Growing up in Iowa, Steven and Ashley Evans knew all about the local fire station in Cedar Rapids because it was right by the high school they both attended.

“We always dreamed we’d live here one day. It went up for sale and we thought we’d come check it out,” Steven, 40, tells CNBC Make It. “When we tell people we live in an old firehouse, everyone around here knows exactly where it is and which one it is.”

The station was first built in 1960 and converted into a home by its previous owners in the 1980s. In 2016, when the Evans first saw it was for sale, listed for $125,000, it had been abandoned for years and was covered in black mold.

“We had no intentions of purchasing it because we didn’t have the finances at the time,” Ashley, 33, says.

In 2016, she was working as a dermatology nurse, and Steven had a job working with adults with special needs and owned six rental properties. They owned a house they paid $65,000 for, Ashley says, but “my parents actually had to cosign on the house because we just couldn’t afford it. … It was $550 a month, and we were just struggling.”

Still, they decided to take a look at the firehouse. Even when they had to sign waivers to enter because it was deemed a safety hazard due to the mold, they weren’t deterred.

“The thing that attracted me the most to the fire station would be the fact that it’s all concrete and steel. The bones were solid, the house was level; any other house would have fallen over easily by now,” Steven says.

Without letting Ashley know, Steven put in an offer of $90,000 and it was accepted. He came clean the next day — he says he wanted it to be a surprise to Ashley that he bought the fire station they used to always see by their high school.

The property was listed as a four-bedroom, two-bathroom house with 3,100 square feet of space, but it turned out to be almost double that size since the listing only included the finished square footage, not the unfinished square footage, Steven says.

In order to finance the purchase, Steven applied for a construction loan of $170,000 under his rental property business, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. The couple says they did it that way because their original plan was to renovate the fire station and resell it.

Steven says that because of all the work the property needed, they didn’t think they would ever be able to live in it. When the couple closed on the property in June 2016, it lacked walls, electricity or even a working toilet.

With an estimated budget of $80,000, the Evans started on the renovation, with Steven doing most of the work himself to save money. They rented out the house their parents cosigned with them and moved into the fire station while they renovated. Ashley’s parents even moved in with them to help pay the renovation-related bills.

Here are some of the biggest expenses the couple encountered while renovating. All amounts are rounded.

• Paint: $1,100
• Drywall: $4,000
• Flooring: $5,000
• Kitchen addition: $10,000
• Roof: $22,000

“Whatever we could find on clearance, whatever people wanted to give us, that is how we would remodel it. Just trying to make it look the best we can on the cheapest budget,” Ashley says.

“If it didn’t match, we’d spray paint it to match,” Steven adds.

Although the couple had to essentially remodel everything, they kept some original details from the fire station, including the old hose tower, the garage doors and a historic plaque outside. They kept the massive skylight the previous owners had installed to cover a courtyard that was originally part of the fire station as well.

To pay homage to the station’s history, the couple also bought an old fire truck to put in their backyard for their kids to play with.

The couple made the space their own by adding a theater room and a playroom for their kids that looks like a soccer field with fake turf.

“We had friends who had an indoor soccer field [growing up]. I always thought it was the coolest thing ever. I remembered it even as an adult, so I decided to create one down here,” Steven says.

In 2019, Steven and Ashley refinanced their original loan into a mortgage to officially purchase the home in their names. They secured a 5.5-year balloon mortgage for $225,000 at a 4.89% interest rate, with an estimated monthly payment of $1,455, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. When the term ended in 2024, the couple refinanced into a new mortgage; now their monthly payment is around $3,190 and their interest rate is 7.59%.

The couple also remodeled their kitchen recently, which they financed with a home equity line of credit.

Here the monthly expenses related to the house:

• Electricity: $17.49
• Internet: $186.85
• HELOC for kitchen renovation: $423.65
• Utilities: $475.99
• Gas: $426.93
• Solar panels: $553.98
• Mortgage: $3,190.05

Since the couple started sharing what life is like in the fire station on social media years ago, viewers always ask if they will ever leave or sell the property, they say. But the couple says even if they ever move, they will never sell the fire station.

