For those of you who are into Twitter, you can now find me as Unm00red. I’ve also got updates posting in the bottom of the sidebar if you’re curious but don’t want me filling up your Twitbin.

Be forewarned that my Twitters may be even more eclectic than my blog entries.

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Some of you may recall that I have teeny-tiny crush on Tim Ferriss. (Well, okay, perhaps just comfortably short of being worthy of a restraining order. But who am I to get hung up on details?)

Anyway, as part of the promotion campaign for Leo Babauta’s book, The Power of Less, he just posted an interview with Ferriss that is well worth a listen.

What I found the most interesting about the interview is how Ferriss has consciously chosen to architect his environment in such a way as to make it almost impossible to focus on anything other than what he’s decided is his top-priority at that given time. I’m talking monastic-level severity.

I’ve spent several hours today mentally kicking around his approach to work and I still can’t decide if I’m intrigued by his methods or terrified by them on a deeply visceral level. What’s punching my buttons is the realization that the place in which I’ve traditionally been able to achieve a flow state and be my most productive is 180-degrees diametrically-opposed to Ferriss’.  (About the only thing that makes this a little less true is he apparently likes to have a movie running silently in the background.)

I am an information addict and I tend to want to be connected to what I deem my important sources of information at all times while I’m working. I want to be able to flip to my news feeds, email, or the phone number of my cat’s astrologist with a single keystroke.

I normally am reading somewhere between 5 and 10 books simultaneously. Bookstores actually send me thank-you cards around the holidays.  (Although their ardor has begun to cool somewhat since I started getting roughly 95% of my books from the library.)

It’s a necessary survival-skill for anyone I date to learn how to safely navigate around the circumference of books, notepads, and laptops (generally there’s three running simultaneously) surrounding my usual roosting spot without either killing themselves or unplugging anything critical that will result in me killing them.  (Yes, the three laptops are after I downsized my belongings.  There used to be four.)

After reading The Four Hour Work Week, I tried scaling down the times I checked email. I decided to start small and simply have my machines only check every half-hour rather than every minute. I think I made it a day and half before I started experiencing Delirium tremens. People I’m close to generally know they can fire off an email at any time of day or night and stand at least even odds of getting a response from me in under a minute.

At this point, I’m not sure I could write a grammatically-correct sentence without simultaneously having to keep a yowling Balinese cat from stepping on anything critical on the keyboard.

I could go on, but my main point is that I have made the conscious choice to work in an environment where there are almost always multiple demands on my attention at any given time.  Of course, it is also highly possible that my chaotic working style may be one of the contributing factors to why I felt the need to seriously simplify my life in the last year.

I can follow the argument in Babauta’s The Power of Less that you’re likely to have more energy to direct at a particular goal if you tackle only one goal at a time. Certainly a finite amount of energy directed at a single target is more effective, right? And no one is given more than 24 hours in a day.

I guess I just don’t buy the assumption that the amount of energy we have is a constant whether we’re working on one goal or multiple ones. In terms of my personal proclivities, I’m not certain how much enthusiasm I’d have for any one project without others hovering interestingly in the wings.

Bright, shiny distractions are an energetic shot-in-the-arm to me. They give me enough juice to keep plugging away at whatever I currently need to get done.  If I shackled myself away in a room somewhere safe from all distractions, I think I’d feel compelled to chew off my own leg in under five minutes. Then I would hobble away and refuse to think again upon whatever it was that led me to that situation in the first place.  (Thank god ADD was just becoming a popular concept when I was a kid or they would have drugged me to the gills with Ritalin. As it was, I spent most of my public school education banished to the school library.)

Of course, I also think I’ve chosen to engineer my life in ways to weed out what I perceive to be meaningless distractions. I don’t own a T.V. I refuse to track or even understand anything related to American sports teams. I couldn’t tell you if the Dallas Cowboys are a baseball or rugby team. (Actually, I know the answer to that one. I’m just trying to make a couple of male friends howl in protest.) If you force me into a mall, I shop like a man with fifteen minutes left to live, and I’ll never give a damn about anything involving a shoe with heels. I couldn’t bowl a strike or make Baked Alaska if my life depended on it. I am capable of sitting with a friend or loved one in an hour or more of companionable silence without feeling the need to fidget. And I absolutely refuse to give even another minute of my life to trying to understand differential equations.

