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Carmen Shenk

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I am an author, speaker, and coach helping you navigate the transition to a simple life in a smaller space.

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I had to snap this photo this morning. I looked over here and saw such beauty in this simple still life! ❤️💜🧡 One day this week (which day was it?) @thecapablecarpenter dropped by here and got a #Skoolie tour. He brought this cool mustache mug for my gent. It is perfect for tiny house coffee!! We only had him here for a few minutes because he needed to get on down the road. It was enough to know that he is a kindred spirit to my master craftsmen pipe organ builder husbeast. And we had to let him drive away without sharing food or beer and that just wasn’t right!! We look forward to our paths crossing again! We have a number of folks in our lives who are brilliant about the creative process and I crave the opportunity to get together and build cool inventive stuff with these folks. I need to figure out how to get my maker-builder-artist-craftsmen/craftswomen friends together to work and play together for a while. That would rock!! Making things is fun and people who like to build things are also fun! ❤️💜🧡 #artisaverb #mastercraftsmen #craftsmen #builder #maker #dreamer #artist #anythingispossible #dreambig #tinyhouse #tinyhousebuilder #creativity #fun #mustache #europeanjoinery

Looking for a little help simplifying things in your kitchen? Is your kitchen bursting at the seams? Is it so full that it’s hard to find space to cook? I can help! I’ve created a video series to help you right-size your kitchen. Instead of the downsizing process that is all about what you are losing and giving up - this series is a positive approach to keeping the right things to create a simple kitchen that cooks. There is a link in my bio - but it’s a link to my book. To find this 24 session video series, go to tinyhousefoodie.com, click on shop, then on courses... and this one is one of the three that are there. All my classes are designed to help you transition to a simple life in a smaller space to make room for great big dreams. So check them out, you will be glad you did! #greatresources #practicalminimalism #liveauthentically #foodie #kitchen #simple #minimalism #minimalist #simplicity #thegoodlife #eatwell #vanlife #buslife #tinyhouse #tinyhouselife #skoolie #homeiswhereyouparkit #livesimply #tinyhouseauthor #tinyhouse #authorsofinstagram

I have made a lot of focaccia bread lately and I think I will share the recipe in the Tiny House Magazine next month. This is the recipe that ruined my life... lol! You’ll have to get a copy to find out why/how focaccia bread ruined everything around here. I’m laughing so hard, this article will be a fun one to write! Never a dull moment around here with my genius Austrian and sweet little dog. #tinyhousemagazine #focacciabread #recipe #liveauthentic #foodie #simple #kitchen #minimalism #minimalist #simplicity #thegoodlife #eatwell

Still one of my favorite quotes from my new book. Link in bio. 💚💙💚 #gotiny #embracesimplicity #eatwell #kitchensimplicity #tinyhousefoodie #carmenshenk #liveauthentic #homeiswhereyouparkit #homeiswheretheheartis #livesimply #author #authorsofinstagram #minimalism #quote #quotes #inspirationalquotes

My favorite part of yesterday’s painting is this little burst. I’m enjoying combining acrylic pouring techniques with French marbling techniques, plus the exploration of color - which is always my thing! Painting is so much fun! This is pretty much my ideal life with a little work and a little art in each day. If I don’t keep that kind of balance I get a little squirrelly around the edges! Lol! Lately I have taken to photographing the work in stages and taking it as far as I might like... always documenting my favorite parts as I play. The end result is never that interesting because it ends up extremely over-worked, but along the way there are parts that can be amazing so I try to snap those photos and then keep working, knowing that I will paint over the canvas soon anyway. Since I am no longer a professional artist and I have no need of more artwork in storage, I am free to play with these things without creating mountains of wet canvases for an exhibit. There is no exhibit planned, so I can just enjoy myself. And that’s the best part of no longer being a professional artist!! It’s no longer about creating a product - it is about capturing moments of play in the process. I remember arguing this point in art school! Some folks in class had taken the position that the end product is the point, and that’s why we have exhibitions with art without the artist around. But I argued (forcefully at the time - as much as a young seen-and-not-heard Mennonite woman was able at the time) that art is about the process, not the product, and that if one is to share art - one is to share the act of creation - not a product. And that instead of exhibits there should simply be places where you can go and interact with artists and play, design, build and cross pollinate... and that is what art is! Art is a verb, not a noun. Gosh it is early to get all philosophical on ya. Now, here are some hashtags: #art #arting #arted #toart #artist #artistsofinstagram #simplicity #iamanartist #ilovecolor #iloveideas #creative #creation #thecreativeprocess #whatisart #simplicity #fun #play #acrylicpouring #frenchmarble #marble #marbling #frenchdecoration

