WHAT ONE THING WILL CLEANSE, DETOX, NOURISH AND HELP HEAL MY GUT? And help my heart and weight loss efforts?
Benefits: 1. Digestion support. 2. Weight loss support. 3. Heart health
How is it better than Metamucil and the market competition?
1. Proprietary blend of herbs, vitamins and antioxidants facilitate long term healing, not just short term relief
2. Gentle elimination process.
3. Absorbs fat and cholesterol.
4. Detoxes the organs and blood stream by pulling it into the digestive tract and moving it out of the body.
5. Price for value is really great!
6. Sugar free!
Years ago, I heard a phrase, “Death begins in the colon”. It stuck with me and if your digestive system is happy and clean, the other organs are not stressed out trying to do the job of the colon. “Death begins in the colon”. Fiberwise is like a toothbrush for your colon. Use it daily!!
UNPLUG, DISCONNECT, REAP THE REWARDS OF QUIETING YOUR SOUL
If you remember on August 10, I announced that I’d be taking a 6-week social media sabbatical to rest and focus on personal growth. Today is September 11. I have two more weeks and look forward to huge breakthroughs in all areas. Note: I did check messages twice a week and re-post a few articles during this time and a few photos of my trip. I paid attention when my sister posted photos of her new baby and that’s about it! I did not spend time scrolling my newsfeeds, stories, or creating new posts, etc. BIG SHOCKER: I survived and so did the rest of the world, LOL!
A FEW BENEFITS:
Getting the “noise” of social media out of my head resulted in the below heartfelt resolution. I also did an unexpected 7-day fast from food during this time that brought so much freedom in my unhealthy food addictions (I drank liquids during the day and ate one meal in the evening). My digestive tract was so inflamed and bloated with acid reflux day and night, causing me pain and discomfort. I am adding CBD oil as well and feel much better.
Monday, I started a 30-day R3 weight loss plan of no sugar, flour or alcohol and joined Camp Gladiator, a kick-butt team fun workout! Check one out in your city.
I also had the unexpected blessing of taking a 3 week business trip/vacation. I flew to Indianapolis to train a dear friend who is a Nurse Practitioner, how to start her own wellness business. My friend of 13 years, was moving from Minnesota during that time. She sold almost all her belongings in her 3 bedroom condo, said goodbye to her son who just graduated, left behind all she’d known her entire life, and packed up her car with the necessities for a brave adventure moving to Florida for a fresh start in career and life. She has invented an amazing new light touch technology for a woman’s shave club that will be wildly successful! See www.littleacornshave.co.
Tracy picked me up in Indiana and I took the rest of the road trip with her, stopping at AirBnB’s in Kentucky, Alabama, Panama City Beach, with a final destination in Clearwater, Florida. She introduced me to Pho, a Vietnamese cuisine and my life will never be the same! We spent days at the beach, bonded, made lifetime memories, laughed until our sides hurt, made new friends, got acquainted with her new surroundings, and I got to meet her amazing business partners who live there and own Pitch Media company. My trip was cut short due to Andrew, our son, having an emergency surgery. He’s fine, it’s of a delicate nature though.
After four weeks of my sabbatical, I feel like someone cleared the cobwebs out of my brain and I am thinking more clearly and at a much higher level spiritually and professionally for my career and interpersonal relationships.
My Resolution after many trials, heartaches, crushed dreams, financial losses, broken relationships, and dark days the last two and a half years:
“I am a beautiful broken MESS and God is using my past and present circumstances to better my future and bring Himself GLORY that will turn hearts to seek Him as they see the beauty He brings out of ashes in my own life!”
I keep thinking of the verse, “When you pass through the fire, it shall not burn you. When you walk through the waters, they shall not overtake you.” I can attest to the truth of this!
I have cried buckets of tears, had a crisis of faith, been very mad at God, my husband, and the enemy. I have repented and forgiven and I am free and healing every day as I seek to know true intimacy with the Father and hold His hand, letting Him guide my next step, not having to know the answers to all my questions or the future. As a futuristic visionary, this is a huge growth for me.
