masks nor “distanced”, nor worried about it, while family members and friends around them came down with at least traceable amounts of the disease. I turned out to be “asymptomatic” and never got sick, and finally I landed in a place where I feel my rental (shared with a friend) is fairly secure, in Santa Fe, a fabulous small city in northern New Mexico.  But I still long for a “home of my own” under the Western stars!

This time my plan is to build a website that helps put at our fingertips as many potentials for simple-and-small-living-on-a-budget as I can find, to help us both decide how and where we can build a small structure on a piece of land where one can grow a garden for food, build a small dwelling that protects us from the elements and will keep us warm and dry though the winter. I also want a home that fosters my love of writing with a big desk overlooking a window with a view next to a toasty wood stove, a cozy kitchen nook, with a built-in bed around the corner and a simple but functional bathroom indoors.

It is Day of the Dead, Nov. 1, 2020 as I write this, a few days before a fraught national presidential election, while the COVID pandemic rages through our neighborhoods in its surging 3^rd wave. I am becoming very aware that along with the need to create some cash flow via affiliate marketing so that someday I can buy, build or create a small “home of my own”, this website provides the impetus for researching and collating tons of information about what is now available in the way of tiny homes, cabin kits, prefabs, domes and arches, strawbale, adobe (and other bricks and blocks), cordwood and cob, etc., including what kind of discounts, deals, recycling and rummaging I can find to help keep our mutual costs down.  Since a significant portion of America is now considering down-sizing, with storming coastlines, raging fires, and natural disasters forcing us to relocate, it seems a fortuitous time to focus on tiny building structures, small cottages, kits and prefabs so that we can provide the necessary structures for our creatively independent lives.

Perhaps it’s just the season (as the veil between worlds thins), but I am also aware that I am driven by the need to find a “place to die” as well as “a place to live”. As a senior facing the inevitable, I will need to own the place I live in, if I hope to be able to stay there until I die. Yes, things can happen unexpectedly over the ensuing years and nothing is certain, but I am being driven to find, sculpt, build, buy or otherwise create a “home of my own” and a “place to die” that is under my control.

I am also wanting to live in a progressive and sustainable community with like-minded others so that we can live and work together in creating an environment that fosters happiness and cooperation among us, as well as good health and stewardship of the Earth. Isolation is NOT the answer, as this pandemic has taught us. We need each other if we are going to thrive in a fast-changing world. So, I am intending to create win-win partnerships and associations with individuals and companies who want to work together in creating a better world for us all. I hope you will join me in this “Small is Beautiful” Movement toward peace and tranquility during a time of global upheaval and transformation!

Welcome to our TeenyTinyHome.com website. I hope it will serve your interests and your needs.