Our First Ten Days

Our first 10 days have gone by in a blur. Taipei is everything we had imagined and then some. The city streets are constantly bustling with buses, cars and let’s not forget the iconic mo-ped. The city is quite different than our suburban home just outside of Houston. Although city living isn’t a foreign concept for us, it’s been awhile since we called one home.

July 7, 2017July 7, 2017 by tiffany987 Categories: Moving Abroad, Southeast Asia, TaiwanTags: 10 days, airbnb, apartment, banqiao, city, city streets, commute, food, fun, health check, high speed rail, high speed train, housing, hsr, ice monster, life, mango avalanche, maokong, mrt, subway, Taipei, Taiwan, train, transportation, travel 2 Comments

An Ode of Farewell

I believe it is important to say goodbye. Saying goodbye allows you to validate the the time spent with that person or thing. It says “my time with you was worth something.” And for me, saying goodbye to old things lets me make room for the new things. (Check out our upcoming post on “Ways to Say Goodbye”!) Our house symbolized in some way to me our old life, our life lived in suburbia. In an effort to let go and validate that time in our lives, I wrote this poem:

June 23, 2017June 22, 2017 by tiffany987 Categories: Moving AbroadTags: 17207, goodbye, home, house, life, Moving Abroad, moving on, new, old, saying goodbye, symbol, symbolized, validate Leave a comment

Downsizing: How I packed my entire life into 3 suitcases

Well 2 suitcases and a carry-on

Step One: Get rid of stuff!

1. Start early. The earlier you start, the better decisions you’ll be able to make when it comes to getting rid of the things you truly don’t want or need. Thankfully moving abroad has come as part of our simplifying phase and I have been slowly but surely stripping my closet of unused/unwanted items and replacing them with fewer, higher-quality items that I love! 
2. Use online resources to sell, consign or donate your items. Here are a few of the sites I used to help me clear out our unwanted items. 
   • ThredUp.com Any clothes or shoes that I had to get rid of, I would immediately pack into a ThredUp bag (get yours here) and send it off to ThredUp, an online consignment store of sorts
   • Decluttr.com For our books and other media I used the decluttr app on my phone. You don’t get paid much, but when you’re moving abroad getting paid to scan and send (they pay shipping) your old books and media is awesome!
   • Facebook Beg, Barter, Buy groups, Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist For our household items and furniture, I posted as much as I possibly could on these sites. At first I was just using Beg, Barter, Buy groups on Facebook, but when I added Facebook Marketplace, things were practically flying out of my house.
3. Find a charity that takes donations. Since I work a at a resale shop that benefits a local charity, almost every Monday for a few months, I dropped of a carload of donations before going into work. Resale shops are great places to drop off household goods, electronics, clothes and shoes that you don’t have time or energy to sell. Some may even pickup furniture that you would like to donate! Goodwill is a great place, but you may find a local charity that makes your heart happy. (If you’re in NW Houston, take a look at The Hope Chest which benefits Cy-Hope!)
4. Host a garage sale! Now my husband is the GARAGE SALE KING! We debated whether or not to host a garage sale and we are so glad we did. We made way more money than we thought we would be able to. Our biggest sellers were things we  thought we would just donate or throw out! And our garage type items were huge hits! A box of open spray paint cans went for $5!

June 9, 2017June 22, 2017 by tiffany987 Categories: About us, Moving AbroadTags: airline, donate, donations, downsizing, flight, flying, garage sale, Moving Abroad, packing, pile, relocating, sell, sort, suitcases, weight 2 Comments

Great Wide Adventure

Our decision to live and teach abroad

It’s amazing to see the Lord work. It’s wonderful for me to look back and see how He’s been preparing us for years. There has been a process to get us to this place of “yes” and I’m so thankful we went through it. We truly believe there is something better than the American Dream, which for us has been a 9-5 that wears you out and leaves nothing for the other things in life.

May 2, 2017May 5, 2017 by tiffany987 Categories: About usTags: American Dream, busy-ness, busyness, community, God, Harvey, home, house, house on market, Jesus, moving, music, oppression, selling house, Spanish, Taipei, Taiwan, teaching, teaching abroad Leave a comment