My theme song during these dark days:
The President of the wellness company I have represented for almost 17 years is a man I greatly respect and he taught me the following:
What is a “GRACE CARD”? a lifetime pass of forgiveness and love no matter what you do in the future and no matter what you have done in the past. I won’t surrender my power to anyone! I choose to forgive! I choose to be powerful! Who is with me???
“When you don’t move the mountains I’m needing you to move, when you don’t part the waters I wish I could walk through, when you don’t give the answers as I cry out to you, I will trust in you!”
If you are considering a social media sabbatical and want some encouragement and accountability, please reach out to me! It’s a very brave and scary thing to do, but oh so worth it!
In an unprecedented study, PhD student Maria Saxton looked at 80 people who downsized to tiny homes to quantify whether their environmental footprints really got smaller.
Interest is surging in tiny homes—livable dwelling units that typically measure under 400 square feet. Much of this interest is driven by media coverage that claims that living in tiny homes is good for the planet.
It may seem intuitively obvious that downsizing to a tiny home would reduce one’s environmental impact, since it means occupying a much smaller space and consuming fewer resources. But little research has been done to actually measure how people’s environmental behaviors change when they make this drastic move.
For my doctorate in environmental design and planning, I sought to fill this gap in knowledge by developing a study that could provide measurable evidence on how downsizing influences environmental impacts. First I surveyed 80 downsizers who had lived in tiny homes for a year or more, to calculate their ecological footprints in prior housing and current ecological footprints in their tiny houses. Then I conducted nine in-depth interviews to learn about behaviors that changed after downsizing.
I found that among 80 tiny home downsizers located across the United States, ecological footprints were reduced by about 45% on average. Surprisingly, I found that downsizing can influence many parts of one’s lifestyle and reduce impacts on the environment in unexpected ways.
THE UNSUSTAINABLE U.S. HOUSING MODEL
In recent decades, the building trend has been to “go big.” Newly constructed homes in the United States generally have a larger average square footage than in any other country in the world.
In 1973, the average newly constructed U.S. home measured 1,660 square feet. By 2017, that average had increased to 2,631 square feet—a 63% increase. This growth has harmed the environment in many ways, including loss of green space, increased air pollution and energy consumption, and ecosystem fragmentation, which can reduce biodiversity.
The concept of minimalist living has existed for centuries, but the modern tiny house movement became a trend only in the early 2000s, when one of the first tiny home building companies was founded. Tiny homes are an innovative housing approach that can reduce building material waste and excessive consumption. There is no universal definition for a tiny home, but they generally are small, efficient spaces that value quality over quantity.
People choose to downsize to tiny homes for many reasons. They may include living a more environmentally friendly lifestyle, simplifying their lives and possessions, becoming more mobile, or achieving financial freedom, since tiny homes typically cost significantly less than the average American home.
Many assessments of the tiny-house movement have asserted without quantitative evidence that individuals who downsize to tiny homes will have a significantly lower environmental impact. On the other hand, some reviews hint that tiny home living may lend itself to unsustainable practices.
UNDERSTANDING FOOTPRINT CHANGES AFTER DOWNSIZING
This study examined tiny home downsizers’ environmental impacts by measuring their individual ecological footprints. This metric calculates human demand on nature by providing a measurement of land needed to sustain current consumption behaviors.
To do this, I calculated their spatial footprints in terms of global hectares, considering housing, transportation, food, goods, and services. For reference, one global hectare is equivalent to about 2.5 acres, or about the size of a single soccer field.
I found that among 80 tiny home downsizers located across the United States, the average ecological footprint was 3.87 global hectares, or about 9.5 acres. This means that it would require 9.5 acres to support that person’s lifestyle for one year. Before moving into tiny homes, these respondents’ average footprint was 7.01 global hectares (17.3 acres). For comparison, the average American’s footprint is 8.4 global hectares, or 20.8 acres.
My most interesting finding was that housing was not the only component of participants’ ecological footprints that changed. On average, every major component of downsizers’ lifestyles, including food, transportation, and consumption of goods and services, was positively influenced.
As a whole, I found that after downsizing, people were more likely to eat less energy-intensive food products and adopt more environmentally conscious eating habits, such as eating more locally and growing more of their own food. Participants traveled less by car, motorcycle, bus, train, and airplane, and drove more fuel-efficient cars than they did before downsizing.
