So, one week of early mornings in, what have we been using all that time for here at trtn? Designing our own trailer proved a great opportunity to redo our whole design plan from scratch in order to take best advantage of the trailer’s features. 22 hours and 27 minutes worth of SketchUp modelling later, it’s starting to look like a house. That’s an awful lot of time you say. It sure feels like it. But the end product is (or, at least, will be) an exact model of my tiny house down to the thickness of the housewrap.
It’s 03:30am as I start writing this. Well, more like 03:37, it took me a few minutes to get up and let the dog out… For the next 21 days I’ll be waking up at 03:30 every day in an attempt to get caught back up on everything from this blog, to my tiny house planning, to my medical school studies, all of which have started to slip into the overwhelmingly behind category of my to-do list. The idea is drawn from this TED talk and an unshakeable belief that I can somehow add hours to the day. It has everything a goal needs: it’s specific, achievable, and time limited so I’ll eventually be able to say “I did it!”. We talk a lot about goal theory in medicine. After all, if our job is keeping people healthy that includes helping our patients quit smoking and resist that second doughnut. Unfortunately, we’re not always so good at applying this to our own lives, so here goes! While my dog stares at me in confusion wondering why he’s awake this long before his breakfast, here’s my first to-do list check off item: an update on what’s been happening lately with my tiny house build.
First up, on the topic of dogs, meet Whisky – future tiny house co-habitant, trtn mascot, and (wo)man’s best friend. He was born the summer I left for college and has been living with my folks since then. Over the past few months however, with them staring down the barrel of retirement and (they hope) a fair bit of travel, they’d been looking for a new home for him. In my typical act-first-think-later manner, I volunteered. Several complications and a canine transatlantic flight later, he’s all moved in. Taking on a dog in the middle of medical school may seem a little crazy but, to be honest, I think it’s one of the best choices I’ve made in a long time. Today marks four full weeks together and he’s taking as much care of me as I am of him: stopping me from hitting the snooze button each morning with the knowledge that he needs fed and let out, persuading me to start running again and do at least one long walk each weekend, and just generally keeping me company as I trawl through the seemingly endless quantity of information I need to know to become a doctor. So now all things tiny house are being designed with a 60lb dog in mind!
Whisky demonstrating one of his favorite (very comfortable, I’m sure) positions to curl up next to me at my desk.
The road to nowhere... 