So I guess I’m capable of being zen-like in particular areas. But abandon my books, email, and newsfeeds?? Inconceivable. (To borrow a quote from The Princess Bride.)

Still, I catch myself spending quite a bit of time and energy considering things like Babauta’s book and Ferriss’ interview wondering if there is, in fact, a better way I could be choosing to manage and use my limited time on the planet… I’ve got a feeling that this may be an area where I continue to evolve my thinking over the next couple of years.

And, before my extended navel-gazing on a Friday night gets totally insufferable–yes, I still think Ferriss is munchable.

(Image from tinksworld.org)

Carolyn Roberts was a 40-year-old mother of two teenage boys when she found herself suddenly divorced with limited financial resources. Unfortunately, this is situation is far too common in the U.S.. But then Carolyn did the radically uncommon–she built her own strawbale home in the Tucson desert. Perhaps more amazingly still, she built her house for $51,000 (not including land) which translates to $37 per square foot.

When interviewed about her story, Carolyn said: “I was fed up with life after many dead ends. I was determined to find a way to live independently, close to nature, and with dignity. I was so resolute and had such a short timeframe in which to build that I charged into this construction without really understanding what I was doing. I went through many trials for this reason, but I made it through them all mostly as a result of sheer resolve, a good consultant, many people who came to help, and divine intervention–not necessarily in that order.”

Carolyn had to pass 23 inspections before she was cleared to move from her construction trailer into the home, and it took another four years to complete all the finish-work. But she now has a lovely, charmingly colorful place to call home.  And every corner of it has the creative touch of her own hand and that of friends and loved ones who pitched in to help.

Carolyn has written a book about her experience–A House of Straw: A Natural Building Odyssey.  She also has a website full of pictures and information on green construction which I strongly encourage you to check out.

Below is a video she also put together that provides the high-level details of constructing her home.

Photos and video from AHouseofStraw.com

So, wow. Since Karen Datko’s story on MSN Money came out yesterday, Coming Unmoored has been getting a bunch of new visitors.

Let me start by saying thank you for stopping by my little corner of the internet. Also, I wanted to make sure that those of you who have an interest in tiny/small house living find the resources you need. I would encourage you to check out my small home resource page for a bunch of good links to other websites and blogs you might want to check out that weren’t mentioned in Ms. Datko’s article. There’s also some great ideas of books you may want to check out in the bookstore.

If you’re just starting out learning about the Small Home Movement, you’ll probably want to check out the Small House Society run by Gregory Johnson.

Also, a fantastic blog that will give you plenty of ideas of different options people are pursuing is Kent Griswold’s Tiny House Blog.

There are two yahoogroup lists that may also be of use to you: smallhousesocietyonline and TinyHouses

Please enjoy your visit and let me know if I can answer any questions or help you in any way.

Floating Home FAQ has just written a useful article on floating home utilities and details.  In particular, he details how the sewage system works (or sometimes doesn’t).

If you’re interested in the nitty-gritty details on how you get services to these types of homes, I encourage you to check out this article.

Moreover, I’d rather tickled to discover another floating home blogger in the area.

From the wide array of tiny house discussion lists and blogs I frequent, I like to think I’m familiar with at least some of the more common reasons people find tiny homes appealing—an opportunity to live more simply, a low-cost housing option, a way to have less negative impact on the planet, etc. Today, however, I read about a reason I’d never encountered before—Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS).

MCS is a chronic condition in which sufferers have anywhere from mild to life-threateningly extreme reactions in response to low levels of chemical exposure. Common triggers can include substance such as: pesticides, secondhand smoke, fresh paint, scented products, formaldehyde, cleaning compounds, and many others.