They also purchased substantially fewer items, recycled more plastic and paper, and generated less trash. In sum, I found that downsizing was an important step toward reducing ecological footprints and encouraging pro-environmental behaviors.
To take these findings a step farther, I was able to use footprint data to calculate how many resources could potentially be saved if a small portion of Americans downsized. I found that about 366 million acres of biologically productive land could be saved if just 10% of Americans downsized to a tiny home.
FINE-TUNING FOOTPRINT ANALYSES
My research identified more than 100 behaviors that changed after downsizing to a tiny home. Approximately 86% had a positive impact, while the rest were negative.
Some choices, such as harvesting rainwater, adopting a capsule wardrobe approach, and carpooling, reduced individual environmental impacts. Others could potentially expand people’s footprints—for example, traveling more and eating out more often.
A handful of negative behaviors were not representative of all participants in the study but still are important to discuss. For instance, some participants drove longer distances after moving to rural areas where their tiny homes could be parked. Others ate out more often because they had smaller kitchens, or recycled less because they lacked space to store recyclables and had less access to curbside recycling services.
It is important to identify these behaviors in order to understand potential negative implications of tiny home living and enable designers to address them. It is also important to note that some behaviors I recorded could have been influenced by factors other than downsizing to a tiny home. For instance, some people might have reduced their car travel because they had recently retired.
Nonetheless, all participants in this study reduced their footprints by downsizing to tiny homes, even if they did not downsize for environmental reasons. This indicates that downsizing leads people to adopt behaviors that are better for the environment. These findings provide important insights for the sustainable housing industry and implications for future research on tiny homes.
For instance, someone may be able to present this study to a planning commission office in their town to show how and why tiny homes are a sustainable housing approach. These results have the potential to also support tiny home builders and designers, people who want to create tiny home communities, and others trying to change zoning ordinances in their towns to support tiny homes. I hope this work will spur additional research that produces more affordable and sustainable housing choices for more Americans.
Maria Saxton is a PhD Candidate in Environmental Planning and Design at Virginia Tech. This post originally appeared on The Conversation.
Hill Country Tiny Houses is so honored to welcome to our advisory team, Nikki Murphy. She is a certified strengths coach with Gallup. We became friends about 5 years ago and she’s simply the best! She worked very hard to achieve the advanced level with them and it shows! If you want to stop wasting your unique talents and become the best you can be, like her page now!
* 12.5% INCREASE in productivity for Teams* Companies outperforming peers by 147% in earnings per share* Employees who are SIX TIMES more engaged * 8% INCREASE in productivity for Individual Contributors?This IS NOT “fluffy, soft skills stuff” -it’s REAL. RELEVANT. MEASURABLE. Oh, and we have FUN!
EXTRAORDINARY RESULTS.
“Have you found the thing that lights your fire & ignites your passion? That is fulfillment and joy at its best. As a child, I vividly remember how I pictured myself as an adult, dressed in a suit and swinging my briefcase as I briskly walked through an airport to my flight. I was never concerned with the details of where I was going, what specifically I was doing when I got there…I just knew I was going to be in business and I may even be important! As I approached my 40th birthday (and by that, I mean I turned 38), I began doing what I now understand is perfectly normal; assessing my life’s work and wondering if this was truly where I was supposed to be. Through several wonderfully positioned twists of faith, I was introduced to Strengths Coaching and my own fire has been burning since. By teaching people about their God-given talents, giving them awareness of how the talents of those around them manifest in behavior, thoughts and feelings, my program lays the groundwork for incredible transformation within a marriage or team.
Having 20 years experience in nearly every company structure (from family-owned and start-up ventures to billion dollar international corporations) and an understanding of the mechanics of Retail, Design, Wholesale Manufacturing, Food & Beverage, Logistics and Quality, I bring a strong sense of understanding and “relatability” to my corporate clients. As an Entrepreneur, working mother of teenagers and happily married wife, I see application everywhere in life! In addition to corporate clients, I’ve taught Strengths to schools in our district, a 2-day program for working Women called “Ignite” and this summer will launch a program with GatehouseGrapevine, a supportive living Community for women in crisis.