Instead, in 2020, Steven and Ashley bought the house next door for $180,000, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. Ashley’s parents have taken ownership of the property, she says.

Last year, Ashley and Steven also bought another house near the fire station for $175,000. They call it their “cozy cottage” and have it listed on Airbnb for $160 to $189 a night. It is fully booked through March.

“We talk about what it would be like to live in a house that was already finished all the time … But also, I can’t imagine living in a house that was completely new and that we didn’t put any blood, sweat and tears into,” Ashley says.

“It’s a dream home for our kids to grow up in. And just for us to be so proud that we can provide for our kids to grow up in this home, it means a lot,” she adds.

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When I moved to Tulsa with my son in 2021, it was supposed to be temporary. I was living in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. when I applied for Tulsa Remote, which offers $10,000 relocation grants as an incentive for entrepreneurs and remote workers to move to town. 

With my job fully remote and the long months of COVID lockdowns making it feel as though my son and I were living on our own little island, it seemed like a chance to explore a region of the country I might never have otherwise sought out. 

After a year of pandemic life, I was only mentally prepared to commit to the required 12 months in this unfamiliar state. It felt like a bucket list challenge: Say yes to the unexpected, have fun new adventures, experience a part of the country that I imagined to be so incredibly different from places I’d lived — like Virginia, Maryland, and Vermont in the U.S., as well as Spain and Colombia — and see what might happen.

I imagined that our time in Tulsa would be memorable, but I couldn’t quite anticipate the ways it would change our lives for the better.

The first six months, I lived with an urgency to see, do, and know everything that I could about this place, because I believed our time here was limited. 

We leaned in hard, going to local and regional events. We visited all of the historically Black towns of Oklahoma, attended rodeos, and ate fried everything at the Tulsa State Fair. We traveled across the midwest. We spent weekends horseback riding, following trails to see waterfalls, and driving over three hours for the state’s best Thai food. 

We hiked, tasted, and photographed our way through it all, and never without the nagging thought that whispered, “Don’t miss this.”

Six months in, that morphed into, “What if leaving soon would mean missing out?” We weren’t ready to go, and leaning into adventure shifted into making a place for ourselves and settling not for but into community, a new-found rhythm, and everything unexpected that Tulsa was offering.

If we had left after that first year, we would’ve missed becoming homeowners — something that felt out of reach in every coastal city I’d lived in or hoped to live in before moving to Tulsa. 

We would’ve missed the joy of living on a street where kids sell lemonade on Sunday afternoons. Where neighbors leave flowers and your kid’s favorite treats when you return home from a long trip to make sure you know you were missed. 

We would’ve missed cardamom lavender matchas and corner snuggles with books at our favorite bookstore cafe and dinners at our go-to restaurant, where the staff knows our names and remembers our order. 

We would’ve missed watching meteor showers under dark skies and breathtaking nightly sunsets.

We would’ve missed the space and pace to host communal meals, because everyone lives close enough to show up on any given Saturday evening and stay without a sense of urgency for anything more than good company and laughter.

Literally and metaphorically. Affordability has been helpful, but that alone couldn’t keep us here.

At this stage in my journey as a single mother, it’s incredibly important to feel to some degree like a stay-at-home mom without actually being one. Here, the pace is slower, the expectations feel more human, and, yes, the cost of living allows for a life that includes calmer mornings, impromptu adventures, and rest — real rest, the kind that invites creativity and allows ideas to take shape.

Since moving here, I’ve started my own business, been accepted into an incubator to help grow it, and explored other passion projects I could never quite commit to in my busy life on the East Coast. 

My son has learned to skateboard, become a BMX bike racer through free sponsorship programs, and joined several teams with warm and involved fathers and coaches. He’s been able to build connections with male role models that anchor him in a way I don’t take for granted. 

Together, we’ve built rituals, traditions, and a sense of belonging that wasn’t in our original plan.

Living in a “red state” as a woman of color is not something I ever saw on my life path. But I’ve found humanity in places I might have previously dismissed. 

