Jason with some of his birthday cards..

Housesitting team available from July 30th in San Francisco & Bay Area

Housesitting couple available in San Francisco and East Bay With a long list of references available. 

dates: starting any time from or after July 30th occasional days (maximum 2 in a row) before then possibleWe welcome initial communication by email.

We are a quiet and responsible couple of 31 & 39 years of age and are looking for an opportunity to pet- & house-sit during the month of August. You can count on us to provide affectionate care for your pet and to keep your house in the same order that you leave it.




essentially us:
Birgit: Artist / Photographer with interest in Holistic health, admin for Jason, teaches occasional German language classes
Jason: Glassmaker with professional hobby Tai Chi

Your pet would have company as I work mostly from home on Jason's business administration and marketing & photo editing work for my own photography business, while Jason is out depending on his schedule: working at a local glass studio assisting colleagues, teaching glassblowing or renting time to make his own glass. 

Jason is great for early morning dog walks and extended ones in the evenings, while I (Birgit) will be available to spend as much time as required with your pets during the day. Between us we can be the perfect match for your home and pet sitting requirements. 

We are genuine and sincere about putting your wishes for your home and pet care top of our list with a proven track record of excellent service given with genuine care and additional cuddles for the pets.

Our hobbies include Yoga, Tai Chi, drawing and photography, we both enjoy reading and occasionally watching movies or documentaries. We do need access to wifi.

 

We are non-smokers, we do not get drunk ever. Jason may drink a total of 4 small bottles of beer or share 1/2 a bottle of wine per week with me. It is unusual for us to empty a bottle of wine in a week. We do not take any kind of drugs at all, we also do not have time or energy to be party animals and very rarely go out in the evenings. {I promise we are also not entirely boring, life just happened this way and as we are self employed we are additionally focused on our tasks. When it comes to housesitting our lifestyle turns out to be a perfect compliment to home- and per-owners peace of mind}

Please reach out to us with any questions that we can answer in the meantime.

We are currently housesitting with a 2 month commitment in Bernal Heights, San Francisco and are available in the city as well as the East Bay starting July 30th. We have several excellent references from house & pet sitting that we have done in 2014 and 2015. 

I (Birgit) have received my green card last year and left America for 9 months to find somebody to take care of my apartment in England as well as to spend some time with Jason in Asia, where I have studied Thai Massage since 2011. We began our latest house- and in particular pet-sitting on June 1st. 

For pet-house-sitting lasting 4 weeks or more we offer our service FREE of charge. 
We charge $25 per day for agreements lasting 14-29 days and $50 per day for shorter arrangements. 
We have some flexibility in the pricing.

We have family in the area whom we can stay with as well as an open invitation for a rental place, which allows us flexibility that you may benefit from.

Amazing new things happening in the Life & Glass of Jason!

It is June 2015, we are in San Francisco, house sitting and caring for a small 10 year old dog and a characterful 7 months old cat. We are doing this in exchange for accommodation.
Everybody benefits, the home and animal owning family don't need to worry about leaving their pets in a pet hospital nor about the security of their home and we get to sample living in an area of San Francisco. 

This is a great way to get a feeling for living in different parts of the Bay Area. Last year we stayed in Richmond, San Francisco as well as Richmond, East Bay. The living experiences and feeling of the street life, accessibility to local transportation and all that we might need to day-to-day living varies between these locations. 

We really appreciate getting to sample slices of city life this way. Eventually we will need to select a compromise between affordability and location and start a nest of our own. In the meantime these housesitting opportunities allow us some great freedom to test the waters and leave breathing space for us to develop Jason's glass business and allows Birgit to get settled in, too. It takes time to network..

Anyway: here is a link to Jason's brand new online shop presence. Priced at prices that allow to live, not even lavishly, just frugal living.. Realistic prices, for real life artists, whom if we grasp the opportunities today we will one day find in the collections of Nationwide, perhaps international galleries and museums.. 

If you are friends and family seeing this: please make a physical note of Jason's new shop address. And please let us know that you saw this post by leaving a comment or sending an email. We will ask you to help us promote in due course but NOT yet. This is a pre-view opportunity, much of the site is not finished editing but do take a look: because it really is beautiful looking! 

