The Law of Quality Control

Firstly, Apologies for the lack of posts this week,  It hasn't been out of laziness or forgetfulness but from identifying priorities.  I have travelled to be with my family who have been taking care of my mum-in-law following surgery.  It has been two weeks since we've been together so it is a welcome and much anticipated reunion.
Now, in such situations, mortality tends to crystallise the priorities in one's life and in my case reinforces my resolve to pursue what i hold most important.  Since reuniting, my awesome wife and I have been talking at length about what exactly it is we will be pursuing for the remainder of this year.  And we've decided on on the face of it, may seem quite radical but to us, seems to be the natural progression.
The rest of the year will lay out approximately like this, we will help our mum recuperate for the next few weeks then return home, where we will proceed to take inventory of all our possesions and put some of them up for auction online and the rest will be donated to anyone who might find them useful.We've given ourselves 6-8 weeks to do this and tie up all loose ends.
Once we've done this, off we go to visit our parents, so our kids can see them before we hit the road for about 4-6 weeks to visit with many relatives my wife & I haven't seen for many years or maybe just briefly because of a death.  We believe that telling the ones you love that you love them, is of utmost importance & deserves priority since we also have plans for travel overseas & would not want to leave these sentiments unsaid.This is also a great opportunity to present our children(our greatest accomplishment) to these most cherished people.
So, I guess we're at about the first week of December, we will be heading back to our parents to share the Christmas vibe for 7-10 days before going to where my wife comes from.  This is a tradition we have been trying to establish, where we head back to our family Marae(Meeting House/Family Homestead) for Christmas and New Years.  The Marae is situated near the coast and we will be living off the land & sea for about 4- 6 weeks.
O.K. this is rough outline of how the remainder of the year will happen. I get more excited, just typing this out because it is something that has been brewing for many months & now is just about within grasp.  Now, the law of quality control has been helping us out so much and keeping us motivated. We've seen Quality Control as focusing on incremental daily improvements to our lifestyle, routine, relationship etc. This has given us freedom to dream big but stay pragmatic & not overestimate what we can achieve daily but concentrate on making small but key adjustments to improve our daily life and then over time, the improvements spike & we have a great leap in progress.

So, as this applies to this blog, I have decided to post twice a week, so my posts can be of greater quality & probably more important, allow things to happen. I will try Mondays & Thursdays to begin with, and adjust accordingly.  Until next time,Laz

Looking To The Future.

Well, here I am at the end of my first week blogging, so what do I think so far? I think that the more I write, the more I need to focus my thoughts. When I was thinking of starting this blog, I was imagining chronicles of my intrepid journeys, the proverbial David & Goliath storyline, where my family & I fight through the laughter and tears and almost insurmountable odds to fufil the dream.
Yet what seems to be crystallising is that this can only be half the story. If I am to tell this story, I feel, how the journey affects us is much more important than the story of obtaining money to obtain objects, or to pay for new experiences in foreign places, or even reaching self-sustainability where we don't tax the worlds resources.
My story lies in the pursuit of happiness, in ideas and principles that for me supercede conforming to the norm, it demands forging ahead and beyond what we feel are our limits are to become our "superselves" so others can and will attain it as well. History has shown us that never before has there been so much opportunity for those of us in the masses, to be exceptional, and I mean that in every sense of the word, ecologically, academically, morally, financially and more.
I am not the smartest man but what I do know is that there are many distractions around that take our eye off what we want most, for what we want now and I need this blog to chronicle my journey, to share my aspirations and honestly detail my experience, so myself and others can grow. And in that idea is the point of this blog, it is to dedicate it to the help, in any way, shape or form to help others, as an old Maori proverb states so eloquently, "What is the most important thing? I say, It is people, It is people, It is people".
In my next post, I'm going to share some of our goals for the rest of the year, I hope to see you soon. Laz

Somewhere To Lay My Head

My beautiful wife & I have been researching many different types of housing for our future dream home. Our criteria revolves around Eco-friendly, sustainable and cost effective housing and this has given us a range of different designs that I think suits our quirky sense of style. From our sessions of brainstorming, we've incorporated a few different styles including recycling shipping containers, a traditional japanese style house, a converted double garage and the exciting new discovery of my wife (wonderful girl isn't she!!!), Yurts, which are based on the Mongolian Gurs, which is basically a circular tent reinforced with a wooden lattice frame. Now, this has a great design, which you can have a stove inside and has a history of standing up to the most horrendous weather and then you can pack it up and move on, not that I'm thinking of that but it's nice to have the option, especially when the kids get older.
OK, so why so many designs? Our design is based on pods, instead of having one main house with everything in it, we wanted to have purpose built structures connected by boardwalks. One of the main reasons we chose this way, is that it gives us a chance to start basic and let it grow. Now, at this point, i'd like to point out that we don't have anywhere to build yet, so we are saving and stockpiling resources but most importantly, educating up on everything we will need to design, build, power and sustain this lifestyle. So I guess there's quite a bit to do but I do think that's where the fun begins, because necessity is the mother of all invention and I'm really interested myself, on how we are going to make this happen.
Here's a basic overview of what structures we are looking at and there functions. Firstly, a double garage, which will be our main indoor living area and the place visitors will first enter. Instead of a concrete floor, I'd like a wooden floor so we can insulate from below and replacing the garage door with bi-fold doors, so you can open it right up to nature. There will be a ranch slider at the rear to be able to get to the other structures. At first, our family will be living in here until the other structures go up.
Our bedrooms will be the Yurts, the kitchen & dining room & storage will be a combination of 10ft, 20ft & 40ft shipping containers. The Bathroom, which will include washroom, shower & bath will possibly be adobe mud brick, as we still researching what will suit us best for a wet area. Our toilets will be a boys & girls dual structure, boys side will have a urinal and toilet and girls will have two toilets. These toilets will be housed in either adobe mud brick or recycled wood, all toilets will be compost toilets (great for compost for our organic garden).

