Talk about taking our own advice! As a recap, the last homework assignment THREE WEEKS AGO, I had instructed you to toss some pasta. Well we have tossed some linguini, spaghetti, bucatini, TUTTO (everything)!
Since we last spoke, we upgraded our laptop, purchased a microphone and pop filter to start a podcast, and started a print-on-demand Shopify store (vocalyokelmerch.com). That is also precisely the reason it has been so long since I have last posted anything. I have to prioritize the time that I do have and spend it where it is most likely to be fruitful. By fruitful, I not only mean financially, but emotionally as well. If it would be too stressful to sit and write a blog post, I would be wasting my time doing it. The whole point of this grand experiment is to spend more time on meaningful things, right? We can do anything, but we cannot do everything.
Perriee and I have made a commitment to make some moves. Since we have gotten the new computer, we have been regularly doing one thing, however small, each evening after work to move towards our goal. Looking back, we have accomplished a lot!
Computer
I surveyed my nerdy coworkers (as a fellow nerd, I write that with love and affection) to see what they would buy. Out of the five who responded, four of them recommended the Microsoft, Surfcace Pro and two of those also recommended the MacBook. We have enjoyed our Surface Pro so very much!
Podcast:
In order to help prepare for the transformation of the tipi, into a dream getaway spot, we want to start to survey our guests who stay here as well as other Airbnb hosts to get their perspectives. Perrriee and I truly get a gift of some sort from every guest we have ever hosted here, and we would love to share that unique perspective of our guests with you. Examples of some of the gifts we have received: a private viola recital, a copy of a book authored by a guest, leftover beers, photo slide shows, and all around amazing conversation. I really belive the type of people who use the shared-housing services as hosts or guests have a special perspective and wouldn’t it be fun to share that with the world? We have already recorded a five-minute pilot episode which only my dad has heard so far. He gave us rave reviews, so consider this your teaser!
Vocal Yokel Merch
It is a progressive thinking online tshirt store. This is where we have been spending the most time over the last few weeks. Perriee has been wanting to make tshirts for so long, so we finally took the plunge and it has been so much fun! We set up our Shopify storefront and got our @vocalyokelmerch on Instagram up and running. Samples have been ordered and we are getting pumped to start taking pics in the new gear so we can post them online. Wowza it has taken some time! We had no idea the print on demand hustle took such effort getting set up. Hopefully, once we get rolling, it should work on its own for a large part of it. It has been super interesting to see how the different programs integrate with one another and learn the different systems. If nothing else, it is keeping our minds sharp to learn all of the systems! By working with different programs in my day job it has really awakened my ability to learn the new ones we continue to encounter.
If the QR codes when the sample arrives, this is going to be one of my favorites. 
This is the first of our merch that we got to see in real life! It was super exciting. 
Show your fellow humans that you support them as a Brown Ally
Homework
Purge your calendar of a few things that aren’t moving you forward. If your time is anything like mine and Perriee’s, it is limited. To make the time to spend on these side-hustles, we have had to replace our evening tv time with working on our projects. It has only been slightly challenging .
Luckily we get to work on things we are so excited about. Even better is the fact that we get to do it together! Even if it is 10 minutes, you have to schedule it in, and be consistent! We pick one thing every night after work and spend some time on it. Some nights it was making tshirt designs, sometimes it was figuring out how to upload them or edit them. We did something to make sure we were a step closer to our freedom so the next moring we felt a little bit closer.
Making Time for Tipi 