One thing I really love about tiny house life is the freedom to work from home, to cook instead of work at 3 in the afternoon if I want to. To knock off early and paint 🎨 in the evening if I want to. And if one of our tiny house friends is passing through, we can do a Skoolie tour and have a lovely chat and talk about houses we want to build and traveling we want to do. If I was locked into the 9-5 life by a big mortgage payment I wouldn’t have the freedom to do those things. This is quality of life for me. This is freedom. And I’m loving it! I sometimes share a painting or vintage car or my weaving or other “off brand” stuff and I know the gurus say you aren’t supposed to do that. But isn’t that kind of freedom to do the things you love more of the time - isn’t that precisely what tiny living is all about?! It is for me! The “Tiny House Foodie” thing that I do isn’t just a brand to me. It’s the story of my life, and it is also a way to help people who find the transition to tiny to be a difficult one. Living in a tiny house on wheels may be a trend, but living simply is not a trend at all - it’s the part of going Tiny that people find the most liberating. And since more folks are finding the need to downsize for whatever reason, it’s important that we help so that more folks can thrive at going Tiny. It doesn’t have to be about loss and punishment for financial sins real or imagined. It can also be about shedding the burdens that gradually turn into exhaustion and restlessness. THAT, my friend... that’s the good stuff! BTW, yesterday I made focaccia bread at like 3 in the afternoon and then we ate the whole thing!! Yum!! LOL! #gotiny #embracesimplicity #eatwell #kitchen #baking #focaccia #pizza #freshbread #liveauthentic #simplicity #thegoodlife #minimalist #eatwell #vanlife #simplelife #homeiswhereyouparkit #livesimply #simpleliving #tinyhouse #skoolie #vanlife #buslife

Don’t you love #emeril ? I think he’s fun! I think I’ve seen his show all of three times, but it was fun! Hey peeps, Amazon lowered the price of my book to $9.95 plus there is a seller that has it at only $5.55 so now is a good time to pick up your copy! The ebook is $2.99 or free with Kindle Unlimited so if you love the feel of a book in your hand, you are in luck, if you like a paperless copy then you are also in luck. The thing that I’m really enjoying about my little book is the way people respond to the philosophical side of it. One person said it’s all about kitchen stuff on the surface, but under that it’s teaching you how to live on purpose. Another person said I was preparing people to survive hard times, which was really curious to me... but then I realized that the principals that I share in the book are focused on the power of simplicity which works to get us out of our chaos - but then I realized that this book came out of the challenge of selling our restaurant and hitting the reset button on our lives - so it was a response to hard times in a sense - so I can see how someone would read it and think that this would help people through. It really is interesting to see how people respond to a book! I love this part of being an author! #Author #authorsofinstagram #nonfiction #philosophy #tinyhousephilosophy #tinyhouseauthor #tinyhouseauthors #simplicity #minimalism #minimalist #kitchen #foodie #thegoodlife

People! Would you just LOOK at that sky! We have not seen the blue part for ages and it’s like bright and shiney and shit! I feel much less dreadful when the sky looks like this instead of all that gray drippy business!! Thank God Florence has finally gone, and not a moment too soon! She ate too much and put her feet on the furniture and gave my dog dirty looks when she thought we were not looking. She had bad breath and she tried to blame that mess on the dog and that’s just wrong on so many levels! So glad she is gone!! #feelingroovy #bluesky #florance #weather

I had a lovely chat with my step daughter who is in Austria learning German. It was such an interesting conversation. We talked about art and she mentioned some things she had learned about the weight of various pigments and how you can paint with predictable results if you understand which pigments will sink and which ones are more likely to surface. She sent me some of her research and it was absolutely fascinating. There was a photo of a nebulous or some incredibly beautiful space thing - not sure I have used the right term. I set about seeing if I could reproduce that picture in flowing acrylic paint. I was not at all successful about getting the specific result I was after, but it sure was fun trying! I need a much bigger canvas I think. I really want to try again and see if I can come a little closer to this phenomenal space photo she used as an example in her research. It is a worthy challenge I think! I have some other ideas I would like to try as well. I may need some rather large canvases for this experiment! Lol! What on earth am I supposed to do with huge canvases in my Skoolie?! LOL! They aren’t going to fit! Still... the urge to paint is overwhelming!! It’s So Much Fun!! #painting #artist #nebula #stars #ilovepainting #spacethefinalfrontier #acrylicpainting #liquidacrylic #artist #artistsofinstagram #tinyhouseartist