We have also decided to have a traditional style japanese, one level house to serve as a sanctuary, for yoga, meditation etc, a workshop/ studio, which will be either another double garage or a barn style structure so we can have a mezzanine floor. Now what dream house would be complete without a sauna and last but not least, a rotunda, which is a great place to chill out or even double as an extra room, with some netting in the summer.

I know it sounds like a lot but we've got a lifetime to make it happen but I honestly believe that we'll be breaking ground by my 40th birthday, which is in 3 & half years. I hope to have a draft of the layout soon and look forward to any ideas or advice. Be back soon, Laz

Waterfalls

I went for a walk after dinner tonight, nothing unusual in that, besides the fact that I went a new route, just for something different. So I'm walking for a while and notice that I've never been this way before but even stranger, I start thinking about this paper that used to be delivered in my town when I was a kid, that was written for kids, The Grapevine.
Now I used to love this paper and looked forward to it every month. These articles were quirky, funny and really eye opening but the thing I looked forward to most were these one line pearls of wisdom that lined the bottom of every page and now in retrospect, these probably had a big influence during my adolescence.
I used to read them all first before going through the rest of the paper and just reliving it again was making me grin, bigger and then uncontrollably, so much so, I just about fell over. After getting myself together, I noticed I was near this park that has a waterfall, with a 15 or 20m drop, so I head down there and I am just standing on the viewing platform, mesmerized by this waterfall and I'm feeling this weird mixture of vertigo (cos i feel like can't stand properly), fear, cos I feel it drawing me in, (and for some reason, I want to jump), and at the same time really zen (for the lack of a better term).
So, on the way home, a lot of things were bouncing through my mind and I'm trying to just understand what had just happened when suddenly a new feeling came over me, something I hadn't felt since my daughter was about one & a half, I wanted to write poetry (spoken word) again. As i kept walking, ideas and concepts start appearing then evolving, now it's words into lines and then to a verse, and then all too soon, I was walking into my driveway, then I'm in the house writing a draft, and now I'm here writing this post, basically to help me process it all.
OK, what's that all got to do with "The Grapevine", well, that little paper helped me a lot, so, if my poems and stand-up routines are constructed properly, I can pass that help along and it gets me closer to realizing my dreams. Laz

OMG!! What Am I Doing Again?

I was reading my first post this morning and it dawned on me the enormity of what i had written. Although I've been living this for months and have written plans & strategies to reach my goals, when those thoughts entered the public forum, the realization struck like lightning. It was partly fear but more so, acknowledging my physical limitations & that eventually I will lose all control of both my hands & arms. It made me pause momentarily but then a familiar feeling came over me like a wave, the feeling that i wasn't alone & then I was very calm.
Over the years, I've come to realise many things, two of them are, that the war against fear is fought internally and in my own experience is overcome when you can be cool with who you are (i know!!..cheesy zen) because hanging with yourself can be downright impossible when you don't like yourself, let alone know yourself.
Which leads to the second thing, living life is so much better when you have people who love & support you, regardless that they may be related to you and even better that they like you for the type of human you choose to be.
Now, I don't want to come off like some Zen Jedi Master, spouting fortune cookie wisdom but many things in life are very simple but hard to achieve because of whatever conspiracy theories we seem to conjure when we would rather "be right" instead of "act right".
Life is definitely a work in progress, but living it like the craziest & most outlandish feats can be achieved that day because you dreamed it, is so profoundly topped off when you can share it, laughing with that look on your faces, that life is stranger and more exhilarating then skydiving with a platypus. Be Back soon, Laz

Have to Start Somewhere

As the title suggests, if you are going to make up your mind about doing or achieving anything, you have to start somewhere, and a lot of the time, it's not at the beginning but rather anywhere you can. I guess that applies to me. Life favors the brave & all to many times my lack of courage has left me sacrificing what i have wanted most, for reasons or motives in retrospect are at best, trivial, and at worst, plainly irrelevant.
So here i am, mustering what courage and strength i can rally, to make all the things i have wanted most to do or experience happen. What's more, I'm going to do it without getting a job, I'll be earning money by anything i can make with my hands, use of my voice, and my imagination.(more about what that exactly means later)
I know this could sound like some crazy reality show type of challenge but i really believe that, what i want most in life isn't so much about the admission price to obtain or experience it but more about earning it with work that you love doing.
The other major reason is time, time to have my family around me, so we can experience it together. I guess that my children being able to see their parents strive to be happy by making it a priority in life, is one of the greatest gifts i can give them and you just can't do that when you have a job.
So that's where i have started, basically I've got this checklist and I'm going to keep on ticking them off until I can't. I hope you drop in, leave a comment or just have a giggle at the craziness, I'm bound to get my family into. Until Then. Laz