Shortly after I returned from Thailand having already gotten a taste of the mask wearing pandemic response in Bangkok, the Bay Area became the first lockdown area in the United States. At first I tried to commute the half hour drive to my support house as usual, but it soon became apparent that this was impractical and anxiety provoking for the household especially for the new housemate who didn't know me and had issues with my coming and going. In the 3 years I had lived in the tiny house I had not really lived in it full time. I was really only there for bed and breakfast as I spent a lot of time on the road going to clients and then having dinner at Catherine's house where I would cook for the both of us or she would.
Once we decided it would be best if I stayed at the tiny house I asked my friends who lived down the street from me if they would host me for showers and laundry. They were happy to and I would return the favor by making a meal for us all every now and then. The local country store had also re-opened with new owners so the town felt self-sufficient again. Once I settled in I felt enormously blessed to be in such a beautiful environment.
I had hiking trails I could walk to straight from the property that were not closed to residents and the views from on high were spectacular stretching all the way to the ocean.
Living full time in the tiny house became my sanctuary. I really had everything I needed that it made for a very efficient living space.
I just needed additional seating especially for zoom calls. I had two classes that would keep me in this chair for four hours at a time once a month.
For company I had my friends on FB to show off my endeavors. One of the friends commented that it was my smugness that made my reports so endearing so when John Kernohan and his wife Fin of United Tiny House Association invited me to participate in a
video they were making which would require me to choose one word to describe how I felt while sheltering in place in my tiny house. I set about to show off my location with the new solar panels and my solar oven opened up to signify my off-grid independence. I chose the word "smug". It was my little inside joke to myself.
Posted May 24th. Backdated to keep timeline.
Like many home bound shelter-in-place people I took to mail ordering items to upgrade my existence. Now that I was cooking a lot more dinners at home with the Farm Fresh To You delivery of vegetables Catherine and I were sharing I had enough food waste to warrant a composting system. I didn't have an area protected from marauding beasts so I ordered the system offered by the same Bokashi company where I had bought my pet waste system. The idea being that you fill the two buckets with kitchen waste that when sealed begin to work their fermenting magic assisted by the bokashi bran provided. There was also a faucet at the bottom of the bucket to drain off liquid that could then be used as a fertilizer. I already had a built-in niche for my indoor composting bucket which hadn't seen much use until now so it was a perfect match.
I also ordered a Scrubba, a traveling washing machine suggested to me by a mud hut sister in Bangkok who read about it on a blog. This turned out to be quite useful as a pre-wash device that could also tote my wet shirts to my support house on laundry day. It has an internal washboard which I didn't find particularly effective so I brought out of storage my Amish glass washboard and used the Scrubba to soak my clothes in first. Then I pulled out a sleeve or a collar that needed attention and applied some scrubbing with the glass washboard. Since I was using a non-biodegradable soap I just poured the soapy water into the Scrubba bag for portage to the washing machine at my support house. So the Scrubba proved useful as a missing link. I'm a firm believer in missing links solving problems to keep an existing system simple. 
