I have mentioned before how Mark and I love our current lifestyle of house and pet sitting… The variety it offers, the different areas we experience, the wonderful pets we get to adore and take care of, the low cost, the comfort and conveniences of living in a house, the adventurous aspect of packing up and moving every few weeks or months. Yet, there is one, big, not to be underestimated negative aspect when committing yourself to full-time house sitting. One we only slightly realized while in New England, but that has bubbled up since we have been in California. Every day, it appears to become stronger: we are feeling lost! Not so much in a literal way as in “we don’t have our own place to live in and don’t feel like we belong anywhere”, which is true as well, but we knew this ahead of time when choosing this lifestyle. No, I mean socially lost. Mark and I don’t know anyone wherever we temporarily live and that does not seem to change for the better. We are isolated. Continue reading
Roaming About
A Life Less Ordinary
Tag: house sitting (page 3 of 4)
Mark and I have been so incredibly busy the last month and a half that I am way behind with my “Completed House Sit” section. Today, I’ll summarize our four and a half month sit in Heath, MA over the spring and the summer.
A lifestyle of house and pet sitting offers a lot of diverse and interesting opportunities. It is a great way to meet new and interesting people, find out what you like (and don’t like) about a certain location, try out different types of houses and neighborhoods, get acquainted with all kinds of pets, breeds and behaviors, and discover the pros and cons about any situation. While we have enjoyed all of our sits, we have not found a place where we could live “forever”. And, while we have been pretty comfortable everywhere we stayed, we have also experienced firsthand the things we are less fond of.
I have decided to post photos of past travels in general and our eight year sailing adventure on SV Irie in particular for Wordless Wednesdays. I hope you enjoy them. Also, I can’t do completely “wordless”, but I try my best with “almost wordless”. 🙂
This week’s Daily Post photography theme is “morning”. Since Mark and I live everywhere and nowhere, our morning looks quite different depending on which place we call home for the time being. Here are some morning photos of the past and the present…
A morning along the ICW (Intracoastal Waterway), taking the dogs ashore
A typical morning from Irie in Huahine, FP – front view
Wow! I feel totally “deblogged” after an absence of over a week and not writing about much else than the A-Z Blogging Challenge lately. But, I am back. Well, almost anyway. Still getting re-settled in our current home. My three week visit to Belgium has come to an end and I have returned into the arms of my wonderful husband who remained in New England. Now, our long-term house sit in Heath, MA can start in earnest. Even the sun arrived with rays of pure bliss. I love all these warm embraces. The scenery has turned from deep brown to vibrant green while I was away, and I am ready for summer!
Mark and I can hardly believe it, but our three-month house sit in South Kent has finished. We picked the owners, Steve and Alison, up at the airport of Hartford yesterday and met their newest family member: sweet and precious Paco, a stray puppy from Mexico. It was quite a shock for him to fly on a plane, meet new people, feel the cooler climate, drive an hour and a half in the car, discover his new home, and get acquainted with his new brothers Mickey and Henry and feathery siblings Koo Koo and Tutu. All in a time span of 12 hours. He is adjusting well and will have a fantastic life in Kent, and so will their pet sitters next year! Continue reading
This is the second blog in my series “A Day in the Life of a House Sitter”. The first one described an average day during our two week house sit in The Villages, FL last December.
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- All together in a living room
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- Koo Koo and the squirrel
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- Everyone loves to cuddle
House sitters can mostly stick to their own schedule while taking care of somebody’s home while the owners are on holiday, a sabbatical or a business trip. As long as the owners’ pets have a happy life, while they are away. The pets – two dogs and two parrots here in Kent– are our priority. Of course, we also watch the house, run a few errands and communicate with the owners about anything that comes up or needs attention. Most of the time, we live our own lives in our “borrowed” home and enjoy the company of our “borrowed” pets. In our current situation, we also appreciate the inspiring vibe created by the home owners, who are accomplished and well-known artists. I will get to that in a future blog… Continue reading
When Mark and I talk about our current lifestyle of house and pet sitting, people always ask how we find all these places. Unbeknownst to many, there is a whole community out there of people who house sit, are looking for house sitters or make money with the house and pet sitting concept. There are Facebook pages, forums and blogs about house sitting and the model has been introduced all over the world. Continue reading
I have always been a frugal person, to be able to travel. As a school teacher my wage was nothing to write home about and after leaving Belgium indefinitely in the summer of 2003, well…let’s just say that I would be ecstatic if I could earn minimum wage. But, selling a few articles a year, just doesn’t cut it.
Hanging out with the pups
This blog is for our list “Completed house sits”, as a record of all the positions we have taken house and pet sitting all throughout the US and possibly internationally in the future. These are quick overviews of our particular house sit experiences.
While being snuggled up with a whole bunch of clothes on in cold Connecticut, it is hard to imagine that a month ago, we were enjoying the pleasant Florida weather during our two week house sit in The Villages. Two weeks is on the shorter side – for us – to house sit, especially when it is so far away from our base in New England, but we wanted to soak up the warmer weather and meet our friends Sim and Rosie from SV Wandering Star over the holidays, while visiting Florida by car. Continue reading
A big advantage of house sitting is that you can move around the state, the country and even the world to check out new areas while performing house and pet sitting duties. The thought of immersing ourselves in these new places by staying for prolonged periods of time is one of the main reasons for Mark and me to commit to this exciting lifestyle. Continue reading
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