Radishes are beautiful! I love the crisp white with the vivid fuchsia colors in this root vegetable. Do you like them? I am a bit ambivalent about them to be honest. Sometime they provide just the right sharp counterpoint to another flavor. Sometimes they are just mean taste bud bullies that want to take over all other flavors. I don’t know. They are beautiful but I have mixed feelings about eating them. #radish #simplefood #gardenfresh #crisp #bitter Writing the hashtag #bitter reminds me of a story. I worked for a crazy woman for a few days and the whole time she told me stories of people in the community that had wronged her and about one guy she said she hoped he would burn in Hell. (She also pressured me to come to her church - but I digress) So many stories. It didn’t end well, she ripped me off and I left crying like a girl. I should have left throwing things and saying what needed saying but instead I left in tears - what can you do?! Later on I read a review of her restaurant that was spot on. The customer was absolutely right in every respect. I could have written that review myself - but I had nothing to do with it. I read her response to the customer and she assumed I was behind that review. So her reply to a public negative review was a public venomous response. I wasn’t behind it of course, she earned that review fair and square. Lol! I had better things to do then trash a Sysco-to-table restaurant that was hyping itself as farm-to-table. In her response to the bad review she called me bitter. I just thought that was such a strange word choice. Bitter. Like a radish? Funny, that this memory surfaced just when I looked at the word ya know? I need to write her into my novel! She’d be such a great character!! LOL! #strangerthanfiction #couldnotmakethisup

A talented friend is stopping by today to see our Skoolie. I love giving tours! We have been impatiently waiting to hear something back from the DMV so send some positive waves that they will finish up our paperwork soon. I am so impatient about getting Vinnie legal!! #placestogo #thingstodo #peopletovisit #nospareroomneeded #skoolie #skoolieconversion #transitbus #tinyhouse #buslife #vanlife

My favorite color! #fuchsia #silk #selfie #selfiesofinstagram #authorsofinstagram #writersofinstagram #artistsoninstagram

So true, so true! There is so much more than my practical thoughts about cooking in a tiny house in my little book. And that’s why people respond to it. Makes me so happy to see reviews on Amazon for my little book, and get notes from people here and there about it. It’s so fun to be an author and put something out into the world and then hear people interact with your thoughts. So much fun!! #quotes #purpose #simplicity #kitchensimplicity #tinyhousefoodie #livetiny #embracesimplicity #eatwell #author #authorsofinstagram #writer #writersofinstagram

This is not what it looked like when I left it last night! LOL! I have completely fallen in love with painting with fluid acrylics! So much fun! And last evening when I left this one in the workshop it looked different than this. It was sitting on cardboard to dry and gravity got the best of it and the cardboard flattened out and then the paint started moving and this is what happened! I’m not upset about this, it’s just sort of funny because that is precisely the thing gravity does- and this is precisely what liquid paint does - it moves. This can not be considered a flaw just because I wasn’t in on the fun! LOL! I do love playing with the paint and moving it around but this time some of it happened without me. Lol! I’m hoping I got good photos. I will go download them from the camera in a few minutes. I’m discovering that I like these paintings best when they are bright and wet and fresh. The paint surface isn’t as glossy when it dries and sometimes that seems to take some of the life out of the work but all that shine makes it nearly impossible to photograph. Ah well, what can you do?! I love painting! #tinyhouseartist artist #artistsofinstagram #acrylic #paintmixing #paint #acrylicpainting #liquidacrylic #somuchfun #anythingcanhappen #gravity #tinyhousecraft #tinyhouseart #skoolieart