We are planning a launch for Jason's shop and new product lines for July 1st - July 15th (fluid date at the moment as Birgit is the sole administrative & photographing & web - presence - designing  driving force behind the operation and can't tell exactly how long it will be). WHEN we do launch we will absolutely APPRECIATE everybody to help us create a SPLASH! 

Are you on board to help us splash!?


http://jasonstropko.bigcartel.com

More from our time in Thailand

Here is me watching Jason eat Kao Soi, his favourite Northern thai noodle dish. Since we are vegetarian this is the vegetarian version with deep fried mushrooms in batter in the side bowl (which were tasty, but probably not nearly as healthy as we are used to living)

Street dogs occupy Chiang Mai, it was always an adventure to watch them run around in packs. The are a common sight at temples where the monks don't take objection if a dog walks into the temple and sits down at any time.

What did we do all that time in Asia?

Jason and I ended up being invited to a wedding party in Cambodia and got dragged onto the dance floor.. Jason filmed a short segment below. It was fabulous fun and we would have loved to stay longer but our friend who took us there had other plans for us. The photograph shows Jason not being let go and instead kept dancing on the dance floor. It was incredible fun, if it hadn't been 40˚C / 100˚F then it would have been perfect!

We visited cultural heritage sites, here for example Angkor Wat

We spent time at the Traditional Massage School with our teachers and at the end of our time Birgit did a photo session for the main teachers who are probably starting their own business in Japan soon.

Jason took music lessons with Manop and learnt the traditional instrument called Pin-Pia (in this picture you see his teacher holding a harp) 

Where have we been in 2014 - 2015?

We returned to Cambodia to meet with our friend Kanha who is a fantastic tour guide, specialising on a wide range of activities for tourists with a special focus on the old temple complexes. Kanha has a postgraduate degree in Education and is a really fantastic insider tip if anybody would want to make the most of their time in Siem Reap & at the Angkor Wat temples.We spent 2 weeks in Siem Reap, catching up also with Nakry who recently changed jobs from being employed as a silk farm guide by Artisans D'Angkor to being self-employed as a guide at the temples, too. Most of our time we tried to find cool spaces, the late March climate was often times 100˚F / 40˚C with high humidity. It was great to be able to see the heritage site again and to get a deeper insight into Cambodian culture.

Jason (Glassmaker) and Birgit (Artist, Photographer) are Houssitting in San Francisco and the East Bay

This post is quite dated (I add this note in May 2015)  but I will leave it up as it is until I have more time to work on Jason's blog again. 

This is from Autumn 2013, just before Jason returned to the San Francisco Bay Area for his job at the Glass Studio in Richmond (Cohn Stones Studios)

The picture below is yet more recent, from a ferry trip from Oakland to San Francisco, 2013.
Jason doesn't normally have a moustache, I think it was Movember and we all know that it is men's health awareness month, right? And to make all men think about their health (particularly prostrate health) somewhat more everybody should sport a moustache. Jason did his duties and now the world might be a better place.. We hope..

moustache - mustache ?

Jason has been busy making new glass

But actually these photographs are of glass work that we just rediscovered in storage.

My absolute favourite 2 vessels are these two. See below for more from this treasure find of Jason's older glass work.

All Glass Items are available for sale, Jason initially said $125 each.
If you are friends & family then he will be very open to reduced price sale of $85 each
(this is an absolute steal, they are extraordinary beautiful. Get in touch if more than one vase catches your desire.).

Birgit will be busy listing each vase on Etsy in the next days and we are hoping for quick sales to significantly clear out the storage area that we have been occupying in the San Francisco East bay area.. Just call Jason on 510 375 8487 if you don't want to wait for the Etsy listing and want to make sure that you get the vase of your choice before anybody else does.

FOR JASON'S ETSY LISTINGS OF HIS GLASS CLICK ON THIS TEXT

 

We are house sitting in San Francisco

So it is official: since Tuesday we are house sitting and looking after one lovely dog and two super soft cats, right in San Francisco, somewhere on California Street..

The animals need special attention and a certain amount of company which is why we have the opportunity to swap pet care (and basic home care) for a month of free accommodation somewhere not far from Golden Gate Park, the Golden Gate Bridge and even a glorious beach. It is quite a commitment that we took on, acting for animals can be a bit like caring for children, in as far as you really can't casually neglect them because you would like to go and follow some impromptu plans instead.

