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 Fall 2022, we made a decision and started taking steps towards this dream:
Mid-August 2022: we sold our house in St. Paul (with an all-cash offer after exactly one day on the market)
October 2022: we moved into a short-term rental in Vadnais Heights
December 2022: my dad died of cancer and our plans shifted, to be able to be present with family and give ourselves time to grieve
June 2023: we moved into a Summit Avenue mansion with friends while we continued to look for land and work on our future plans
April 2025: it’s taken us so much longer than we anticipated, but we’re taking the next steps towards our dream. We are moving out of our apartment, Taylor quit his job, Laura closed down the bakery, and we’re headed on a 2+ road trip along the west coast to give us time to dream and plan, full-time.
Meet Taylor: Strategizer + Maker
Taylor has worked for 15+ 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 trauma-informed education practice and is a co-owner of Entia Consultants. She has balanced the intensity of advocacy and systems work with a pretty sweet side-gig baking custom treats and hosting pop-up bake sales from her home kitchen through For Goodness Bakes MN. She excels at themed party planning, lives for a good pun, and loves being an auntie more than anything.
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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