I spent most of my life growing up in Germany, and earned my degree in International Business & German. I live with my wonderful husband near Dallas, TX with our two teenage daughters and Wiener dog son named “Schnitzel”. I love to travel the world, enjoy photography and music, time with family and casting vision for myself and others.”
“You were not an accident. You weren’t mass produced. You aren’t an assembly-line product. You were deliberately planned. SPECIFICALLY GIFTED. And lovingly positioned on the earth by the Master Craftsman.” Max Lucado
Having a birthday and acknowledging that you’re one year older and that you can’t slow TIME down brings a certain sense of reminiscing, don’t you find? This was therapy so if you will indulge me…Thank you in advance and I hope it blesses you! Below, you will find my Birthday wish with an invitation to join the mission!
CHALLENGES
It’s been a crazy journey, this tiny house business. The major challenges we’ve faced since going tiny almost two years ago, actually have less to do with the lifestyle and more to do with exterior people entering the scene and taking advantage of us due to owning a company. Before I expound on a few of the challenges, I want to express my gratitude here and in more detail at the end of this post. The gratitude I feel overcomes all the drama for sure!
As a startup company, we put everything in and drained our savings and resources to make it through year one. To this day, every single dollar we make goes right back in to the company so you end up working for free, which as you can imagine, after two years, gets old. No one said it’s easy to run a start up company, especially being family owned and operated. Of course, you wear all the hats and juggle all the balls!
Some of the hi-lights have been
Watching our daughter, Christianna, run our marketing department with such talent, skill, and ease: PRICELESS!
Todd teaching our son Andrew valuable work ethics and skill through on the job training: PRICELESS!
serving our clients to make their dreams come true
seeing God’s provision come miraculously when we had all but lost hope! (One time, an unexpected $1900 check, another $2800, then $15,000 and another $10,000.)
making new friends along the journey
gratitude for people’s kindness to believe in us. We even had an angel investor contribute $75,000, allowing us to keep our doors open.
a newly found passion for community, relationships, and helping the homeless
None of these beautiful things would have happened outside the trials and challenges we pressed through because our WHY and DREAMS are bigger than the obstacles!
Lenders want a track record before they will loan you money, yet you need that capital in the beginning. How does that make sense? You can also see why most companies fail in the first 5 years.
“Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing.” I have not gone public with this story that began almost two years ago. I have protected the reputation of the parties who wronged us. (I will not give names, but you may ask me in private if you’re concerned about encountering these people in our community, lest they rob you blind as well.) Honestly, I was too hurt, betrayed, mad, frustrated, stressed, angry, to speak in an honorable way before now. My momma taught me, “If ya ain’t got nothin’ nice to say, don’t say nothin’ at all!” One day soon, in this blog, I will expound on these stories, again without names.
You may or may not know this, but in our HGTV episode, they never once mentioned our company name. This was a huge disappointment which meant for people to find us, they had to use my name and do a google search.
BLESSINGS
Todd: True story: I woke up to his kiss, wishing me happy birthday before he headed off to work. The night before, it struck me in a phone conversation with my mom, that I was actually turning 46. (I thought I was turning 45). I bemoaned this fact to Todd before bed so the next morning, he says, “I much prefer the 46 year old “YOU” to the 23 year old “YOU”! I guess Beauty and youth ain’t everything: wisdom and wrinkles can make you a better person if you let them!!! I also remember after a few months in our tiny house, he said, “I love living tiny with you!”
Despite the many challenges and high stress of the journey, we are still very much in love and better for having gone through the trials!
HGTV: We made new friends; a whole new world opened up to us and we are thankful and excited to do more of it shortly we hope!
Heart for homeless: mainly through our connections at Community First in Austin, Texas, they are housing over 200 people, many in tiny houses after just 3 years.
Specific people who have helped us along the way: Mel and Deb Christiansen, Lois and Sonny Snyder, Beth and Brandon Carrier, Christianna Snyder, Andrew Snyder, Elisabeth Snyder, David Eickbusch (soon to be son-in-law), Raymond Lunsford, Mary Perlitz, Sonia Bryan, Hunter Boon, Candice roost page, Elizabeth Rose, Bill Lucas, Cori Dyer, Genae Browne, Nikki Murphy, Blake Lindley, Cynthia Edwards, John Gilbert, Rosalind, LeeAnn Kramer, Rapha God ministries, Living Water Ministries, Brent Bates, Keri Kropp, Robert Upton, Linda and Tucker Klaassen, Max Duncan, Christy Cracraft, Clint Fiore, Jesse Engler, Sean Murphy, Callie Roberson, Stephen Mooney, Katie Jordan. (There are so many more, too many to list here).
