Blogs

I realized last night that I haven't posted about our Laundy Fairy!

Some people do laundry at home, and some of us use our common laundry room. Three washers, three dryers.

When you put a load in the washing machine, you write a note on a little magnetic white board to say what you want done with it when it's done. I usually write "Dry on Medium" or "Dry on High", or "Leave this load for sorting" if I have things that need to be hung up to dry.

When the load is done in the dryer, all you HAVE to do is put it on top of the machine, or in the basket. But SOMETIMES, the laundry fairy comes and folds your laundry for you. It's GREAT! :)

Today while at work I have:

• sent a reminder for the event my 11yo is planning for this evening
• told someone where in the house to find my power screwdriver
• eaten yummy yummy leftovers from last night's common meal for lunch
• told someone where in the house to find my magnetic studfinder (regular ones don't really work on our superinsulated walls, we've discovered)
• counted pizza rsvps for tonight's event

It's only half way through the day! :)

I had one of those "cohousing moments" today, that makes me glad my partner and I live here and know my neighbors (and their commuting plans) so well. On my way out of work, the elevator failed, and I ended up being trapped for over an hour, with no cell service, of course. I managed to get a short message to my partner through security, but only that I was stuck, no idea when they would get us out, and that I wasn't on the train to take our neighbors home (the ones who normally ride home with me). From that short message, my partner was able to let my neighbor on the train know he was going to have to find another way home, *and* find another group of neighbors that he knew were just coming home from Boston who agreed to turn around and come back to pick me up, even though they weren't sure exactly how long I'd be in there. It was so wonderful to get out of the elevator, annoyed that I had an hour wait until the next train, and then be surprised to see my neighbors waiting for me.

-- Sarah

We have a lovely labyrinth in the woods at the very south end of our property. This weekend was the first time I have had a group of people walk it all at once, and it brought a huge smile to my face.

Because it's a two path labyrinth, people could all walk it without having to watch out for anyone or step aside for anyone, which works beautifully.

Come walk our labyrinth!

Yesterday was a great day for one of those much-touted benefits of cohousing, sharing resources.

- I posted that I had bought the wrong size helmet for the kid, and did anyone need the bigger one? I had both a taker and someone with an extra helmet in the kid's size!

- A member passing nearby there stopped for me at the Spa Store, to pick up water treatment for the hot tub.

- A neighbor dropped off a pair of rainpants, for me to borrow for my trip in the woods this weekend, saving me $40 or so for something I would likely use once, or at most once a year.

I love it!

By coincidence of timing, I was the first one to cook in our newly-certified kitchen last night!

I made frittata (layered potato slices, sauteed onions, artichokes, eggs & cheese), and tomato-garlic soup with croutons and parmesan cheese on the side.

I learned....
* That we need to turn on the commercial range hood and fans in order for the gas stoves to turn on. (Fortunately, I knew who to call to ask this question of)
* That fans are loud!
* That the fancy double oven on the right side range has a control in the front that controls the LOWER oven, not the upper oven.
* That that upper oven runs a little cool.

So! The frittata was a little late, but there was soup for people to have first, and everyone was in good humour about it.

For Sunday's brunch, Kai asked me to bake something. I have a great banana bread recipe, so I thought I would use that.

On Friday, Zach and I went to the grocery store to buy supplies for the lemonade stand he and Andy were setting up for the Sawyer Hill Yard Sale. I looked on the "day old" produce rack, but they didn't have any mushy bananas!

So I got the most ripe bananas I could find, and put them aside to bake with on Saturday. I have an awesome mixer, so I figured that mushing them up could still happen.

On Saturday, I was at the yard sale and commented that I needed to go bake banana bread. Sandy said "Oh! Do you need bananas? I have some I was just looking at and said that they would be perfect for banana bread."

Thus, the great banana exchange was born.

(The banana bread was great, if I do say so myself.)

"The happiest people ...were those who had the most connections, even if the relationships weren’t necessarily deep ones. The reason these people were the happiest... is that happiness doesn’t come only from having deep, heart-to-heart talks. It also comes from having daily exposure to many small moments of contagious happiness. When you frequently see other people smile — at home, in the street, at your local bar — your spirits are repeatedly affected by your mirroring of their emotional state. Of course, the danger of being highly connected to lots of people is that you’re at risk of encountering many people when they are in bad moods. But...the gamble of increased sociability pays off, for a surprising reason: Happiness is more contagious than unhappiness." (from "Is Happiness Catching?" in the NYT)

This past summer has seen amazing progress, both in our community, as well as on the site itself. Construction began in earnest in June of 2007, and has continued straight through the summer. Our open fields are now piles of dirt, we have a driveway (two, in fact!), and even have our retention ponds sculpted in and landscaped. The retention ponds went in early to help with water run off as much of the vegetation on the building areas has been removed.

This week sees much of the septic infrastructure going in, with large concrete fixtures being set into the ground that will connect all our various water handling systems together. Conduits are being run from the street to provide electrical, phone, and data services, and landscaping continues as the ever-present ledge is being pounded, scraped, and dynamited to fit out site needs.

It's a tremendous amount of work, and even though we're sad to see our idyllic fields and forest disturbed, we know we did our best to minimize the impact, and we're safe in the knowledge that had this been a traditional subdivide-and-build, the impact would have been far far worse.

We also have our first buildings on site! Okay, not really buildings, they're just construction trailers. But one of them is for our use, so we can hold meetings, have marketing materials, and store any items we'd like to have around. Since we can't really spend much time on the site while construction is going on, we won't be spending a ton of time there, but it's nice having a little slice of space we can use without fear of it being bulldozed over.

The wonderful and talented Jen Wiley-Cardone was interviewed recently, the entire article is up!