Just to give you a sense of the scale of the problem, the MCS America website reports that over 1 million Canadians are incapacitated by MCS. And, unfortunately, current disability laws both inside and outside the United State do not currently cover MCS in terms of either protection or services.

I had heard of MCS before, but it had never occurred to me what the impact would be for individuals with the condition in terms of trying to find viable housing…

“When one develops MCS… and needs to find a safer place to live, there is no organized help,” reports MCS America. “There are no registries of safer places, no agents who know what to look for, few landlords who understand that even a small repair or touch up with problem materials could result in months of ill health. Rare are the places with safe tenants (who don’t pollute the air) or buildings with safe maintenance plans. Too many people become very ill searching for a safe home, as each subsequent exposure adds to a cumulative toxic load. Many become homeless, and more than a few commit suicide as a direct result of not having access to safe housing.”

Mokihana Calizar, who has MCS, and her husband Pete Little have lived through this experience. After fourteen moves in fourteen years, the were driven out of their final rental home by the unannounced spraying of pesticides immediately outside their front door. They spent the next six months living out of their Subaru Forester, “Scout”. Thankfully, they have subsequently found temporary housing with friends in Washington state while they work on their more permanent solution… a nearly chemical-free tiny home of their own design, crafted in the shape of a Gypsy vardo.

According to a study headed by the CMHC, 86% of people with Environmental Sensitivities improved significantly after access to safe housing.

Building a tiny home is either within the current skill set–or can become with some education–of most reasonably able-bodied individuals. Tiny homes also tend to be lower cost (overall not by square foot) than more traditional homes, which may be a significant concern to individuals with a condition that limits their ability to function in the traditional work sector.

By designing and building their own homes, sufferers of MCS can select materials that are safe for them. (For example Salizar and Little are using denim-based insulation, white oak, milk paint, and a beeswax finish.) They can incorporate items which make day-to-day living much more comfortable: such as Hepa air filters, tightly sealing windows and doors, and appliances such as washer/dryers that have not been compromised with fragranced laundry soap or dryer sheets. (Quick aside: I just looked up the list of chemicals in a standard laundry sheet and it scared me enough to take the last couple of sheets in my box immediately out to the trash and bury them UNDER the used kitty litter, which with my cat is a frightening toxic substance all of its own.)

Moreover, self-building takes times which gives the builders exposure time with any of the products going into their house as an added check of what they can and cannot tolerate. And necessary changes can be made midstream in the project much easier than working with a regular builder. Salizar discovered she had a reaction to their initial choice in insulation, which sent her back to the drawing board. In the case of a tiny home, changes such as these are much less cost-prohibitive than they would be in a larger structure. Additionally, if a tiny, chemical-free home is built on wheels, it allows the MCS sufferer to relocate should something change in their surrounding environment making their current location unliveable.

While their Vardo is not a direct Tumbleweed design, Salizar and Little attended one of Jay Shafer’s tiny home design workshops.

Salizar has detailed the construction of her vardo in her blog, VardoforTwo. She is a writer and storyteller by vocation and both this and her other blog are graced with beautiful accounts of daily life with her husband as well as poems and other stories. It’s also fascinating to me to see the transformation of their tiny home into a work of art of its very own.

Both of the blogs are extremely well written and thought-provoking. I recommend taking the time to check them out and to follow their ongoing story of tiny house living.

Tiny House Blog has just posted a wonderful article on Vermont tiny home builder Peter King. I strongly encourage you to check it out.

Mr. King lives in rural Vermont, is passionate about simple living, and his dream is to help others learn to build their own tiny homes.

Below is a video created by Eva Sollberger for her show Stuck in Vermont on Mr. King.

The Greenest Dollar recently wrote an article that I think does a great job of summarizing the appeal many people find in micro homes.

Certainly, their descriptions of the ability to live simply and frugally resonated with me. If you’re curious about this, I’d encourage you to go check it out.

There’s also a list of tiny home designers/manufacturers at the bottom of the article.

