The Edifying Form Follows -- NOT Function -- but FICTION. As in story telling. Buildings, according to architect Ole Scheeren, tell the stories of the people who live and work in them. When buildings tell stories rather than simply function to solve an identified problem then you can weave together the architecture with the people who will live in them. Ole Scheeren's The Interlace, a 1000+ plus apartment building in Singapore wonBuilding of the Year award at the World Architecture Festival in November of 2015. In this plan, Scheeren topples on its side the vertical columnar building form so associated with high-rise affordable housing. By doing so, on the same site plan space as would be sited densely packed vertical buildings, he creates a series of connected buildings with an array of community spaces from pools to community garden to a dog run not possible with 14 separate vertical columns. The design does this while maximizing privacy and community space. Sounds a lot like the very principles of cohousing. In fact, in the very broadest sense of the word ... with The Interlace Scheeren has "co - housed" the site and its residents. In fact, Scheeren calls The Interlace "a vertical village of living and social spaces integrated with the natural environment." In addition, through the use of vertical gardens the design actually increases the amount of green and open space that would have been available just from the site's ground level foot print. This is a design principle we see being used with great frequency in the "vertical forest" buildings. This newsletter published a short notice of Scheeren wining the Building of the Year award. Scroll to the bottom of the blog post 11/17/15. GIZMODO has detailed description of the project plus lots of great photos. Be even more inspired. Watch Scheeren's TED talk "Why Great Architecture Should Tell a Story." From AARP Livable Communities Hot off the press! AARP has just published an article about cohousing in it's most recent edition of its on-line newsletter, Livable Communities. Ellen Ryan, a freelance writer in the Washington, DC area, wrote the extensive article in the form of "20 Questions" covering topics from the form of ownership (condo, co-op, homeowner's association), private vs. community property, governance, finances, pets, labor, sustainability, privacy, stereotypes, local leaders and cohousing availability. For this article, Ryan interviewed 10 residents at Takoma Village Cohousing in northwest Washington, DC. She conducted two group interview sessions as well as individual sessions. While there are a couple of minor inaccuracies -- e.g. Takoma Village is in Washington, DC not Maryland as the editor's intro states and it's Takoma Village Cohousing not Takoma Park Cohousing as written in one of the topic headlines -- the story is accurate and captures the experience of us who live in this community as we inexorably "age in place in community" together. You'll like the article! Sunday, February 7, 2016, 2:00 pm, New Member Social EcoVillage Arlington, Virginia, Boccato Gelato & Espresso, 2719 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, VA 22201 Saturday, February 20, 2016 come out for the Visitor Day at Heathcote Community! Freeland, Maryland. Saturday, March 5, 2016, tour Takoma Village Cohousing in Washington, DC. Sign up via Washington DC Area Meetup. Heathcote Community, a 50-year old intentional community and permaculture demonstration farm, is seeking proposals from families or groups who would like to be Associate Members of Heathcote and rent Heathcote’s farmhouse for a year. Saturday, April 30, 2016 Have you registered for the unique opportunity to promote your community along with others around the country through the National Cohousing Open House Day ? This will be a great way to strengthen the bonds within and between communities while lengthening your waiting lists and filling openings. It will help generate new interest nationwide as well, thus more communities can emerge over time. Sign up using this form. Aging Better Together: May 20-21, 2016 Salt Lake City, Utah Discover how you can live a powerful purposeful life in cohousing! The conference holds the keys to creating a highly functioning senior friendly cohousing community. You will learn how to get started, meet the people who can help make it happen, and discover best practices from others who have already made the journey. There is something for everyone - those exploring the idea, newly forming groups or existing communities with aging members. Do you have an announcement? Send your Edi-bits The Slightly Weird: A Bedroom is Your Furniture ![]() Or, your furniture is your bedroom. The French designer Gilles Belley calls it making spaces out of furniture ... The Somewhat Bizarre ... Napoleon Complex: Cohousing for the Anti-Social Can someone explain this to me? Is this community for real? It's reported in Treehugger ... I'm totally missing something ... I get the double entendre about Napoleon and complex and anti-social .... I get it that it's a concept plan by Jay Shafer, one of the founders of the tiny house movement and owner of Tumbleweed ... but please tell me it's not for real -- that it's really an "Onion" inspiration for the web? Tongue in cheek? Inquiring minds want to know! HUH? Wanna have a contest? What fun contests about "life in cohousing" would you like to see? Send your suggestions to: Ann Zabaldo. Or you can comment on our blog. Open to all clean & green, natural, organic, cage & steroid-free contests ... You can leave comments about blog postings or all our published work right here on the Mid Atlantic Cohousing website's blog. Newsletters are posted to the the web site two days after being emailed to subscribers. Or you can send your comments to ANN. She reads them all! While at the website, cruise around earlier blog posts and other parts of the website. Look for FREE downloads!
If you received this newsletter from a third party ... you can subscribe yourself! We don't trade names, we don't spam and we're all around lovely people. Subscribe using the button on the Home Page!
