This Saturday (3/14), from 3-5PM, there's another Puget Sound Cohousing Fair (http://www.cohousing.org/node/1397) at the Clearwater School in Bothell. Clearwater is a Sudbury school, which is pretty cool in and of itself, but there's also the Clearwater Commons cohousing group building right across the street. Plus there will be nine other cohousing groups who are looking for new community-minded members, including three in Seattle proper.
Also, Seattle will be hosting the national cohousing conference June 24-28 (http://www.cohousing.org/2009/overview) at the UW. Yours truly will be hosting a session on Sunday 6/28 on Raising Kids in a Village, where we'll discuss the best and worst of parenting in community along with tips on making the most of it. There are lots of other good sessions, plus bus tours of all the local communities.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Friday, December 19, 2008
Snowy Day
The last few days have been quiet here with the threat of snow, and then its reality. We are blanketed by 2-3 inches, and it makes for a pretty picture.
Even prettier is what happens in community at times like this. No panic, just neighbors quietly sweeping the public walks of ice and snow, disconnecting malfunctioning smoke alarms (too cold in unheated homes), and working out a shared grocery run. Maybe even an impromptu potluck in the common house tonight.
In other news, Ray organized a few of us into a biodiesel co-op, so we now run B99 from an onsite tank of recycled waste vegetable oil (except when it's really cold, like today). And our raw milk and eggs co-op from Meadowwood Organics in Enumclaw is up and working like a dream. We have roughly 7 members (including neighbors) who get Jersey milk and cream and fresh farm eggs every Friday. Two weeks ago, I made Muenster, and this week I'm working on Stilton (which won't be ready until March, sigh).
There will be the usual pancake breakfast on Sunday, Nancy's fabulous crab corn chowder at the solstice dinner Monday, and lots of homemade yummies at Christmas dinner Thursday. Plus some singing, I hope. I'll be bringing my copy of Rise Up Singing just in case.
Even prettier is what happens in community at times like this. No panic, just neighbors quietly sweeping the public walks of ice and snow, disconnecting malfunctioning smoke alarms (too cold in unheated homes), and working out a shared grocery run. Maybe even an impromptu potluck in the common house tonight.
In other news, Ray organized a few of us into a biodiesel co-op, so we now run B99 from an onsite tank of recycled waste vegetable oil (except when it's really cold, like today). And our raw milk and eggs co-op from Meadowwood Organics in Enumclaw is up and working like a dream. We have roughly 7 members (including neighbors) who get Jersey milk and cream and fresh farm eggs every Friday. Two weeks ago, I made Muenster, and this week I'm working on Stilton (which won't be ready until March, sigh).
There will be the usual pancake breakfast on Sunday, Nancy's fabulous crab corn chowder at the solstice dinner Monday, and lots of homemade yummies at Christmas dinner Thursday. Plus some singing, I hope. I'll be bringing my copy of Rise Up Singing just in case.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Community Seekers, Arise!
And come on over to Duwamish Cohousing tomorrow (11/15) for another Puget Sound Cohousing fair, 4-6PM. There are 11 communities looking for new members, plus a slideshow on cohousing in general, tours of Duwamish, childcare, and lots of community seekers to talk to. Who knows, you just might start your own forming group after Saturday....
(I can't believe I forgot to put this up until today! Well, there is lots going on in my community-seeking world, including getting our common house all cleaned up and re-decorated for tomorrow. It looks gorgeous! More information later.)
(I can't believe I forgot to put this up until today! Well, there is lots going on in my community-seeking world, including getting our common house all cleaned up and re-decorated for tomorrow. It looks gorgeous! More information later.)
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Helium Hand
This is me: I am a driver, a visionary, a person with a lot of enthusiasm (who occasionally procrastinates beyond belief). Sometimes my volunteer hand flies up of its own accord. Here are some of the community projects I'm currently working on at Duwamish (not in priority order):
- Updating the web site
- Preparing a report on the community emergency preparation (survey results and recommendations)
- Scheduling massages onsite by a visiting massage therapist friend
- Acting as DCOA secretary (and I really will get those overdue minutes out today)
- Discussing the feasibility of an expanded neighborhood food buying club
- Working on garden plans for the children's garden (zig-zag path), west entrance garden, common house circle, and parking lot wall
- Organizing a raw milk cow-share drop-off ($8/gallon -- so cool!)