Another #blueapron meal that was delicious! I got three meals and we loved two of the them so that’s pretty good. If I hadn’t already canceled, maybe I’d get better at choosing the meals from their selection. The Asiago Chicken and roasted corn and zucchini was lovely! Still, the part that gets me about blue apron is the packaging overkill. And their directions call for cooking the corn in foil. If you’ve been hanging around me for a while you already know how much I hate disposables including foil. Here’s a natural and easy peasy approach to roasting corn: gently pull pack the husk leaves, silk the corn, drizzle with olive oil and sea salt and freshly cracked pepper then gently put the husk leaves back into place around the corn. Take one husk and wrap it around the end to keep the husk together and place it on the roasting pan in the oven at 400 degrees for 10 minutes or so. Then when it’s lovely, pull off the husk, snap off that part (or use the husk as a handle if you like) and chow down on the delicious corn! Add smoked paprika to softened butter and glaze the corn with it. So delicious! The sweet corn plus the savory salty smokey spice is really yummy!! I didn’t eat any sweet corn this summer until now, so the corn in this meal was a real treat. Maybe next year I will start another Tiny House Foodie garden (directions are in my book - link in bio) and grow some corn. Corn fresh from the garden is lovely, and making a little bit of smoked paprika and butter is a match made in heaven! We have a start on a little “food forest” here at the workshop and I got some garden goodies without planting anything this year, so that’s a real win! That’s my favorite way to garden! Yum! #monday #musing #morning #sweetcorn #delicious #asiagochicken #zucchini #roastedcorn #foodforest #smokedpaprikabutter #weaving #project #roasted #corn #yummy #freshness

Change is in the air. Are you ready? I feel it. I have decided that I’m ready for it. Heh heh! #constantchangeisheretostay #change #need #whatyouwant #whatyouneed #kitchensimplicity #tinyhousefoodie #tinyhouseliving #microdwelling #minimalism #simplicity #transformation #change #transition #growth #author #authorsofinstagram

I tried #Blue Apron for the first time this week. My first impression was not a good one as every single item came individually packaged in plastic - some things were double bagged - and that’s pretty shocking if you’ve done as much work as we have to get plastic out of your life. #zerowaste is a thing!! So it was a very negative first impression if I’m honest. My mister came home with that look in his eye - rough week! We were both ready for a lovely dinner and some down time! We enjoy cooking together. The instructions were very clear and even with illustrations so anyone could cook to these directions. #easy They made no effort to limit how many dirty dishes were created or how much power was used and so I made some adjustments on the fly, no problem. #simplify I sometimes forget how much living tiny has changed the way I cook. Simplicity is my jam. We don’t really cook fussy food like this, but it sure was fun to eat! It was easy to make some simple flavor adjustments so by the time I was plating it, I knew it was going to be good. He loved it! We both did. He chose a lovely bottle of white wine and it was a nice pairing. It was as good as anything available locally in a restaurant but a fraction of the price that would have been, especially with the tip. I’ve also heard that the portions are sometimes on the small side but we were very happy with the amount of food. He mentioned how much he liked it a number of times, so that’s good. So I’m struggling with this. It is a ton of packaging to start with, so whatever I save in shopping time convenience, I will lose in recycling the plastic since our town doesn’t take plastic for recycling and we have to drive quite a way to recycle the plastic. I love shopping for food, the produce section is my happy place! But it’s not like a meal service would replace shopping, it wouldn’t. So I am left with conflicting thoughts on the blue apron experience. But it was a delicious Whole 30 meal, so there’s that. #conflicted #delicious #zerowaste #simplify #simplicity #whole30

I made laundry detergent yesterday! I’ve been meaning to do this for ages! Lol! I even bought more Young Living Laundry Soap because I didn’t think I was going to get it done. But then yesterday I hit the wall on what I was trying to do so I just closed up my office and looked around and... then I made laundry soap and it was fun! Maybe I will catch up on laundry this morning? Maybe not. LOL! (It just turned noon so “this morning” is gone) Hehehe I love lazy mornings! DIY laundry detergent is crazy easy! I will put together the recipe and instructions one of these days. Not today! Lol! #lazyday #mydayoff #husbandkeepstryingtogetmetowork #nothappening #laundry #diylaundrysoap #diy #laundrysoap #laundrydetergent

Carmen’s Favorite Books

Would you like a Tour of my Skoolie?
What Your Clutter is Trying to Tell You!
Launch Day
Can you Judge a Book by the Cover?
Live a F.A.S.T. Life (Fabulous, Abundant, Simple, Tiny)
Coming Home: Letters from a Tiny House
The Advance Reader Copy of my Book is Here!
Meeting my new Book for the First Time!
Inspired
The Future She Left Behind
Close Enough to Touch
The Blackbird Season
Lucy Libido says… There’s an Oil for That
Spells & Oregano
Who Am I If You’re Not You?

4 Great Resources to Help You Simplify your Kitchen

Here are four great resources to help you simplify your kitchen to go tiny, or to live more comfortably in the kitchen you already enjoy.

24 Steps to a Kitchen that is Exactly Right for You!

When you’re minimizing your collection of kitchen equipment, it’s important that you don’t purge things you’ll need later, and I can keep you from keeping the wrong things…

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