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What is cohousing? This has to be the most asked question in cohousing. Now I have a tool that — oh my — even beats out Google. It’s Pinterest which I, along with about a zillion other people, have discovered judging by the number of categories under “cohousing” the number of “pinners” and the number of “boards.” And, thankfully, so. For awhile, I was trying to aggregate photos and information around certain categories in cohousing for the Mid Atlantic Cohousing website. Not anymore. Why bother when there are established categories with curated boards available right on- line instantaneously available? At the Pinterest home page, in the search box, I typed in the ubiquitous question “What is cohousing?” A beautiful page opened up with an array of options to explore. At the top of the page it included that very popular and well-received graphic from Great Britain -- “Cohousing 2.0” — it’s impossible to reproduce on a website — I know — I tried. I contacted the company twice for permission to reproduce the graphic (rather than just a link) but no response from the company. Here it is. This page also yielded Ross Chapin’s Pocket Neighborhoods, The Cheesecake Cohousing Consortium for growing older together, a look at Berlin’s Radical R50 Baugruppen Project (another project that made the popularity rounds a couple of months ago). With apologies to Zero Mostel and “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” -- Something for Everyone on Pinterest Tonight! If you type in “cohousing” at the Pinterest search box, you will come up with 56+ categories to search including articles, green, Italia, buildings, kitchens, garden, plans, seniors, ideas, concept … as I said: something for everyone. Curiously, there is no category for “Common House”. You will find many boards, pins and pinners about Common Houses under the category “Common.” One of the ones I like in this category is a collection from google.ca — a Canadian Google search compilation. Yes, Pinterest compiles Google Searches by pinners (nomenclature for the people who post collections to Pinterest.) The collections include videos, photos, web pages, some audio, sketches, etc. Do you use Pinterest in your marketing and outreach efforts? How do you use it? How has that worked for you? Do you have some tips to share about using this resource? Send your thoughts, comments and suggestions to Ann. Include contact information. Saturday, March 5, 2016, tour Takoma Village Cohousing in Washington, DC. Sign up via Washington DC Area Meetup. Saturday, February 20, 2016 come out for the Visitor Day at Heathcote Community! Freeland, Maryland. Heathcote Community, a 50-year old intentional community and permaculture demonstration farm, is seeking proposals from families or groups who would like to be Associate Members of Heathcote and rent Heathcote’s farmhouse for a year. From the CohoUS website Saturday, April 30, 2016 Have you registered for the unique opportunity to promote your community along with others around the country through the National Cohousing Open House Day ? This will be a great way to strengthen the bonds within and between communities while lengthening your waiting lists and filling openings. It will help generate new interest nationwide as well, thus more communities can emerge over time. Sign up using this form. Aging Better Together: May 20-21, 2016Salt Lake City, UtahDiscover how you can live a powerful purposeful life in cohousing!The conference holds the keys to creating a highly functioning senior friendly cohousing community. You will learn how to get started, meet the people who can help make it happen, and discover best practices from others who have already made the journey. There is something for everyone - those exploring the idea, newly forming groups or existing communities with aging members. Do you have an announcement? Send your info to Ann using the standard 5-Ws: Who, What, Where, When, Why + contact info! EDI BITS Always Something Going on in the Common House! "You never know who will show up or what you'll learn," says Jay KapLon about a skillshare evening he and wife, Nancy, host once or twice a month at Eastern Village Cohousing in Silver Spring, Maryland. Unlike the BIG skillshare events held in cities across the U.S., this home-grown skillshare is held in the EVC Common House. People bring crafts, repairs, skills to learn and skills to teach. They've taught each other sewing and shoe repair. They've even learned how to repair lamps. It's low key with folks dropping in and out during the evening. Abundant hot chocolate and munchies round out the fun. Wanna learn more? Email Jay! Do you have a regular or semi-regular event in your Common House you'd like to share? Send info to Up? Down? Where will interest rates be in 2016? Inquiring minds want to know! Here are two "experts" in an posting in Urban Turf forecasting interest rates to stay in the low to mid 4% range. Tiny Spaces Deserve BIG Solutions From DWELL Magazine ... eight devices that transform small spaces into lux living. Be sure to click on the URL in each one -- takes you to more photos. The Air Stream trailer: a feat of engineering and design. HUH?If you can't explain it simply ... you don't understand it well enough. Albert Einstein You're at a meeting. Suddenly, unexpectedly, you find yourself face-to-face with one of the key people who will soon consider your zoning application. Or your financial package. Or your design submission. Or, a prospective member. He or she asks the question: So, what is cohousing? You have 10 seconds to make your marketing pitch about cohousing before the person is distracted by someone else clamoring for attention. What do you say? I don't know about you, but I've often found it difficult to cram into 10 seconds: What Is Cohousing? Until I ran across this formula in an Entrepreneur on-line newsletter. According to its author, Robert W. Bly: Most elevator pitches, unfortunately, don’t work because they're just straightforward descriptions of job functions and titles, generating not much else aside from disinterest and a few yawns. For example, a fellow I met at a party once told me, “I'm a certified financial planner with more than 20 years’ experience working.” OK. But who cares? This is The Formula, developed by Paul Karasik and cited by Bly in the Entrepreneur article: 1. Identify the issue, the "pain" or the question that needs addressing. Use the question: "Do you know that..." 2. Next is a statement that is a clear, concise descriptor of the product or service: "What I/we do ..." 3. Lastly, identify the BENEFIT: "so that ..." Here's an example when I'm asked about our consulting services for senior cohousing: Do you know what seniors fear most is loneliness, helpless and boredom? What we do is collaborate with you to help you build a state-of-the-art neighborhood for aging in community so that you can live longer, healthier, connected and fulfilled lives. You can use this formula to pitch ANY product or service -- even the budget for budget approval! TIP 1: If you're building a cohousing community ... everyone in the group should have an elevator drop pitch that fits his or her way of speaking. PRACTICE giving the pitch to each other. You'll be surprised! It pays off to do this! TIP 2: You will want to have several pitches to use for different people and situations. I might well have a different pitch for an individual who is a prospective member vs. an institutional leader from whom I need support. The key is always: what's "it" to him or her? Why do they care? Do you have an elevator drop pitch for cohousing you want to share? We'll reprint it. Need help developing a pitch? Let us know and we'll repost it for feedback. Send your elevator drop pitch to share or your request for help with a pitch to Ann. Please include your contact information! Saturday, February 20, 2016 come out for the Visitor Day at Heathcote Community! Freeland, Maryland. Heathcote Community, a 50-year old intentional community and permaculture demonstration farm, is seeking proposals from families or groups who would like to be Associate Members of Heathcote and rent Heathcote’s farmhouse for a year. Saturday, March 5, 2016, tour Takoma Village Cohousing in Washington, DC. Sign up via Washington DC Area Meetup. ![]() From the CohoUS website: Saturday, April 30, 2016 Have you registered for the unique opportunity to promote your community along with others around the country through the National Cohousing Open House Day ? This will be a great way to strengthen the bonds within and between communities while lengthening your waiting lists and filling openings. It will help