The kindness of our community rallying around to support us is truly astounding and life-giving!
Trips: We had so much fun hauling our house to tiny house shows across Texas, Illinois and Michigan, landing on the family farm last summer. (the very best way to visit family is to bring your own house!!)
Two miraculous success stories emerged from this time. I wish I could expound, but they are not my stories; I just got to be in relationship with them and partner with God in a miracle of healing inside and outside! If you ask me, I know they’d love to share with you personally!
I chose this charity because their heart is for the homeless and we are working together to build tiny homes to help solve this problem in our city. I’d be so honored if you’d join this mission, even with a $5.00 donation today!
What do I love about Mercy Gate? The success stories that have come from it. Videos on their website, and the leaders of it have been my girlfriends for a very long time so I believe in them! The fact that they are helping the down trodden and forgotten have hope again!
Career Freedom – you no longer have to slave away at a job that you hate because you have high living costs.
Time Freedom – think of all the time you’ll save because you’ve downsized the space you have to clean, repair, and maintain.
Financial Freedom – stop stressing about your ever-growing pile of debt and live debt free. Own your home outright and stop spending your entire paycheck on housing expenses. Live tiny; live debt free.
SIMPLICITY
Maintenance – with such a small space, the maintenance work is quick and easy! No more stressing over big fixes!
Lifestyle – living tiny truly is a lifestyle, and it’s a very simple one. There are far less moving parts to worry about and things to take care of.
Minimalism – own less stuff and experience freedom from choice. Tiny living forces you to be a minimalist which allows you to experience less stress, anxiety, and more happiness.
ADVENTURE
Travel – with lower living costs comes more savings. Savings you can use to finally take that European adventure you’ve been dreaming of.
Pioneering a Movement – Tiny Living is still a relatively new idea and you could join the movement that’s spreading like wildfire across the nation.
New Experience – tiny living is a novelty and can be so exciting. Every day is a new adventure and you have the power to chart your new life path.
“Thank you so much for letting us visit your tiny home! We love the decorations and how you have utilized the space. This was such a fun experience! We will definitely be planning our future tiny home now, thanks again!”
From Todd and Shari: “It’s been a rough year dealing with contractors, land owners and business owners taking advantage of us. We’ve looked at each other many times and said, ‘Is this stress even worth it?’ We don’t mind the stress of the work: of running the business, or building the tiny houses. We love helping our clients get into their dream tiny home. But the bullies of business who manipulate and use you after you put your trust in them and their word make us not want to play in this game. Honestly, it made us want to run away! We don’t have to do this, we can go live a peaceful life on an island in a tiny house and live happily ever after with just our little family.
But then we sit with families like the Moss family and we know that we just can’t give up on them and on their dreams! To be a small part of strengthening the family unit, knowing it will decrease stress in their lives, improve their marriage, and allow them to stay home with their children pushes us onward and forward.
I am so proud of the Moss family. Skyler leads a marketing team for a large global company and works remotely. Nikki has taught school for 13 years. Their decision to downsize and sell their 3,000 sq ft dream home they had custom built for their family just 3 years ago in Katy, Texas, did not come easily.
jamboree, toured 40 plus homes, “Ah, now I can see our family living happily in this one”
When Owen, 3 years old, was told they were going home, he said, “No, I wanna stay here” zoo,
Quality Family Time and Freedom to travel and show their boys different states and scenery.
They love each other and want to give their children the gift of life experiences and memories, not more ‘stuff’!”
As a Professional Coach, Genea Browne has invested 15 years developing high-level leaders inside non-profits and corporations. She lives with her husband, two daughters and amazing pup in The Bay Area. She enjoys reading, and traveling. And let’s not forget her love for coffee!
Shari says, “I watched a fellow marketing rep/friend rise to high levels of success in the company we represented. When I asked her the secret, she sent me to her coach, Genea. I can honestly say having Genea’s love, support, and encouragement has been a beacon of light to me during some dark days as an entrepreneur. She is an inspiration and is committed to her own personal development, reading 35-50 books each year .”