I’ve had conversations with people whose lives looked nothing like mine and realized we had more in common than I expected. I’ve also learned that staying open makes room for nuance, and nuance makes room for more meaningful connection.

At the same time, voting here feels like it matters in a way I never felt before. Coming from places where I expected my vote to be aligned with the many hundreds of thousands of people around me, Oklahoma reminded me that many single voices can create ripples. 

Staying longer allows me to meaningfully participate in processes that shape what this place can become.

Whenever people ask how Tulsa is, I always respond “Tulsa has been good to us,” because it has given me a community of loving people and space to dream again.

Will we stay forever? Maybe not, but while we’re here, we’ll continue to find connection, adventure, affordability, expansion, humanity, and love.

There’s no denying it. Tulsa has surprised us. Tulsa has changed us. And as I always say, Tulsa has been good to us.

Allison Irby Vu is an operational strategist, life coach, financial planner, and creative based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Originally from Washington, D.C., she helps individuals and mission-driven organizations turn vision into aligned, sustainable action. Allison enjoys art, music, nature, photography, storytelling, and adventuring through the world with her son.

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We’ve all been there: Someone says something disrespectful to you at work, and you simply freeze up. During these moments, it can be hard to think of a good response right away. 

Minutes, hours, or days after the incident, you finally realize what you should have said, which can lead to even more frustration and regret. 

It doesn’t have to be this way. As a communication coach, here’s my best advice for how to prepare for and navigate moments like these.

In football, quarterbacks will train for something called “off-platform throws,” developing their skills to deliver the ball accurately from any angle. Speakers can do the same.

There’s an exercise I give my students to help them learn how to speak calmly with intention, especially when someone is hurtful or disrespectful to them.

These steps are meant to help you develop muscle memory of a tall, confident posture, to put you more at ease in unpredictable situations. 

1. Visualize your head as a helium balloon and your feet as the heavy roots of a towering tree. Then visualize the balloon rising higher and the roots growing deeper. 
2. Practice doing this five minutes a day. Then add speaking to the mix and take a page out of athletic training by using a ball.
3. Stand within throwing distance of a wall. Practice maintaining that tall posture, then throw and catch the ball as you bounce it off the wall
4. Let the unpredictability and variety of the ball speed and angle remind you to stay ready for everything. Continue to throw the ball and talk with intentional speed, pauses, and volume.

Next, practice what I call transparency phrases. They are easy to remember and can help you be mentally ready when you’re caught off guard — so you don’t feel compelled to respond instantly or say something you might regret. 

A few examples:

• “I need some time to digest what you just said.”
• “Your comment really took me off guard. I have to think about that.”
• “I’m surprised by that. I’m going to sit with that for a second.”

Choose any one of these that you feel most comfortable saying, then stress test it with that exercise from the first step.

Grab a ball and throw it against a wall. As you catch it, practice keeping your posture tall and confident while claiming the time you need to consider your reply

When someone is rude to you, it’s natural to take it personally and want to respond the same way. That’s not how you take control of the situation. Instead, after your transparency phrase, the next thing you say should bring the conversation back to the task at hand. 

Take some of the emotion out of your response by having some work-focused terms at the ready. The mnemonic device I like to use is “P” words, to help you get your power back — think ones like “procedure,” “protocol,” “paradigm,” “plan,” and “position.”

• “If we return to the plan we’ve developed…”
• “Just to remind us of the protocol that we’re working with…”
• “Let’s take a step back and look at the process that brought us here…”

The minute someone uses an inappropriate and personal slight against you to assert dominance, they have made a decision to bully their way to their desired outcome. 

But if you anchor the discussion back to one of those work-focused terms, you can reassert your territory, demonstrate your ability to contribute to the conversation, and gracefully expose their approach as inappropriate and ineffective. 

Done together, these three habits can help you navigate the inevitable moments of disrespect we all face, with your composure intact.