generate new interest nationwide as well, thus more communities can emerge over time. Sign up using this form.edit. Aging Better Together: May 20-21, 2016 Salt Lake City, UtahDiscover how you can live a powerful purposeful life in cohousing!The conference holds the keys to creating a highly functioning senior friendly cohousing community. You will learn how to get started, meet the people who can help make it happen, and discover best practices from others who have already made the journey. There is something for everyone - those exploring the idea, newly forming groups or existing communities with aging members. Do you have an announcement? Send your info to Ann using the standard 5-Ws: Who, What, Where, When, Why + contact info! Edi-bits ![]() Plug n' Play: Use Solar Anytime, Anywhere, Night or Day! Want to use solar energy? Can't afford or can't install solar panels? No problem! This device, by Sunport, allows you to access solar energy right from your standard outlet. How does it work? All energy, regardless of how it is generated, is dumped into "the power grid." The electrons can't be tracked individually so it operates more like an accounting system. The amount of energy generated by solar is recorded and certified. This device then matches your use against the record, so you can access solar from any outlet. Just like buying wind credits except you just plug n' play using your standard wall outlet. Will it save you money? No. You will still pay your regular electric bill plus you have to pay for the device (about $80 each) plus a small fee of about $20.00 per year. (Discount for packages of 4 or more devices.) Will it save the planet? Quite possibly this tiny device could do more to increase demand for solar energy than anything on the market to date. THAT could save the planet. Even if you have solar panels ... they don't produce energy all the time. So fill in that gap! After a successful Kickstarter campaign, the company is taking pre-orders for this device. Be part of the solar solution: buy and use this device. Save the planet! ![]() Top 10 Gadgets for 2015 From a foot-powered washing machine, hydroponic apartment size garden, a vertical grow system, to an electricity-free dishwasher ... get your gadget fix for 2015 from Treehugger. O yeah. The new Raspberry Pi 2 is featured! (If you're a geek you know how important a new Raspberry is ...) Another Treehugger contribution: Top 10 Shipping Container, Pre-Fab, Modular Homes of 2015. We like this list because the entries span quite a spectrum: 3D printed houses which we reported on in our first two newsletters, shipping containers with the works included, passive house and ... more! HUH?
Resolved! I was going to quit all my bad habits for the new year, but then I remembered that No resolutions. A commitment. To be exact, one commitment for 2016 for my community: to acknowledge every person for whatever specific contribution he or she makes -- big or small -- to me personally or to the community as a whole. And to do this through a written thank-you note. Thank you for pruning the bushes. Thank you for lending your parking place. Thanks for taking minutes. Thanks for bringing my mail. Thank you for your sense of humor in stressful times. Buckets have been written on the subjects of appreciation, gratitude, acknowledgment, etc. We understand the importance of acknowledging people's contributions. We understand the effect on those we acknowledge and on ourselves when giving the acknowledgement. Gobs of research. Gobs of understanding. Now, what about ACTION? This past year, I read A Simple Act of Gratitude by John Kralik. In December 2007 the holidays weren't so happy. Kralik was working on his second divorce. His girlfriend had left him. The relationships with his two older children were frayed. He was afraid of losing the relationship with his youngest. His law firm was hemorrhaging money. The judgeship he so wanted looked impossible to gain. The recession was gathering steam. His law firm was inches from combusting. And just to rub salt in his wounds ... he was 40 lbs overweight. He took action. He made a commitment to write a thank-you note everyday for 365 days. Thank you for the cologne. Thank you for the tie. Thank you paying back the loan. Thank you for your business. Thank you for paying your bill on time - it helps us pay our bills on time. That you for lunch. You already know what happened. His one remaining client grew into many more clients. His children started talking with him. His girlfriend stayed. His friendships grew. During the recession his law firm started making money. And sure enough -- he did get that judgeship. And he still writes thank you notes. Not because of what he got but because what he gave allowed relationships to grow which in turn allowed his life to grow. Every day, 365 days a year at 9:30 a.m. I exchange five gratitudes and five acknowledgements with another colleague about work, play, service or anything at all. This is between me and one other person via phone. It has made a major difference in my life. So this year, I'm going to, as they say, "step it up a notch." This will be between me and one-on-one with a whole community. We're in a good place here in my community right now. But I don't think gratitude has to wait for a "down" time to have an effect. In any event, gratitude is not a strategy. It's a way of being in the world. The world I choose to live in is one of service, acknowledgment, gratitude and ... ubiquitous chocolate. We're really not in this alone. So what action can I take to strengthen the ties that bind? What actions will you take in 2016? Have you tried something like this before? I invite you to share your thoughts by leaving your comments below. Ann Zabaldo Takoma Village Cohousing Washington, DC Arlington Ecovillage, Happy Hour, Wednesday, December 30, 2015, 6:00 p.m. Mexicali Blues, 2933 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA. Sign up via the Washington DC Area Meetup. Takoma Village Cohousing, Tour the community, Saturday, March 5, 2016. Sign up via Washington DC Area Meetup. The National Geographic (online) has a lovely article by Christina Nunez on how cohousing communities save energy while fostering a greater connection among residents. She focuses on The EcoVillage of Ithaca NY and Belfast EcoVillage in Maine. Takoma Village in Washington, DC gets a nice mention. Right under the headline is an impossibly dramatic "winter spiral" photo taken at the EcoVillage in Ithaca. Heathcote Community, a 50-year old intentional community and permaculture demonstration farm, is seeking proposals from families or groups who would like to be Associate Members of Heathcote and rent Heathcote’s farmhouse for a year. Life Edited eNewsletter just ran an extensive article on cohousing featuring Durham Central Park Cohousing! Be sure to subscribe to the Life Edited!. Edi-bits Natural Lighting, lightweight construction and ... the green house effect? This project aims to build a prototype house with minimal ecological footprint through the use of locally sourced natural materials and the drastic reduction in energy demand; energy efficiency is achieved by using natural thermal insulation throughout the external envelope and by developing strategies adapted to equatorial latitudes for solar energy capture through greenhouse effect." Home Design Photography by Darren Hendrix Would you live in this 400s/f Airstream trailer? Tiny houses ... tiny houses ... tiny houses ... why not give up this conversation as if "tiny houses" are something new and just live in a -- gasp! -- trailer? At 400s/f this trailer can hold its own with "tiny houses" and ... it's moveable! Curbed. ![]() Project Sunroof -- Google, of course! Thinking of installing a solar roof? Don't know where to start? Begin with this FREE web application for determining your solar needs. "When you enter your address, Project Sunroof looks up your home in Google Maps and combines that information with other databases to create your personalized roof analysis. Don't worry: Project Sunroof doesn't give the address to anybody else unless you ask it to." from the Sunroof website. Data analysis is available for about nine geographic areas at present. If yours is not available you can sign up to be notified of its availability. HUH? What fun contests about "life in cohousing" would you like to see? Send your suggestions to: Ann Zabaldo. Or you can comment below. Open to all clean & green, natural, organic, cage & steroid-free contests ... You can leave comments about blog postings or all our published work below. While here, cruise around earlier blog posts and other parts of the website. Look for FREE downloads!