Considering his book The 4-Hour Work Week is on the New York Times Bestseller list, I suspect half the planet knows who Tim Ferriss is right now. He’s definitely the business guru of the hour. I suspect it’s a slightly smaller subset of readers, however, who would like to bear the man’s love child. I am definitely a member of the later set.

Okay, so maybe that’s a slight exaggeration. I tend to be prone to those. But you know those theoretical questions along the lines of: “If you could invite two people from any period in time or history to dinner, who would you ask?” Well, I’m afraid George Sand just got ousted from the list in favor of Tim Ferriss. (Although, Sir Richard Francis Burton still makes the cut for the other slot. With my luck, though, Ferriss and Burton would spend the night arm-wrestling, comparing scars, and plotting the takeover of Apple Computer with nary a glance in my direction.)

I enjoyed Ferriss’ book. I like the way his mind works and felt he presented several thought-provoking ideas I want to spend some more time mulling over. It has also felt like there’s been a bit of synchronicity at work with the book appearing just when it did in my life, as I’ve been giving a lot of thought recently to my personal life design.

Anyway, after reading the book on my spiffy new Kindle, I jumped over to Ferriss’ website to check out some of the supplementary information he hosts there and quickly became hooked on his blog.

I’ve always been a sucker for intelligent men with a predilection for dumping the status quo on its ass. Ferriss is clearly smart, driven, and well-read. He thinks in unconventional ways and has chosen to do unusual and interesting things with his life. He’s been fired often enough and broken enough rules to meet my bad-boy quotient. Yet he can talk intelligently about tech and modern culture. The fact that he’s heavily into martial arts is just icing on the cake.

OK. So his idea of a breakfast is microwaving egg whites and adding flaxseed oil. That’s awful enough to choke a rabid vulture. And he outsourced his online dating recently, which sounds like something my ex would come up with. A man’s gotta have a few flaws, right?

In all seriousness, though, if Tim Ferriss keeps going the way he has been, I suspect he may end up being my generation’s version of Ben Franklin. He’s unconventional and intelligent enough to come up with some radically innovative creations. I’m really interested to follow where he heads from here.

There’s more than an academic interest on my part, though, where Ferriss is concerned. He makes my little OCD, Virgo, cybergrrl heart go pitter-pat with his discussions of the Pareto principle, breakdancing, and Argentinian wine. And there’s been enough written about Ferriss, both by himself and others, to keep a Competitive Intelligence analyst with a burgeoning crush entertained for days.

Ferriss definitely hits the high end of my “Yummy!” scale. But I’ve also learned that when I’m this obsessively smitten over someone it’s rarely just about the person. More often than not my “crush” is an strong indicator that there’s something about the person’s life or conduct that I long to emulate in my own. That’s certainly true with Ferriss. I watch the YouTube of him tangoing with some scrumptious young thing in South America and think to myself: That looks like great fun. I listen to him rattle off four different book titles in an answer to an interview question and I think: I want to spend more time with my “To be read” stack.

I don’t just want to do Tim Ferriss. I want to do what Tim Ferriss is doing, if at least in the abstract sense. I admire his decision to live a consciously-chosen life.

I ask you–what more could a girl want? Eye candy, food for thought, and inspiration.

And just in case you have no idea who I’m talking about. Here’s a copy of his recent fireside chat at Google:

(Editor’s note for the benefit of my mother: yes, I am still happily dating Charlie. If he can coo over Cary-Ann Moss, I can swoon over Ferriss.)

One of my favorite guilty pleasures (and ways to avoid work) is browsing through the Apartment Therapy site. I’m a sucker for the gorgeous pictures and and wealth of decorating ideas for small spaces.

I’m especially enjoying their Fourth Annual Smallest, Coolest Apartment Contest. If you’ve never seen it before and you’re interested in small-space living, definitely check it out.

In order to enter, your place must be 850 square feet or less. Each entrant is allowed to submit six images of their place, one of which must be a blueprint of the layout. I’m having fun checking out the entries as they come in. The creativity and design sense of the entrants just blows me away.

Maybe, someday I’ll have my place enough together to submit an entry.