Sometimes, when life gives you lemons, it's time to roll up your sleeves and Google "unusual lemon recipes" because, frankly, homemade lemonade tastes like ass.
Most of the time, the metaphorical lemons don't relate to housing yourself and your three children on a tight budget, but when they do, the usual options share a similar appeal to me as homemade lemonade.
So it was time to Google "unusual housing options" and hope that the reply wouldn't be "Showing results for Homemade lemonade recipes".
What appeared in the results was a long list of tiny house builders who claimed to build family-sized tiny homes. One, in particular, stood out like a beacon of sanity as the only ones who seemed to understand the need for storage. Hand to God, Build Tiny, if it weren't for you I would never have gone through with this crazy scheme.
"You and three kids in one of our houses?", they said, "hold our motherfucking drinks". Except they didn't quite put it like that because, y' know, they're professionals.
Enthusiasm wise though? Totally holding their drinks.
It took them four months from the time I ordered the house until the day it was delivered. The longest four months of my life.
More importantly, because Build Tiny was so chill about the whole deal, it didn't occur to me that what I was planning was quite odd. Enter TV3 stage left to ask if they could film us for a show.
It was tactfully pitched as a show about people making "big life changes" but you know, oh you KNOW that was code for "look at these idiots thinking they can get all up in a houseboat when they've come from a five-bed penthouse in the city".
I wanted to do it though. If I'm going to call my blog Wondrously Other, you know I'm no stranger to the side-eye of strangers over my life choices. I figured maybe some other family might see it and be inspired. Or maybe less depressed about the weirdness of their own life choices. "Oh, you think THIS is bad? Check out the lady who lives in a shoe"
Which is maybe the briefing they should have given the film crew because I have yet to see a face as crestfallen as the cameraman trying to get TV quality shots in a tiny house. No word of a lie, the first words that came out of his mouth when he saw the interior was "I'm gonna need a wider lense".
It took all my self-control not to darken his day further by bringing up his oblique Jaws reference.
Fortunately, my children took care of that particular dilemma by demonstrating why there is a saying in the film industry that should never work with children or animals.
"Tash, can we just get a shot of the kitchen? Without the children? No without the ... we can still see a leg. Further back. Further. Outside?"
"Tash, can you just sit on the sofa and do a quick interview with the host? Why is house rocking? Are they jumping on their beds?"
"Children, can you take Kanoa up to your room and tell her a bit about what you like about living here?" .............. (insert crickets here)
Not that I was any better. I derp hard in front of cameras. It's a life long burden that my father, the family photographer, has carried with barely concealed frustration. The only photo of me and my sisters ever to make the walls at home is the one where I accidentally cracked up laughing. Hey, it's that or I look like a snake, take the damn crackup, dad.
Every time I had to talk to the camera my mouth moved like I'd had a stroke. I lost the ability to open and close drawers. I forgot how to put logs on the fire. I'm gonna be blunt here, I am not waiting for a phone call to become TV's next hot talent.
But for all that, our family's little 15 minutes of fame came out pretty well. I'm not sure whether I fell more on the side of "shoe dweller" or "inspirational free thinker" but who cares, we love La Sombra, our teeny tiny home in the country, and that's what counts.
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