Living the sustainable Tiny Life

4 Comments Posted on Living the sustainable tiny life, The Silver Bullet Book, tiny house jamboree, tiny house workshop

Join us at Deek’s Vermont Tiny House Summer Camp 3!

I will be speaking at Derek “Deek” Diedricksen’s Vermont Tiny House Summer Camp, along with other tiny house luminaries!

I had the opportunity to be a speaker at the Tiny House Jamboree which exceeded its expected attendance of 10,000 – it went viral and 40,000 tiny house enthusiasts came. My blog entry about that experience is coming soon.
Deek’s speech was inspiring and amazing – he set the tone for this unique tiny house community event. He is included in my book, “Living the Sustainable Tiny Life”, just published, and available online here.
So, mark your calendars for the weekend of September 18-20, 2015. Register as soon as you can, they get sold out quickly! For link to register, click here. 
tiny house summer camp 3 final flyer smaller
Leave a comment Posted on Living the sustainable tiny life, The Silver Bullet Book, Youtube Silver Bullet Tour

Living the Sustainable Tiny Life

 

LastCover

 

Mea Culpa. I have been so busy the last three months completing the Silver Bullet, hosting workshops, moving in, having it filmed, finishing the e-book, that I apologize for not being a better social media broadcaster. I’m so “social media” challenged, but I promise to get better now that I have the time.

IMG_1675

If you want to catch up and see the the Silver Bullet Tiny House, watch the tour that my tiny house mentor, Derek Diedricksen, of Relaxshacks.com fame, made last month on Youtube.

You can learn everything you need to know about my journey and build in my book, Living the Sustainable Tiny Life. More info on what’s in the book and purchase details here.

I am heading out for the Tiny House Jamboree in Colorado Springs, August 7-9th, in a few days by car.

I will be speaking on Sunday from 3:00-3:40PM and I hope to meet you there.

I suggest that if you want to connect, let me know in your comments and we will make a plan.

See you down the road!

6 Comments Posted on Living the sustainable tiny life

The eBook is Here: Living the Sustainable Tiny Life

LastCover

Achieving a sustainable tiny lifestyle can be hard work, involving physical and emotional challenges. It requires character building and shedding layers of consumptive baggage.

Some call the journey daunting, overwhelming, and difficult, at best. And you know what, it does not have to be.

It was the best experience of my life!  It was transformative socially, physically, spiritually, morally and intellectually.  You will hear my story and learn about my path to leaving the debt culture behind, how to live a more compassionate, healthy and authentic sustainable lifestyle.

Part 1 of Living the Sustainable Tiny Life* is all about my tiny sustainable soul’s journey to an amazingly rewarding authentic sustainable lifestyle, from its fledgling beginnings to present day.

Part 2 takes you through the build process of the Silver Bullet Tiny House. Plenty of pictures, resource links and details reveal my construction and design choices that actualized the Silver Bullet challenge I set for myself in 2012.

Part 3  the Silver Bullet Tiny House and I are going on tour. I hope this e-book can inspire others with the lessons I’ve learned on my way to crafting a simpler, more mindful, and healthier lifestyle living tiny.

Comments about the book:

“It isn’t often you read a book that is grounded in the tiny house movement that touches on such a rich autobiographical history. Chronicling her career(s) in finance, redevelopment, visual art, and education, author Vera Struck builds her reasons for tackling the Silver Bullet Tiny House challenge she set for herself.
If you want to read an incredible book about someone who picked herself up by her bootstraps, found something she is passionate about, went for it, and is living large to tell the tale — then read this book. It’s a story of survival, personal growth and enlightenment towards a more sustainable American Dream.”
 
Andrew Odom, co-founder of Tiny r(E)volution and author of YOUR MESSAGE HERE: Gaining Corporate Sponsors for Your Tiny House Project

 

“Vera Struck certainly rocks with the power of several Vikings. Well into her sixties, she decides, “I want to design, and build, an off-grid, sustainable, tiny house that will serve as a traveling class room”, and does. She’s equal parts piss, vinegar, and infused-caffeine, not to mention damn driven.”

 
-Derek “Deek” Diedricksen (Author of “Microshelters”, Relaxshacks.com, and host/designer of HGTV’s “Tiny House Builders”)
“In Living the Sustainable Tiny Life, Vera Struck tells us a tiny house story that is uniquely her own. It is an inspiring journey that will help you make important realizations about what you want in your tiny house journey. While many of us are driven to the tiny house lifestyle seeking freedom from the debt culture, Vera’s story is full of hardship, challenges overcome, and proof that anyone can achieve a tiny house if they know their “why” and “how”. Once I started reading Living the Sustainable Tiny Life, I couldn’t put it down. In addition to Vera’s inspiring personal journey, she gives the reader a detailed look at how and why she designed each element of her house the way that she did. I was surprised to learn that she managed to get her floor to have an R value of 33 with an ingenious design and construction method. I definitely recommend this book for anyone considering but isn’t sure if they can gain the skills required to do it themselves. Living the Sustainable Tiny Life will give you the kick you need to get moving!”
– Ethan Waldman, Tiny House Designer/Builder/Dweller/Author of Tiny House Decisions, Tiny House Parking

Want to change your life from BIG to TINY? Then this is the eBook for you!
IMG_1689

Photo by Derek Diedricksen

Are you ready? Click the Add to Cart button below and “just do it!”.

            $25.00                          

* All proceeds go to scholarships for needy students at our TerraBluTeams.org workshops and the Living the Sustainable Tiny Life tour that begins next year.

3 Comments Posted on Living the sustainable tiny life, tiny house journey

Silver Bullet Update

SBIntI’m so glad to be back in the Silver Bullet finishing my interior. It has been a busy two months at sustainability fairs, festivals, speaking engagements and workshops. I have intentfully held back on putting up all the interior pictures because I am about to finish this two year project in a few weeks. YAY!

Many of you know how all-consuming this kind of DIY build can be and I look forward to having the time, freedom and luxury of putting my feet up on my tiny house deck and updating all my websites, relaxing and hiking in nature and tending to the organic garden.

Just a few more weeks of full-on 24-7 building and ethically placing 2500 of my last remaining 3000 possessions, (Oh yes, I was a bean counter -CPA in a former life), and I finally move in!

I have recycled, repurposed, free cycled, sold, given away just about every piece of art gallery equipment, flat files, print racks, clothing, furniture, gifts and dishes I accumulated over my 65 years. (Used Craig’s List, yerdle, Freecycle, decluttr, Todd’s Farm, and thread up) I started this journey five years ago with 213,452 possessions from my art gallery, art studio, home and rental unit. It takes a bit longer to move through layers of emotive, personal, and career history. And even longer to downsize your resources ethically, making sure none of them end up in a landfill.

Derek Diedricksen of Relaxshacks has promised to come film the finished tiny house this summer. When I attended his workshop, way back in 2012, I told him about my dream to have a traveling “sustainable lifestyle” exhibit to tour the country.  After starting my sustainable education non-profit, terrabluteams.org, in 2011, he was the person (besides my daughter) who encouraged me past the “Tipping Point” to move forward with my dream.

In a few weeks, it will be realized. My gratitude goes out to Deek, my daughter, all the volunteers, sponsors, IndieGoGo donors, tiny house community members, friends and relatives who gave me emotional, moral, fiscal and physical support during this challenging, sometimes harrowing, amazing and totally rewarding journey.

“Living the Sustainable Tiny Life”, a book about Vera’s journey, is soon to be published. Join her in Colorado Springs this August for the Tiny House Jamboree, where she will be speaking.

Keep checking back for the Silver Bullet Open House Party to get the tour underway!