- Preparing to host the next Puget Sound Cohousing Fair (www.pugetsoundcohousing.com)
- Planning a potential cob oven workshop for next April
Here are some of my dreams:
- Biodiesel or WVO station (there are five biodiesel households here, why not?)
- Song circles
- A walking meditation labrynth (maybe on the helipad south of the CH?)
- More edible perennials
- A solid emergency preparation strategy
- A sandbox
- A mosaic garden bench in the CH circle garden
- More outdoor/indoor art and things of beauty
Just give me some time....
Friday, September 26, 2008
Phoenix Rising
We spent just over a year renting at Jackson Place Cohousing, my first experience actually living in cohousing and a year that taught me how truly valuable community is (especially when one is parenting two small children). It wasn't perfect, but I could live with the trade-offs. Even so, we passed up an opportunity to buy a home there, for various reasons which seemed important. Only time will tell. I miss our friends there.
For various reasons which seemed important, our forming cohousing group Seattle City Cohousing became defunct early this year. Our founding families (us included) decided to put our energies elsewhere. I chose to try to find a home in an existing cohousing community rather than build from scratch. Other families concentrated on building community right where they were or finding the right neighborhood to nurture their families. There are many paths to community.
This summer, we moved into another rental at Duwamish Cohousing, in West Seattle. I like the people here, there's a little more green space, and there's a 500-acre forest across the street. With the market the way it is, I have no idea if we will be able to buy in sometime soon. But I'm going to act as if this will be the community we settle down in for the longterm.
Duwamish has had a bit a of a problem in the last couple of years: they went through a lawsuit to get recompense for a construction defect. Lawsuits are difficult for individuals; how much more so for all these households to agree on strategies and solutions. Anyway, they got a settlement and are beginning to work on the first repair case. Moving forward. Except that some families are burned out by the process and want to move on, to find other communities and neighborhoods in which to nurture their families. There are many paths to community.
So my role is not to fix this community but to step in and act as if I'm living in the community I want to live in: to host events, attend meetings, volunteer for projects. And somewhere along the way there will be others who do the same and the community will rise from the ashes of lawsuit acrimony and be a healthy, diverse, respectful place to raise kids and grow old.
The titular phoenix is the potential at Duwamish and also me, starting to blog again after roughly 9 months of anxiety and panic about the State of the World and my family. Not that everything is hunky-dory again, but you have to move forward sometime. Right?
For various reasons which seemed important, our forming cohousing group Seattle City Cohousing became defunct early this year. Our founding families (us included) decided to put our energies elsewhere. I chose to try to find a home in an existing cohousing community rather than build from scratch. Other families concentrated on building community right where they were or finding the right neighborhood to nurture their families. There are many paths to community.
This summer, we moved into another rental at Duwamish Cohousing, in West Seattle. I like the people here, there's a little more green space, and there's a 500-acre forest across the street. With the market the way it is, I have no idea if we will be able to buy in sometime soon. But I'm going to act as if this will be the community we settle down in for the longterm.
Duwamish has had a bit a of a problem in the last couple of years: they went through a lawsuit to get recompense for a construction defect. Lawsuits are difficult for individuals; how much more so for all these households to agree on strategies and solutions. Anyway, they got a settlement and are beginning to work on the first repair case. Moving forward. Except that some families are burned out by the process and want to move on, to find other communities and neighborhoods in which to nurture their families. There are many paths to community.
So my role is not to fix this community but to step in and act as if I'm living in the community I want to live in: to host events, attend meetings, volunteer for projects. And somewhere along the way there will be others who do the same and the community will rise from the ashes of lawsuit acrimony and be a healthy, diverse, respectful place to raise kids and grow old.
The titular phoenix is the potential at Duwamish and also me, starting to blog again after roughly 9 months of anxiety and panic about the State of the World and my family. Not that everything is hunky-dory again, but you have to move forward sometime. Right?
Monday, May 19, 2008
Jackson Place Cohousing unit for sale
It's true -- there is a 2BR/1BA unit for sale at JPC. I can personally vouch for this community being pretty darn wonderful, since we've rented here for a year, and my family would buy this unit if we didn't have some specific caretaking needs. (They do have an elevator, but they don't have a lot of turnover in their units so no guarantee we could get Grandma her own unit anytime soon).
The common facilities include free laundry facilities, an opt-in meals program 5-6 times a week, a treehouse, P-patch community garden nearby, large workshop, fully-stocked playroom, and a spacious common house for private/public events.
More information at: http://www.marcelpluhar.com/800b/800b.html.