! If you received this newsletter from a third party ... you can subscribe yourself! We don't trade names, we don't spam and we're all around lovely people. Subscribe via the home page of this website. Holiday Happenings in Cohousing Past & Present - Near & Far! How did it get so late so soon? It's night before it's afternoon. December is here before it's June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon? Dr. Seuss What holidays does your cohousing community celebrate? Hanukah? Solstice? Christmas? Nabi -- Birthday of the Prophet Muhammed (Sunni)? or Milad un Nabi (Shia)? Festivus? Hopi Soyaluna? Celebrating holidays in cohousing is as varied as our residents. Although we don't celebrate many of the December "Special Days" at Takoma Village, Washington, DC, I'm personally fond of National Flashlight Day, December 21st. Or how about Wear Brown Shoes Day, December 4th? (Not to be confused with Put on Your Own Shoes Day on December 6th.) Or my very favorite ... National Bicarbonate of Soda Day on December 30th. I guess a lot of people are drinking bicarb after a month long celebration. Herewith is a photo gallery of holiday celebrations in cohousing communities near and far both current and past. Look for the Polar Bear Club swim team, gingerbread baking, ornament making ... and just some lovely snowy scenes from around cohousing. A special treat: watch the video -- learn how to make a group gingerbread house in 2 minutes and 49 seconds. Share your community's December celebrations. Leave a comment on our website under this blog post for December 24, 2015. Happy Holidays at home ... wherever you are! How to make a gingerbread house in 2 minutes and 49 seconds! Winslow Cohousing, Bainbridge Island, WA The National Geographic (online) has a lovely article by Christina Nunez on how cohousing communities save energy while fostering a greater connection among residents. She focuses on The EcoVillage of Ithaca NY and Belfast EcoVillage in Maine. Takoma Village in Washington, DC gets a nice mention. Right under the headline is an impossibly dramatic "winter spiral" photo taken at the EcoVillage in Ithaca. Speaking of EcoVillages ... do you know Arlington EcoVillage is forming in the Arlington,Virginia area just outside Washington, DC? Want to know more? Join them for their upcoming Happy Hour at Mexicali Blues in Arlington. Sign up via the Washington DC Area Cohousing Meetup. Heathcote Community (Freehand, MD) has scheduled a Visitor Day for Saturday, February 20, 2016. Come have FUN and learn about this innovative community just outside Baltimore, Maryland. Another community tour of Takoma Village in Washington, DC is scheduled for Saturday, March 5, 2016. Twenty-two people have already signed up via the Washington DC Area Cohousing Meetup. You can, too! Edi-bitsA quick, clear explanation of why parking minimums hurt cities ... watch the video ... it's cool! HUH?What fun contests about "life in cohousing" would you like to see? Send your suggestions to: Ann Zabaldo. Or you can comment on our blog. Open to all clean & green, natural, organic, cage & steroid-free contests ... You can leave comments here. While here, cruise around earlier blog posts and other parts of the website. Look for FREE downloads! Subscribe!
