Ghandi said it best: "Be the change you want to see in the world." My dream is to live in a world that operates not only on paper money but on people, time and reclaiming a set of quickly disappearing life skills. The moniker "AnneOfAllTrades" is not meant to glorify me for being especially skilled at anything I do (in fact, I hope to make you laugh and cry with me about my many many many disastro
us experiments and failed attempts in various ventures), but to highlight the fact that it is a lifelong goal to learn how to do any and everything I can myself and to source the things I need as locally as possible. When my time is my own, I can spend it how I want. I want also to have the freedom to be able to be available to my friends and family when they need me and to be able to spend as much time with them as possible. My woodworking/life mentor/adopted grandpa is a 101 year old man I met seven years ago through my Chinese tutor. He has never in his life called a repair man, and, in the last few years has taught me huge amounts about lathe work, plumbing, electricity, motors, appliances, you name it, but most importantly, he has invested his time and shared with me his wisdom on how to truly live the best life possible. After graduating from university, I spent time in mainland China, Taiwan, and Thailand. Those two years, paired with the year I spent in Beijing in university allowed for much improvement in my Chinese language skills and started to really solidify many of the concepts about the value of time and relationships over money that I had learned in my upbringing as a missionary's kid. I had just spent four years studying business with the hopes of landing an awesome corporate job and earning a huge paycheck to support an extravagant lifestyle I hadn't known as a child, but all of a sudden, I realized didn't even want that. In 2011 I moved Seattle to marry my best friend. It was about this same time that I took up woodwork and restoring old tools. That hobby has turned into an obsession. I spend much of my time thinking about how I can increase my skill, about new things I can make, and about new books I have to read. An idea has begun to hatch: what if I could make the things that I, and others might want, and use said items to trade and barter for those things I can’t make or grow myself? A series of endeavors has furthered my thinking that my time is greater than my money, and the luxury of having more time available means less money that I need to make or spend. Right now a breakdown of my week is as follows: I'm working as a receptionist for a local company for 20 hours, I spend around 5 hours building my web presence, and 3-5 hours writing, and 3-5 hours farming. That’s about the amount of time most people in my neighborhood spend at work, and by Friday, I've spent at least half that time doing what I love and creating a world in which I made more money than I spent. A majority of the rest of my time is spent turning dreams into reality in my woodshop, on our urban farm, and by investing in relationships. In a society dominated by selfishness, consumerism and waste, I am doing my very best to become a producer and recycler and general good citizen of this earth. I have seen the incredible rewards and changes this path has brought to my own life, and I want to encourage as many of my peers as possible to embark upon their own creative journey.