So our lives for the next four weeks will be planned very much around the animal needs. It's good practice for thinking about having pets again ourselves in the future ( or even small humans). So far the dog is the impersonification of well behaved and the cats, well we have a hard time stopping cuddling them, they are easily the most relaxed and welcome cats we have ever met.

Currently our plans for the next 3 months look like this:
4 weeks house sitting {June - July}
4 weeks paying rent at a friends's place in the Mission, also in San Francisco, a central location {July - August}
4 weeks house sitting for Jason's uncle and aunt {August - September}

Which takes us to September and it is somewhat crunch time to plan ahead. Jason harbours phantasies of continuing house sitting beyond the summer, but that is only practical if we find an opportunity in the Bay Area as Jason's boss will be back from holiday and the glass-making will start up again, erects much full time.

Unless Jason's own work starts selling, in which case our options open up somewhat.

We a celebrating our 5 year anniversary since we met this July, it's pretty exciting. Such a long time with such an amazing human being.

Posted with Blogsy

AMAZING HAND MADE SCARFS AND NECK WARMERS

Hello friends and family, here is a link to my lovely lady Birgit's you tube page, which has videos of her talking about her crocheted scarfs and neck warmers.

I have one made from Alpaca wool and it is utterly amazing! It's the warmest thing I have ever put around my neck. Anyone who experiences cold winters should have at least 1.

With the Holidays creeping in you just might find the perfect gift for a good friend or loved one.

https://www.youtube.com/user/OverTheSevenSeas?feature=watch

Brown neck warmer: 20% wool & 80% acrylic                                                                              
Green neck warmer:  Merino wool, Cashmere & Silk
                                                                                                                     

Ironically enough, neither of these
belong to me but they sure are comfy and aren't I just a great model.




Here's the link to her Etsy shop if you would like to order: http://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/over7seas

Closing time in Liverpool ... back to the Bay Area soon!

Hello friends! I hope everyone is well, happy and healthy these days??

I... yes I, am actually typing this post and not my renowned blogger Birgit. I think it's time the actual Jason starts to communicate.

It is now nearing closing time in Liverpool, UK and I am getting ready to head back to the San Francisco Bay Area, one of my favorite places in the States. For the past few weeks I've been stocking my Etys shop (for those who do not know Etsy yet, it's an online craft and vintage market). Here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/jasonstropko you can find some of my hand blown glass, along with drawings of ideas for glass yet to be made and some of my travel sketches.

With the Holiday Season creeping in you just might find a nice gift for a friend or colleague. Have a look and please share this link with your friends. You can always get in touch with me if you would like a custom piece of glass or personalized drawing. I will be back in the Bay Area on August 17th and I look forward to seeing friends and family.

travel flashback #2 Anna Blume Cafe, Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin

postcard


Jason and Birgit's friend Sandra

travel flashback #1 Anna Blume Cafe Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin

We are going to post a few flashback memories i.e photographs and videos from our journey. We hope you enjoy reliving the times.. x

This was filmed half way through our brakfast/lunch in Anna Blume Cafe in Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin. Our absolute favorite cafe! Ever.

Just before an almond croissant was stolen by the monkey..

"Someone's" birthday

another glimpse of India

here is a glimpse of India we didn't personally visit but which is evident all around daily life: the deep, deep spiritualism and aliveness of ancient rituals present among and a part of modern life...
(if you follow the link you will find a lovely video of still images and sound)

VEDIC SCHOOL

pancakes

making breakfast pancakes

but key ingredient is missing..

copied over from one of Birgit's personal blogs

THANK YOU TO OUR TEACHERS AT WAT PO / CHETAWAN:

Kay

all the amazing teachers (naming only some of the wonderful team):

Somwarn, Nui, Ting, Kay, Ais, Nim,..) 

Ting

sharing lunch with everybody

 

below: a cheap meal at a vegetarian restaurant, frequented by locals 

and falang alike (falang = foreigners)

Our humble gratitude goes out to all I met along the journey, and 

life would not be the same without the strangers at the side of the

path of my journey. The cows roaming the streets, or being milked 

on the sidewalks, the women of all ages, tirelessly and almost always

with grace living their lifetime. Women crouching by the side of the 

road to clean kitchen utensils in a washing tin.. We want to thank all we 

saw, all who pointed us in the right direction. We learnt much from 

witnessing the small things for just moments of your lives. We am 

indescribably grateful for having met you all. We treasure the memories.