If you received this newsletter from a third party ... you can subscribe yourself! We don't trade names, we don't spam and we're all around lovely people! The great secret that all old people share is that you really haven't changed in seventy or eighty years. Your body changes, but you don't change at all. And that, of course, causes great confusion. ~Doris Lessing Old age, another final frontier: and just like deep space, it is dark and unknown. In the last few decades I have watched my grandparents, aunts, mother in law, a few peers, and dozens of hospice patients age and die. I've always had friends who are much older, and in our talks over the years they share what getting older feels like, their various physical challenges, and how they are thinking about the end of life. Some cope with humor, some with different flavors of denial, some with an interesting assortment of approach and avoidance. I had been working in the well-being field, and when I applied well-being concepts to my interest in aging, I landed in cohousing. A cohousing community could be a perfect forum for support and exploration during aging. Through a great convergence of interests and opportunities, I am now a (much older than usual) student in a graduate program in Applied Gerontology, studying with a major senior cohousing researcher. I have been thinking a lot about aging lately, especially the really old years. In Gerontology class we discuss three stages of old age:
I now propose the term “Deep Aging” (TM) to describe the period of life between the beginning of old-old age and death. Deep Aging (TM) implies depth, exploration, meaning, insight, courage and subtlety, none of which is guaranteed simply by the passage of years. It conveys a life task to age deeply and meaningfully, and challenges us to pay attention and plumb its depths. My biology professor spent an entire course describing “normal age-related changes” in physical functioning. By age 80, the average person will have a reduction in maximal breathing capacity of about 55%. We will experience about a 40% reduction in kidney function. Our mitochondria (you remember from high school biology, the “powerhouse of the cell,”) will have reduced by 15%, meaning the body simply produces less energy. Collagen will degrade over time, resulting in increased stiffness. Cartilage thins, muscle mass and bone mass decrease. All of these are normal age-related changes. There are always outliers: the 90 year old who swims the English Channel, the 82 year old ballerina, the 85 year old who runs competitively. But most of us experience normal age-related changes right on schedule. An optimal diet, optimal exercise, optimal genes, optimal environment and optimal lifestyle are beneficial for a whole host of reasons. But aging will still occur, if you are lucky enough to live into your older years, and eventually you will die. And death? Ninety percent (90%) us will die from a predictable chronic illness such as heart disease, cancer, organ failure, or dementia. These deaths take time, maybe years, and the effects of illness are on top of the normal age-related changes that are also underway. So, exceptional as we all want to be, there is a good chance that we will need a plan for managing our old-old years, with or without chronic illness. Now for the good news: in cohousing, experiencing this life stage together with peers creates conditions to magnify the richness of aging, especially in the very advanced years. Even in cohousing people say “I'm not old!” or think because they have a co-care agreement with neighbors that they will be protected from the perils of aging. We have seen cohousers die at home as they intended, but other long-term cohousers leave the community to move to assisted living or a nursing home because their needs exceeded what they were able to manage, for different reasons. We have an opportunity in cohousing to explore Deep Aging (TM) with the courage and innovation that brought us to cohousing in the first place, and make our communities liveable into our old-old years. Some communities are actively discussing end of life issues, and some are finding ways to make their intergenerational community more age-friendly. With openness and creative thinking, cohousers can figure out how to make aging in place in community a reality for our members. Old age is always fifteen years older than I am. - Oliver Wendell Holmes ![]() Nancy Francis is currently a late-middle-aged student in University of North Carolina Wilmington's Masters of Applied Gerontology program, building on her earlier-in-life Masters in Eastern Studies and Comparative Psych and is also a licensed attorney, which seemed like a good idea at the time. She lives with her family in North Carolina. Editor's note: Nancy Francis is on the Advisory Board for the upcoming Aging Better Together conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, May 20-21, 2016. There will be presentations, workshops, panel discussions, etc. on all aspects of aging in community. Plan to join the fun! Registration will open in early January, 2016. Mark your calendar now to save the dates! In the next few weeks, cohousers interested in tackling the issues around Deep Aging (TM), aging in place in community and all the attendant co-care issues will begin a national conversation to address these challenges. For more information contact: Ann Zabaldo. Arlington EcoVillage Happy Hour, Arlington, Virginia, Wednesday, December 30, 6:00 p.m. Sign up via the Washington-DC-Area-Cohousing Meet Up. You can still cut your own tree and have it trimmed by Christmas -- just do it before Christmas Eve! Hundredfold Farm (Orrtanna, Pennsylvania) is one of the few cohousing communities which has a community owned and operated business: a Christmas tree farm. And as it's the season ... at Seven Springs Tree Farm you can cut your own tree on Fridays (10a-6 p) and Saturdays and Sundays (8a-6p). Heads up: The Farm will be closed on Christmas Eve. After you've lassoed and tied down your tree atop your car stop by their neighbors at Halbrendt Vineyard and Winery. Heathcote Community (Freehand, MD) has scheduled a Visitor Day for Saturday, February 20, 2016. Come have FUN and learn about this innovative community just outside Baltimore, Maryland. Fail-Safe Slow Cook Turkey & Next-Day Turkey Soup Recipes ![]() Sharon Villines Takoma Village Cohousing FOR A LARGE TURKEY, THE NIGHT BEFORE Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Wash and stuff the turkey. Coat surface with oil or butter or nothing. I cook the turkey on top of a bed of stuffing in a large enough pan. If you want to make gravy, cook the additional stuffing separately so you can save the drippings. I use Pepperidge Farm Herb Dressing and add onions, butter, and sometimes cranberries or celery. You can add anything you like. You can also make your own stuffing, of course, but why duplicate the masters? Cook the turkey at 300 for one hour to kill surface bacteria and seal the surface. Turn the temperature down to 165, the “done” temperature for turkey. This is the key to slow cooking. The dish will never be over-cooked. All flavors and texture will be unharmed. Cook 1 hour for each pound. Watch the oven temperature—many ovens have difficulty maintaining low temperatures. Crack the door if it gets too hot. The oven may only turn on for a few minutes every hour or so. Use a meat thermometer to ensure that the turkey is done. (The pop-up button that ensures that a turkey is done may over cook or undercook a turkey using this method — or any method, actually. SOME