July 25, 2011 issue, completed July 29, 2012

There wasn't anything that really stood out in this issue, but nevertheless I ended up reading almost all of it. Considering that I am now yet again more than one year behind, I must have found each article compelling enough not to yield to the pressure to skip it. The article about tiny houses reminded me of my childhood desire to have a home of one's own, whether it be a playhouse or a perfect, proper little real house. There was such a little guest house at a farm we had when I was a kid and I loved playing in it. Recently my 6-year-old daughter and I were in a shopping mall when she saw a display of tents. She ran right into the biggest one and asked if she could buy it. Before I could answer she read the price and started calculating how long it would take to save her allowance to be able to buy it. I realized that the desire to have your own little roof over your head is one she shares as well. I had thought the article would be about living in smaller dwellings in order to be located close to downtown and thereby avoid commuting to suburbs, something that is becoming popular in cities like Vancouver, but it was more about some kind of forced asceticism of living small. While I don't really get the appeal for adults, I do think that if I had heard of the possibility of ordering a tiny house when I was a child, I would have chosen the one I wanted and started calculating ways that I could afford the fifty-four thousand dollars or whatever the cost was to be.