It's official! I've stopped tip toeing around the thought of living a life I find authentic and started claiming it to the max. It all started in January 2017. I looked around the little world I had created for myself and realized that I wasn't as happy as I had pictured myself becoming.. but what could I change to make that so?!

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For as long as I can remember I've loved three things more than most other aspects of life.. designing, writing, and traveling. I realized that in order to be happy, truly happy, I had to be doing those things more often. But with the high cost of rent in the San Francisco Bay Area, I spent the majority of my time bartending just to pay my rent and gas.. just to commute to work and continue doing the same thing. Continue with the "not as happy" cycle. I was tired of that loop. I needed a way out. I looked around my apartment, which was filled with objects. Furniture and spaces I barely used even when I was home. I started to picture myself free of everything. Everything around me. The people, the places, the things, the thoughts, and most importantly the energy of it all. I was overwhelmed but that drove me in my search for what was to come.

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Lucy In The Sky is my pride and joy. My dad, being a professional woodworker, designed and built the entire van from start to finish. When I first told him I was planning to buy a van and that I wanted him to help me fix it up into a tiny home so I could travel, he just put his hand to his forehead and said "Oh Emily (*shakes head)." This is a typical response of a loving dad who gets the butterflies everything she flaps her wings.. but he's seen me take off before to Thailand, Israel, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala.. what could be the harm in our own country!? Lot's I'm sure, but I assured my family and friends that I would be careful and use my intuition to stay in flow. He was on board before I knew it, sending me pictures of other people's van designs to get inspiration, and promising vans of interest online for sale.

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I've probably always been obsessed with the adorably designed tiny homes I saw on TV, Instagram and Pinterest... but in January, 2017, with this new thought of starting completely fresh in every aspect of my life, I started to seriously picture myself living differently. Living tiny, mobile, and happy. I read dozens of articles and blogs and watched hundreds.. (yes, hundreds) of YouTube vlogs about the subjects of minimalism, tiny living, traveling in a van, and even learned what it meant to have a capsule wardrobe (though I also learned that I am NOT a capsule wardrobe kind of woman!) Craigslist became a full time job for me as I viciously perused the internet for buses, vans, sprinters, campers and the like. My goal in mind was to find something for $5,000 or less that would be reliable enough to take me anywhere in the US I wanted to go.

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On February 28th, 2017 I purchased a 1998 Dodge Ram Van 1500, with 86,000 original miles on the speedometer. I found this particular van in Los Angeles, where my parents reside, so I sent my Mom and Dad (aka:: the best parents and friends a girl could ask for in the world,) to check this one out for me down there. They had looked at quite a few already and we were all starting to get discouraged by my budget and perimeters, but when they went to see this one on my behalf, it felt like a great fit for me and just like that.. I became a van girl. <3

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It only took my dad 11 half-days of working on Lucy, nights and weekends, over the course of 3 months to finish the build. When I ended my lease in June and came to my parent's home to prepare for my adventure, I was finally able to do what I had wanted to do from day one on this van journey.. DECORATE!!! I saved all of my favorite things from my apartment and sold // donated everything else. So Lucy is blessed with the energy of housing only my favorite possessions. It's freeing, to say the least.

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#1 question I had going into this minimalist lifestyle - "Will I miss my things after I get rid of them?" .. A: Nope! Not a bit.

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