OVENS TURN THEMSELVES OFF AT ~12 HOURS, so may have to reset them. Only the turkey is fail-safe. I can’t control your oven. NEXT-DAY TURKEY SOUP DAY ONE After dinner: Do not let people take all the left-over meat and dressing. (You may need help. Weapons are usually not necessary.) Save the dressing aside so people can put it in their soup or eat as a side dish. Put all bones, skin, etc., in a large pot and add water to cover. If some bones are sticking up, just push them down periodically while cooking until they stay down. Add 1-3 tablespoons of vinegar depending on the size of the pot to leech calcium out of the bones. The vinegar will cook off so no taste will remain or what does will blend with other flavors. Put onions, parsley, celery, etc. in with the bones. You can cut them into large pieces, just small enough to fit in the pan. Strong simmer until the connecting tissue is soft and the bones just begin to fall away — about 4 hours or so. Put the whole pot with the bones and vegetables in the fridge or if it is cold enough, outdoors. Put a stone on the cover outside if you have raccoons or large cats. Leave it for 12-24 hours to leech more calcium out of the bones and allow the flavors to blend. DAY TWO: Scoop off the big globs of fat on the top. You don’t have to be meticulous about this. You want plenty left for taste and nourishment. Remember, this is a one pot fills all meal. Warm the pot so the soup stock is completely melted. Cool until safe to handle and pour the soup through a colander into another pot. With the solids now in the colander, pick out the loose pieces of meat and any remaining on the bones. Mush the meat carefully by hand to be sure there are no small bones. Set the meat aside and throw out all the solids. The vegetables will be cooked to a mush of tasteless fiber but don’t cry over them. All the taste and minerals stay in the broth. If you want to remove more fat, you can put the pot of liquid back in the fridge so it floats to the top and becomes solid. Or use a baster to siphon it off. But remember, a lot of the flavor is in the fat. Don’t over do it. Boil the liquid down until it has a rich taste, usually reducing it by 1/4 to 1/3. This depends on how much water you used on Day One. Hearten up. The soup is almost done. Season and add whatever else you want in the soup — carrots, celery, beans, rice, noodles, etc. — and cook until they are done. Add left over turkey just in time to heat it thoroughly. Heat dressing separately if desired. (I like cold stuffing.) I use soy sauce instead of salt because it gives a richer color. Soup stock can be really ugly and I’ve never been successful in the clarifying techniques recommended in cookbooks. (You probably lose flavor anyway when you swirl eggs around in it.) I like Old Bay for poultry. Then I just smell stuff on the spice rack and decide if I want it or not. Sage is good in turkey soup. Some butter gives a nice aftertaste. It doesn’t have to be a lot. A very small amount adds flavor. Fail-Safe Slow Cooking Turkey sounds like a lot of work but it isn’t. Most of the time things are just cooking by themselves. Sharon Villines Fail-Safe Slow Cooking Turkey & Next Day Soup Takoma Village Cohousing TakomaVillage.org Washington DC 202-722-1727 sharon@sharonvillines.com Recipe posted online at: http://www.sharonvillines.com/fail-safe-slow-cooking-turkey-and-turkey-soup/ You can download all the recipes from Thanksgiving AND Sharon's wonderful Fail-Safe recipe for cooking a holiday turkey right from our website! EDI-BITS![]() Wondering what to do with that old 727 sitting in your back yard? Convert it into a home, of course! Or a hotel. Or restaurant. Who knew there are actually people doing this? Wikipedia. Yellow Submarine: A pop-up bedroom made up of 16 bath tubs ... erected in Munich as part of a contest to showcase good design for affordable housing. Although it's "just a bedroom" the designers of Yellow Submarine along with 23 other sets of competitors showed what could be done easily, affordably and with a festive bent. The contestants were limited to a budget of $273.30 US. HUH?Wanna have a contest? What fun contests about "life in cohousing" would you like to see? Send your suggestions to: Ann Zabaldo. Or you can comment on our blog. Open to all clean & green, natural, organic, cage & steroid-free contests ... You can leave comments below. We welcome them! Cruise around earlier blog posts and other parts of the website. Look for FREE downloads! Subscribe!
Subscribe to our newsletter! ! We don't trade names, we don't spam and we're all around lovely people! Just go to our HOME PAGE and sign up by clicking the button in the middle of the page! Fast, Flexible, Reliable Capital ![]() That's the headline on the website GROUNDFLOOR, a crowdsourcing realestate funding investment company. While the story of how it has achieved its breakthrough in allowing non-accredited investors to get into the real estate investment market is laudable and fascinating … what’s important to 99.9% of cohousers is: There’s a new kid in town with money to lend. If your cohousing group is looking for financing for
And it couldn’t be simpler. Apply on-line. If accepted, projects may take up to 30 days to fund but often fund more quickly. Use your own closing agents. Rates start at 6%. Pay off the loan anytime. Junior and Senior loans are included in GROUNDFLOOR'S offerings. And if you want to invest … oh my goodness … you could earn a smart return on your capital. At least according to the website! GROUNDFLOOR is one of several real estate investment companies using crowdsourcing to fund real estate projects. Fundrise, which has been operating in the Washington, DC area for several years, has an extremely good track record in crowdsourcing capital to fund commercial real estate projects. According to a USAToday article, Realty Mogul raised $9 million in capital in 2014 for accredited investors. In the same article, USAToday says there are more than 20 “platforms” available for crowdsourcing capital for real estate projects in the U.S. Currently, GROUNDFLOOR provides:
Thirty-five people attended the recent tour of Takoma Village Cohousing on Sunday, December 6, 2015. Special guest, Alice Alexander, Ex., Director of CohoUS spoke briefly at the tour. Takoma Village conducts these public tours four times a year to educate the public about cohousing and to maintain a healthy pool of prospective buyers for resales. _________________________________________________________________________________________ Speaking of the very dynamic Alice Alexander mentioned above ... after the tour she met with 23 members of Mid Atlantic Cohousing in a "white gloves off" session to discuss the challenges facing cohousing communities as members are aging. What became clear at the meeting is that little has been done either in intergenerational cohousing or even Senior cohousing to address the period of time between "healthy aging" and death. This is the life stage in which "activities of daily living" or ADLs become paramount. These may include feeding, dressing, toileting, bathing, etc. Nancy Francis, a graduate student at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, identifies this stage and the time approaching this stage "deep aging." Currently, in almost all cohousing communities when members approach this stage they must find other support including moving to assisted living or nursing care. To address the issues surrounding "deep aging", Mid Atlantic Cohousing is organizing a working group of MAC members to study the issues