India is such a challenge, and we didn't enjoy the challenge this time

round, but we appreciate it in retrospect. We can't explain the magic of 

India, but no matter what it throws at you it is a place where so, so

much can happen that you could never experience or find in other 

places. India is a place that lives intensely. The opportunism of 

entrepreneurs often made life so much more difficult than it needed to 

be, but still something sounds through that carries magic, even if you

again paid twice the price for something worth a quarter of what you 

paid... India is indescribable, and a lot of hard work, or depending on

your vision and approach, India is gentle and full of wisdom you would

do very well to tune your ears to. 

Living in Cambodia is not easy, I (Birgit) can not understand how people

find the enthusiasm day after day to continue on such a rocky path.

Perhaps there is more Yoga there than you could imagine? Something

keeps the country alive, and alive with a grace and healthy pride. The 

always mentioned trauma of the Khmer Rouge Years remains a primary

source of income for many. Countless amputees will approach you to

help earn a living. Often whole families will depend on your small gift.

But hold a moment, there are also other ways to help, your time is

priceless. Believe me, the difference you can make with passion and 

time is immense. Also do take a look at local charities, those change 

futures and your donation, however small can go far there.

The man below is a friend of the father of Birgit's long time friend Nakry.

Some may remember my stories about my friend Nakry who, with

tireless positivity makes his way through a very poor life. I would like

to tell you more about this another time. You can also check my other 

blog 'over the seven seas' for a little of the story I will rewrite another 

time and share here.

Visiting a village, which was devastated by the flooding across the whole 

region last autumn / winter (october 2012, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos..)

I shared my polaroid photographs and took with me only the digital photo

leaving behind the physical one. More important than this photograph is

the memory of that afternoon and how this woman welcomed me into

her care for a short hour. Too short. Too few shared words. But more 

than enough intuitive understanding from the heart

It was only thanks to Noung that we had the beautiful experience of

meeting the villagers, who lost their rice crops to the flooding. It is 

also only because of Noung that Birgit didn't miss the once a year chance

to see a Khmer shadow puppet play, it's less a puppet in the sense

that you might initially think. The scenes from the Ramayana are cut 

into leather hides and held against the light as a narrator tells the story, 

actors lend their bodies and voices, musicians bring yet more life to 

the story. Of course not speaking khmer one is at a disadvantage, but 

to see such a performance that would have looked just like this 50, 100 

and 150 years ago is priceless. We are grateful to Birgit's german student 

Noung for sharing some of Cambodia's treasures with me

What you see below is a floating village on the Tonle Sap lake.

There are many of these villages atop it's surface. This village actually

is not floating but standing on 3-5 meter high stilts. All houses stand

on these stilts to accommodate the dramatic change in water levels

that occurs like this nowhere else in the world that I know of.

The oranges below are priced by the kilo, and 40 Baht are about 

equal to $1 / £0.90. 

one of our favourite temples in Chiang Mai

Below: leaving chalk in Burma

Jason's postcard photograph of a cat we saw in Burma

Wat Po, the home of Traditional Thai Massage Teaching, the home 

of Traditional Thai Medicine. This temple is beautiful, as you walk

among it's countless stupas you feel like as if you are in another time.

Birgit thinks you actually might be. We feel enriched and nourished from having

spent time there. We are so grateful to the school for having given us

so much new knowledge, for having tested especially Birgit's endurance, for always 

greeting us with kindness and an open heart. We learnt so much from

things none of the teachers spoke about but all lived by example: Our 

teacher's humanity and wisdom spoke volumes without making a sound.

All the temple photographs below are Wat Po in Bangkok. We actually

studied with the small school that they opened in Chiang Mai. Where

we enjoyed the smallness of the city, it's proximity to the mountains/hills

and the relaxed life that never stops. People work so hard, but they have

a way of doing it in an almost effortless and most often joyful way. How 

else could the lady working in the market from 8am to 10pm maintain her

friendly smile. And I watch her be just as friendly with strangers..

And below is Manop, Jason's music teacher. We wished he could speak

english better or we could speak some Thai. You see much in his nature

and occasionally he would tell us things about his life, but sadly we could 

never have a continuous conversation with him. The language barrier was 

too great. What we do know is that he is generous and made it possible for

us to stay together much longer than we could have if we hadn't had his great

offer of a room. twice!