Michael Chad Hoeppner is a communication coach and the author of the bestselling book ”Don’t Say Um: How to Communicate Effectively to Live a Better Life.” He helps U.S. Presidential candidates, CEOs, Ivy League deans, and even high school students speak well when it matters. He is the founder and CEO of GK Training, a communications training company serving Fortune 100 companies, universities, and individuals around the world. 

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Hilary Duff loves being a mom.

“It’s so fun to watch my kids grow up,” the 38-year-old celebrity told Alex Cooper on a recent episode of the “Call Her Daddy” podcast, adding that, “as they grow, they just get so cool.”  

Still, balancing a career as an actress, musical artist, a wife and a mom of four is not easy, especially as it pertains to finding time for herself.

“Once you become a mom, your guilt becomes so thick,” she said. It’s a constant internal struggle weighing whether she should be spending all of her time with her family or setting aside some time for herself, she said.

And sometimes, the self wins. “I had to go drink a martini last night instead of stay home with my family,” she said.

That’s a decision parenting expert and author Reem Raouda supports. Here’s why.

Raouda is familiar with that tug between family and self.

“Every mother feels that split,” she says, the result of societal messaging around putting family first above all else. Doing something just for you can feel like a betrayal.

But “choosing yourself” versus “choosing your child” is a misnomer, she says: The two are not mutually exclusive, they depend on each other.

When it comes to taking care of your kids, “we need to fuel our capacity to show up for our children,” she says, “and that means filling our needs.” Without those breaks to relax, parents can’t bring their full focus and energy to parenting.

Whatever your mode of relaxation, it’s critical to carve out exactly the time Duff is describing. “It’s not self-care versus motherhood,” says Raouda. Instead, “self-care is the foundation of motherhood.”

Ultimately, she says, any time parents take for themselves will be beneficial if it’s used for relaxing, recharging, and doing something they enjoy.

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What skills can help make you more attractive in the job market or workplace today?

LinkedIn’s 2026 Skills on the Rise list, published Tuesday, identifies the fastest-growing skills in the U.S.

“We’ve seen the skills required to do our jobs evolve dramatically in the last 10 years, with even more change on the way, largely fueled by AI,” Andrew Seaman, LinkedIn News Senior Editor-at-Large for Jobs & Career Development, tells CNBC Make It. “Employers are looking less at job titles or degrees and more at what people can actually do.”

The list was determined by analyzing year-over-year growth in “skill acquisition” and “hiring success” from Dec. 1, 2024 to Nov. 30, 2025, compared to the period from Dec. 1, 2023 to Nov. 30, 2024. The report looked at the increase in LinkedIn members adding a given skill to their profiles (skill acquisition) and the increase in members with a given skill who got hired during that period (hiring success).

LinkedIn grouped individual fast-growing skills into broader categories based on use cases and other factors.

“Think of your skills like career currency — they help determine who gets hired, who gets promoted, and who’s tapped for new projects,” Seaman says. “Even as industries evolve or companies change, skills are what give you flexibility and resilience, especially in an uncertain job market.”

Here are the top categories in LinkedIn’s 2026 skills on the rise list and some of the individual skills that fall under each:

• AI engineering and implementation, including data annotation and prompt engineering
• Operational efficiency, including logistics management and process optimization
• AI business strategy, including data governance and responsible AI
• Executive and stakeholder communications, including public speaking and relationship development
• Financial operations and reporting, including cash reporting and financial data analysis
• Leadership and people management, including cross-functional team management and talent development
• Business revenue growth, including account development and go-to-market strategy
• Risk compliance management, including policy compliance and safety monitoring

The list is a mix of “hard” skills, particularly in AI, and “soft” skills like communication and people management.

“Those [who] embrace AI, are curious with the technology, and use it in their daily work will be seen as the future leaders at each company,” LinkedIn COO Dan Shapero previously told Make It. AI literacy was the top skill on LinkedIn’s 2025 Skills on the Rise list.

Soft skills like conflict mitigation, adaptability and innovative thinking made up roughly half of LinkedIn’s 2025 list. They’re crucial to our day-to-day work, Andrew McCaskill, formerly a career expert at LinkedIn, previously told Make It. “Human-centric skills” like these, he said, are “really game changers.”

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