and to begin formulating a cohousing response to keeping our elders in the community throughout the life span. MAC will work with gerontology expert, Janice Blanchard, to identify issues in late life aging as well as begin constructing the framework of a model that can be used by cohousers and others to tackle the issues. Janice has been at the forefront of gerontologists looking at aging and community. MAC is delighted to be working with this expert with a 30,000 ft view as well as the ground level experience. This working group will then attend the upcoming Aging Better in Community conference being co-sponsored by SageHill Cohousing and CohoUS. Together with others attending the conference MAC believes conference attendees can design and take away a process for initiating a program for their respective communities. For more information please contact Ann Zabaldo 202.546.4654 ann.zabaldo@gmail.com. _________________________________________________________________________________________ Mid Atlantic Cohousing is announcing another 2-year intensive Facilitator Training Program with Laird Schaub. The program will start in the Fall of 2016. MAC initiated this facilitation training series for Laird which, after a very successful completion in our region, he replicated in many other parts of the U.S. More than 10 MAC members participated in the original training program -- many of them are still facilitating and training others in their respective cohousing community. We'll post details as soon as they become available. _________________________________________________________________________________________ Still time to cut your own tree before Christmas! Hundredfold Farm (Orrtanna, Pennsylvania) is one of the few cohousing communities which has a community owned and operated business: a Christmas tree farm. And as it's the season ... at Seven Springs Tree Farm you can cut your own tree on Fridays (10a-6 p) and Saturdays and Sundays (8a-6p). Heads up: The Farm will be closed on Christmas Eve. After you've lassoed and tied down your tree atop your car stop by their neighbors at Halbrendt Vineyard and Winery. _________________________________________________________________________________________ Heathcote Community (Freehand, MD) has scheduled a Visitor Day for Saturday, February 20, 2016. Come have FUN and learn about this innovative community just outside Baltimore, Maryland. Edi-BitsWhat can you do in 301 s/f? Hmmmm. Lots. See what StudioWok has done in Milan, Italy. Includes elevations and floor plans. ![]() Just because it's the holidays ... it's chocolate ... and it's FLAT PACKED no less ... Sometimes concrete IS just grey or brown or any neutral ... but look what happens when it goes "gangnem style." Another example of building in a tight urban space. HUH?What fun contests about "life in cohousing" would you like to see? Send your suggestions to: Ann Zabaldo. Or you can comment on our blog. Open to all clean & green, natural, organic, cage & steroid-free contests ... You can leave comments below. Cruise around earlier blog posts and other parts of the website. Look for FREE downloads! Subscribe! If you received this newsletter from a third party ... you can subscribe yourself! We don't trade names, we don't spam and we're all around lovely people! Every morning, all across America people peer into bathroom mirrors searching for signs of age. No line, no blemish is overlooked. We dread the appearance of those little lines at the corner of our mouths and eyes and then we console ourselves with the thought that, really, they are hardly noticeable. Still we know the truth. We are getting older -- every day one day older. William H. Thomas, M.D. What Are Old People For? What are old people for? What ARE they for? When I started my cohousing journey waaay back in 1991, I was 41 years old. Three months before I turned 50, I moved into my cohousing community, Takoma Village Cohousing in Washington, DC — the same year I got my first invitation to join AARP. Just this past November Takoma Village celebrated its 15th year living in our cohousing neighborhood. Now, I’m 65, a card carrying Medicare user Parts A&B, and an AARP Part D insurance plan subscriber. I would tell you my hair is grayer but only my hairdresser knows that for sure. We are all getting older. A veritable tsunami of Americans are turning 65.
These are just a very few of the questions you can explore at the upcoming Aging Better Together - The Power of Community conference co-sponsored by SageHill Cohousing and CohoUS May 20-21, 2016 in Salt Lake City, Utah. In addition to some of the heavier and headier questions about aging in cohousing we will also celebrate the joys and contributions of being a senior living in or planning to live in community. As a group:
I am on the planning team for the conference. I invite you to share your thoughts about aging in community, what you would like to see addressed at the conference, what’s happening in your community. You can leave your comments at the bottom of this blog post on our website. Or, you can write me directly: Ann.Zabaldo@gmail.com And … I invite you to attend this conference. It promises to be the first of many to come. Be a pioneer. Be there! Hundredfold Farm (Orrtanna, Pennsylvania) is one of the few cohousing communities which has a community owned and operated business: a Christmas tree farm. And as it's the season ... at Seven Springs Tree Farm you can cut your own tree on Fridays (10a-6 p) and Saturdays and Sundays (8a-6p). Heads up: The Farm will be closed on Christmas Eve. After you've lassoed and tied down your tree atop your car stop by their neighbors at Halbrendt Vineyard and Winery. Heathcote Community (Freeland, MD) has scheduled a Visitor Day for Saturday, February 20, 2016. Come have FUN and learn about this innovative community just outside Baltimore, Maryland. ![]() You may remember that last week Alice Alexander was the winner of the First Ever Thanksgiving Quantity Cooking Recipe contest sponsored by Mid Atlantic Cohousing. (Blog post November 24, 2015 Scroll to this blogpost below.) When she's not cooking ... she's busy being the Executive Director for CohoUS. In that role here are two upcoming events with Alice happening in Washington, DC this week. Alice will attend the upcoming tour of Takoma Village Cohousing this coming Sunday, December 6, 2015. As part of its efforts to maintain a healthy pool of interested future residents, the Resale & Rental pod at TVC sponsors a major public tour of the community each quarter. More than 70 people are signed up for the tour this Sunday! Alice will be there as a tour participant. While she is in town Alice will also meet with representatives of Mid Atlantic Cohousing to discuss the upcoming Aging Better Together conference (See above announcement for more detail.) Alice will also update MAC members on the many activities CohoUS has undertaken in the last year under her leadership. About 20 MAC members have committed to meet with Alice. If you are a resident of a MAC member community you can join in this discussion. See the chart to find out if your community is a MAC member. Want your community to become a member of MAC? You can do that here. For details on the MAC meeting with Alice please email Ann for more information: ann.zabaldo@gmail.com Edi-BitsYou know that thing that happens when you have a PDF of something that you want to edit? Like a contract? Or print only by-laws? It's either a permanent scowl creasing your face or a sigh of resignation as you realize you're gonna have to type that document all over again ... But wait! Here's the best thing since Moby Dick was a guppy! It's a FREE OCR conversion program! AND ... it's EASY to use! Online OCR recognizes 46 languages and it can handle the following image formats:
