Category Archive

Neighbors & Hoods

What makes a tent/RV/house a home isn’t always contained within its walls. These posts highlight the community surrounding the structures.

Little Free Libraries: Restore your faith in humanity, one book at a time

I’m totally falling in love with the Little Free Libraries. The idea is so simple, it actually works: take a book, return a book. It’s cute, it’s clever. It brings a community together, it promotes literacy. Here’s how they work…

How do we buy a house when we can’t agree on a location?

I was looking at houses in Georgia (where I am from) and noticed houses that are gorgeous and are cheaper than where we are currently living and looking to buy in Alabama. Why is the price so different? I don’t know, but I am willing to move from one state to another. The problem: my husband isn’t willing to move. How do you buy a house together when neither of you agrees on the location?

Stuck at a crosswalk in Germany? Play Pong with your friend or neighbor across the street

Calling all social interaction AND video game geeks — a traffic light in Germany lets you play Pong with a friend while you wait to cross the street. As you can see in the video below, the premise is simple — wait for the light to switch to red and the game begins!

My secret love affair with the country

The country and I have always had an on-again/off-again relationship. And this summer my family and I spent time at my parents’ beautiful six acre property in Nova Scotia. Watching my daughter pick wildflowers and hide under my parents’ willow trees, talk about pigs and horses and eat too many freshly picked apples makes me wonder if maybe I walked away from something good. Is she, am I, missing out on a wonderful life? Maybe the country and I need to make another go at it…

Sometimes I take the back alleys

We all know I am an avowed city girl, right? Backstory: grew up in the forest, moved to the city, then moved around to different cities, then settled in the city near my forest. I continue to make all sorts of logistical sacrifices to living my city-center lifestyle, including but not limited to having my son sleep in a walk-in closet and paying way more than I should for a mortgage. I love that I can walk out my front door and immediately be immersed in a flow of hungover hipsters, aging gay professionals, halfway house residents, Microsoft executives, and part-time yoga teachers/body workers/dance instructors/etc. who live in my ‘hood.

But even as an avowed city dweller who loves swimming through people-stew every day, I still find myself sometimes taking the back alleys.

How long is an old tenant’s mail my responsibility?

The girl who lived here before was here for five years of grad school, so naturally she still gets a lot of mail. I don’t think either of us have the time to get together every week just to hand off a few postcards. So what I want to know is, at what point do I give up on reuniting a former tenant with her lost mail?

Time lapse video of a Halifax neighborhood painting an intersection/block partying it up

Recently, a neighborhood in Halifax, Nova Scotia got together to paint an intersection/have a block party. One of the people involved put together this time lapse video, and another neighborhood Homie let us in on the details, including an unexpected outcome from this community street art…

What would YOUR neighborhood sound like?

This design concept from UK designer Nicola Hume is called “Listen Here,” and would make it so that locals could share the sounds of their hometown. The idea is that you could put wireless microphones around your favorite neighborhood locations, and visitors could listen to them via a public kiosk. The sounds would be mapped — so visitors could listen in, and then head off to go experience the sounds first-hand.