The common facilities include free laundry facilities, an opt-in meals program 5-6 times a week, a treehouse, P-patch community garden nearby, large workshop, fully-stocked playroom, and a spacious common house for private/public events.
More information at: http://www.marcelpluhar.com/800b/800b.html.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Where are they now?
**If this were an April Fool's Day post, it would mention that we have bought a large parcel of forested land within city limits and the groundbreaking ceremony on our affordable community would be on Earth Day 2009, and applications were being accepted for new members. But it's not, so it won't.**
The irony being that I started this blog in the name of transparency, to keep a history of a forming cohousing group in all the fits and starts. And I haven't posted anything on the group status in over five months (November!). Not that the group has done anything much in those five months. That constitutes a definite fit.
Last winter was personally difficult for my family, in a number of ways. Add to that our group's slowly decreasing numbers (we were down to just two families in November) and widespread lack of energy around cohousing (if four adults with busy lives and numerous active children can be said to have a lack of energy), and I knew it would take a lot of time and effort to bring it back to viability. I thought I could do it mostly on my own, at least the beginning parts, but I wasn't sure if I really wanted to. So we sat through the winter and did nothing. And then two significant events made it even more unlikely that we would keep going.
On one fateful January day, I received an offer of fulltime employment, which I took, and the notice that a unit might be available for sale in our current cohousing community, in which we are renters. Because we found participating fully in two communities (one existing, one forming) to be complex, and because buying into to an existing group is easier than creating one from scratch, we have chosen to pursue the resale unit. And if this one doesn't work out, there are several other communities with resale units available now or in the near future. Last summer, famine. This summer, a feast. Go figure.
Anyway, so Matt and I are not doing much with SCC until we figure out if we have a hope for a home the easier way (not that cohousing is really easy any time, though the tradeoffs are definitely worth it), and Leah and Lance are pretty happy where they are (though still interested in some of the potential of community). And that's where things are. Not ruling out the possibility of a resurgence but it's Plan D or maybe E.
So apologies for not communicating. And best wishes for your continued community dreams, those of you who haven't yet given up on SCC and are still reading this blog. Wish we could have built something wonderful together.
If you're interested in finding out about other groups that are forming or have units for sale, my best advice is to go to the Puget Sound Cohousing fairs that are being held every two months at various communities. Last one was at JPC and we had six delegate groups and six units for sale, all in the Puget Sound region. The next one is April 20 1-3PM, at Songaia in Bothell/Mill Creek. Hope to see you there.
The irony being that I started this blog in the name of transparency, to keep a history of a forming cohousing group in all the fits and starts. And I haven't posted anything on the group status in over five months (November!). Not that the group has done anything much in those five months. That constitutes a definite fit.
Last winter was personally difficult for my family, in a number of ways. Add to that our group's slowly decreasing numbers (we were down to just two families in November) and widespread lack of energy around cohousing (if four adults with busy lives and numerous active children can be said to have a lack of energy), and I knew it would take a lot of time and effort to bring it back to viability. I thought I could do it mostly on my own, at least the beginning parts, but I wasn't sure if I really wanted to. So we sat through the winter and did nothing. And then two significant events made it even more unlikely that we would keep going.
On one fateful January day, I received an offer of fulltime employment, which I took, and the notice that a unit might be available for sale in our current cohousing community, in which we are renters. Because we found participating fully in two communities (one existing, one forming) to be complex, and because buying into to an existing group is easier than creating one from scratch, we have chosen to pursue the resale unit. And if this one doesn't work out, there are several other communities with resale units available now or in the near future. Last summer, famine. This summer, a feast. Go figure.
Anyway, so Matt and I are not doing much with SCC until we figure out if we have a hope for a home the easier way (not that cohousing is really easy any time, though the tradeoffs are definitely worth it), and Leah and Lance are pretty happy where they are (though still interested in some of the potential of community). And that's where things are. Not ruling out the possibility of a resurgence but it's Plan D or maybe E.
So apologies for not communicating. And best wishes for your continued community dreams, those of you who haven't yet given up on SCC and are still reading this blog. Wish we could have built something wonderful together.
If you're interested in finding out about other groups that are forming or have units for sale, my best advice is to go to the Puget Sound Cohousing fairs that are being held every two months at various communities. Last one was at JPC and we had six delegate groups and six units for sale, all in the Puget Sound region. The next one is April 20 1-3PM, at Songaia in Bothell/Mill Creek. Hope to see you there.
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