Hello from the Livalskas!
We’re a Twin Cities, MN couple making big moves to shake things up and cultivate a life that’s closer aligned with our vision and values. With a drive to do something different and the privilege to take big leaps, we are using this moment to reflect on—and share—what exactly it is that we plan to do with this one wild and precious life.
Together, we have lots of big dreams…and one of those includes tiny living: finding a plot of land and designing and building our own custom tiny home. Covid quarantine got us thinking about our use of space, accumulation of goods, connection to nature, and what we could stand to gain by intentionally owning less. So in the span of two months in Fall 2022, we made a decision and started taking steps towards this dream:
Mid-August: we decided to sell our house of the last five years in St. Paul, MN
August 23: our house listing officially went live
August 24: we received an all-cash offer (unreal! and in one day!!)
September 22: we moved out and packed everything into a POD and storage unit
Last week of September: we crashed with my (very gracious) parents in Shoreview
October 1: we moved into a short-term rental in Vadnais Heights (a small suburb 10 minutes straight north of downtown St. Paul) with a six-month lease and plans to spend the winter dreaming, designing our tiny home, and searching for land
Meet Taylor: Strategizer + Maker
Taylor has worked for 10+ years in strategy, behavioral design, and consulting, and loves going deep on new projects. Since Covid, that has included honing knowledge and skills in mycology, fermentation (pickled everything!), shrubs (the drink not the plant), wood working, dehydration (dried everything!), and elevating his cooking game. He makes beautiful waxed canvas bags and leather goods, charms literally everyone he meets, and feels most at home in the captain chair of a slow pontoon.
Meet Laura: Dreamer + Baker
Laura has held various roles in higher education, violence prevention and response, and trauma-informed practice, and is currently working as an independent consultant in these areas. She balances the intensity of advocacy and systems work with a pretty sweet side-gig baking custom treats and hosting pop-up bake sales from our kitchen through For Goodness Bakes MN. She excels at themed party planning, still writes in a paper planner, and lives for a good pun.
What is “Livalska”?
When we got married in 2019, we decided to create a new joint last name together. We loved our individual last names and the traditions and families they represent, but it was too clunky to combine our names (or double-hyphenate!) and we felt strongly about sharing the same surname, to represent our brand new family and union.
After playing around with a lot of ideas, we chose to combine the Swedish words “liv” (life) and “älska” (to love; verb) as a nod to our shared Swedish heritage. Together, the words represent our commitment to one another as well as our hopes for the future:
Livalska: a love for life, a life of love; a shared name of both our choosing.
Why ‘Creating Livalska’?
Even before creating our new last name, Taylor and I have been “creating Livalska” from the very beginning—by investing in our relationship and one another, making space for shared dreams, and envisioning how to live a life of deep intention together.
While we are both future-oriented and planners by nature, we have also taken some big leaps together, trusting in our support systems, flexibility, commitment to one another, and belief that we are capable of more together than are on our own. A few examples:
Spending a weekend tent camping (no makeup! pit toilets!) for our fourth date
Joint signing a 30-year home mortgage after dating for 9 months, looking at zero other homes, and stumbling on a spontaneous open house one morning
Buying cheap flights <2 weeks out and traveling around Cuba (during a brief 2017 repeal of the American travel ban) on our first international trip together
Why a newsletter?
Life is hot chaos (always?) and it’s hard to stay in touch as much as we’d like, so we invite you to follow along here as we embark on this new adventure and discover where it takes us. We promise you stories and photos, updates on what we’re learning and loving, and notes on what inspires us. Plus lots of making + baking, per usual.
Why subscribe?
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