Genea is is devoted to guiding others on a journey to discover, embrace and celebrate their identity and life purpose.
New documentary about tiny house village for homeless people had its world premiere in March at @SouthbySouthwest in Austin @austinfilmsociety. It’s a beautiful community of love they have created! We got to meet the Filmmaker, Layton Blaylock, huge shout out to him for devoting two years of his life to this project! Read more here.
It was the first documentary I’ve ever seen that changed me forever!!
The documentary Community First! will be open to the public soon! Layton wants to work with us on our TV series project! We are so blessed!
“Should I post or not?” This last week has been brutal. I have been so discouraged lately.
Some people can be so hurtful. We received yet another ugly letter from the same friend we welcomed into our family last year. We loved, we trusted, and we were betrayed. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the only betrayal in 2018. I am tempted to grab my suitcase, neatly pack my BIG dreams inside, and head to the tropics with my husband and son. We could live happily ever after in a tiny house we build and just forget about trying to change the world! I know I need to forgive and learn to love even my enemies. I thought I was making progress and then another letter appears… What would you do?
My saving grace came in February, 2006, at a business conference, where the speaker was totally reading my mail. She had been in my shoes and found a better way. My whole life was turned upside down as the revelation of the life I really wanted flashed in front of me. I humbled myself, forgave all those who had hurt me in the past; I forgave myself and finally, I forgave God. It was the beginning of a whole new life of freedom, peace and joy, emotionally and spiritually, and I wanted everyone to experience it. Shortly after that, our company flew Todd and I to San Antonio, TX, for a leadership retreat and training with the top income earners. They had hired a caricaturist to draw our dream at the end of the three days. Somehow I knew this was my chance to ask BIG! I had achieved all the dreams on my vision board and quit dreaming. This was my chance to breathe life into my future. What did I want to do for the rest of my life if I could do anything and KNEW I could not fail?
Thirteen years ago, I was a burned out entrepreneur, a stressed out mommy, and struggling with my health. Although I achieved a high level of success in my company and attained a yearly income less than 5% of Americans ever earn, I felt empty and dissatisfied. I represented a wellness company and yet my body was showing the results of neglect and imbalance as I rarely took time for healthy meals, proper exercise, rest, and play. Climbing to the top and looking around at my marriage, my 3 children, and my other family relationships left me feeling regret! Those relationships were not thriving and I felt guilty.
“I want to create a healing center and wellness retreat where people can experience the kind of love You’ve shown me and I want miraculous healings and transformations to occur so people all across the globe will hear of Your power and goodness.”
Our JOURNEY…
What I now call “Selah Oasis” was birthed out of that. Fast forward to 2016, when we sold the “big dream home” our family had spent the last 3 years tearing apart and remodeling together. People couldn’t understand why we would make that sacrifice that to move in to a tiny home. I wanted something MORE THAN THAT BIG DREAM HOUSE; I WANTED MY BIG DREAMS TO COME TRUE! Having absolutely NO MORTGAGE was our reward and the freedom we gained was worth it!
“Selah Oasis” will have tiny houses for tourists to come in and experience our wellness retreats.
Our VISION…
Our vision is to create a flourishing, joy-filled wellness community that attracts the attention of the world to duplicate this model. We define a wellness community as “a group of individuals working toward a common goal of nurturing our bodies and our relationships to bring joy, a sense of belonging, and purpose through meaningful contribution”. We believe an authentic community of wellness offers almost everything our heart has been asking for all along. At the core of our being is a longing to belong and contribute our unique value to the greater good. Without “holistic wholeness” in body, soul and spirit, we cannot accomplish this. The goal is to make wellness and a simplistic luxury lifestyle affordable. Our core values are: freedom, wellness, simplicity, and sustainability.
WHY US…
We’re willing to do the hard work, work long hours, live in the village, and serve every day. Our faith, passion, and “get’er done” track record make us qualified to tackle this project and see it to completion. We are a Texas family owned business in the hill country. We have just got to pursue this, step out on a limb, give it our best shot and trust God to fill in where we lack. And so the journey begins…
