I want a house on my back too!

Thank you so much for putting me back in my snail shell.

My Brother said he thinks my spirit animal must be a snail. Perhaps. I guess it's a little underwhelming that I would have such a humble creature be my guide in the universe, but I'm not disappointed.

MUSH HILDABRANT! MUSH HORATIO!

Snails are pretty amazing. They have a house they carry with them everywhere. Total freedom! They just find a place to park when they are tired. They are so inquisitive, and there is so much personality when they look at you.

They can regenerate lost parts, they hibernate, but only for survival during hard times, otherwise they would hang out all year round. They are very sensitive to chemicals, and are generally genderless.

If I where to keep HildaBrant for life I would paint her up once her shell is healed. Something bright and lovely, but that would  be mean since I'm going to release her back into the wilds of LA once s/he's better. S/he seems very content, but I don't think it's right to keep her in an apartment. It's safe here, but is it a life? I wish I could ask what she wants.

My partner and I have decided to build a house, but there are some things to take into consideration with our current lifestyle.

1. We don't want a mortgage.
We already have looming school debt that has us shaking in our boots. 

2. We are tired of living in dingy apartments that cost to much that don't fit our needs.
We both feel that having a work space is more important than having an nice apartment, so we often find ourselves living in our art studio. When you subtract the work area from our current domicile, you get something like 100 square feet of living space. 

3. We travel all the time as a rule of thumb and never stay in one place too long.
Our lifestyle is that of artists. We travel from one event to the next wherever we can find work. Currently that is in the Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles area, since we are animators.

4. We are what is known as DINK's
Double Income No Kids. We have a cat that is very used to traveling and that's how we plan to stay for a long long time.

5. Gotta be something I can build myself.
I have a background in Architectural Engineering, and have used Auto CAD for many industrial, artistic, and residential reasons. I understand housing code, some plumbing, electrical and basic carpentry because I have been building with my dad since I was able to hold a hammer. 

This is the first toy I remember playing with.

My hammer was red.

If you take all of these things into account, you come to realize that a traditional house is just not in the cards for us. As an artist I have seen many interesting non-traditional homes. I have ideas for underground homes, and tree houses, and modular homes. At one point thought about living on a boat, like a few of my friends already do, or to live like one of my Grad School Mentors, who has many houses and studios around the region and travels with the weather.

We have thought long and hard about how we want to live and how we need to live and I have to admit that my favorite idea is the "Micro Home on Wheels".

It's really perfect for us. I've started to put plans together already. I will put more about it here as I continue planning and start building, it's a long way off of course, but it's still exciting.

Ok I have to work on my PHD proposal for the next several hours, go for a run, and then get some work done for Portly Pig Studios.

I love my life, it's Tomboy living at it's best.