O. By the way ... Moby Dick, being a mammal, was never a guppy. But you knew that, right? :-) Speaking of conversions ... not everything is bigger in Texas! Luckily, smaller is always bigger in Texas, too. Here is a whimsical guest house-playhouse-gardem retreat converted from an 8x40 shipping container. And you thought concrete was just grey blocks ... Look what can be done with this humble material. When deciding on affordable materials for building you might consider this building block of architecture dating back almost 8,000 years. And those structures are still standing ... Building your community in a tight urban space? Yearning for a sense of green and open space? Add a parklet! It's portable, too! HUH?What fun contests about "life in cohousing" would you like to see? Send your suggestions to: Ann Zabaldo. Or you can comment right here on our blog. Scroll down. Open to all clean & green, natural, organic, cage & steroid-free contests ... If you received this newsletter from a third party ... you can subscribe yourself! Look for FREE downloads just for signing up! We don't trade names, we don't spam and we're all around lovely people! This is the question Charles Durrett and his associates Bernice Gonzales and Erik Bonnett seek to answer in their book: Happily Ever Aftering in Cohousing: A Handbook for Community Living Last week (November 17, 2015) I began at the end of the book exploring “The Community Tax.” This week, I begin at the beginning with the introduction because this is important thinking on what makes cohousing “work.” “…cohousing… is a collaborative construction, built not brick by brick but decision by decision. The architecture is just the picture frame; the folks living and laughing in the community are the picture.” Charles (Chuck) Durrett. Decision by decision. This is key. This is the “work” of the group. Each decision building a firm foundation for the next decision and the formation of group cohesion. This is the sometimes “heavy lifting” in community that gives rise to good decision making, connection, bonding and … wisdom. Wisdom? Yes. Because, as Chuck writes: “if it doesn’t work socially, why bother?” How is the “wisdom” of the group attained? Here is one of the book’s important offerings: studying* what contributes to the group’s “creating and maintaining healthy relationships.” Chuck suggests communities “measure social solutions, from a management point of view, to foster healthy relationships. Most importantly, focus on proactively preventing problems from developing in the first place.” (Short editorial digression beginneth.) This measuring, studying, evaluating and implementing is built into Sociocracy which is a governance structure that uses consensus decision-making. Sociocracy or Dynamic Governance is being used or considered for use by many cohousing groups as the difficulty in running a sometimes multimillion dollar complex on a simple form of consensus decision-making becomes apparent. I will talk more about Sociocracy, governance and cohousing values when reviewing the section on group process. What is important here is that when adopting Sociocracy, the studying from a “management point of view” Chuck speaks so strongly about, is inherent in the Sociocratic or Dynamic Governance process. Why not adopt a form of governance in which these management practices for improving the health of a community is built in? (Thus endeth short editorial digression.) Key Groups & Best Practices But how to make it work socially? in his book, Chuck looks at "best practices" of four “key groups":
As an example, Chuck cites clarifying the requirements around common dinners which he believes to be the most important of the skills required in a health cohousing community. If your expectation is that everyone cooks at least once a month … make that clear to everyone who comes into the community. It’s not an option. It’s that important. (In fact, Chuck argues that breaking bread together is so important that to rebuild a struggling community, start with common meals.) The importance of expected minimums is true for participation in the work of the community both in workshare and in governance and decision-making. While there is always a range of contribution from folks who do too much to folks who contribute little, if there are minimum expectations in place there will be enough resiliency in the community to keep the community running smoothly. Chuck suggests codifying these expected minimums in an “agreement of understanding” signed by each person in the community. That way, each person is clear as to what his or her expected minimum participation actually is. The expectations, the clarification, the codification is done before move in. And if well done, this process is carried out over the life of the community. The history of my own community, Takoma Village, Washington, DC, supports this view of the necessity of clear expectations. For the founders, these expectations were fairly clear. However, as folks moved out and new folks moved in, we did not have a solid orientation program in place and consequently the knowledge and wisdom of the group was not handed down to new folks in an organized way. In the last two years, we have developed a rigorous orientation program designed to help people learn about our community BEFORE buying here. Once they are homeowners the orientation continues to bring new owners up to speed on what expectations are in place. The difference in the participation of new homeowners pre-orientation program and those who have come in since the orientation program has been initiated is striking. People who have been through this rigorous orientation show up for meetings, dinners, work days and serve on teams as a matter of course. It's All in the "Attitudes" In addition, Chuck lists three attitudes he believes are essential to making cohousing work: 1. Community is worth it. The advantages outweigh the disadvantages. 2. A desire of integrity: I will live my values more fully. 3. A commitment to community: We can solve this problem together. I add two more: 4. Don’t let perfection be the enemy of the good. 5. It’s all about practice, practice, practice. Even when you are “happily ever altering” it’s still all about practice. Feeding The Soul Cohousing communities diverge from standard condos in many ways. Circling back to offering dinners on a regular basis -- cohousing is outstanding. It's the SOUL of the community. “If your really want to make a friend, go to someone’s house and eat with him — the people who give you their food give you their hearts.” Caesar Chavez * Note: Words in italics are for emphasis by me not the author. Mid Atlantic Cohousing's First Ever Thanksgiving |
Alice is co-founder of Durham Central Park Cohousing Community, based in a 24-unit building self-developed in downtown Durham, NC. Originally from Northern Virginia, with some time in Ohio, Alice moved to Durham in 2001 and immediately felt at home. Alice is a baby boomer with a need to make an impact and can think of no better investment than to serve CohoUS as its Executive Director. |
Here is what The Judges, Robbin Phelps and Bruce Jones of Takoma Village, said about Sweet Potato Ginger:
Delicious!
Authentic Thanksgiving flavors of sweet potatoes and toasted walnuts, with the zing from ginger that awakens the taste buds. It is gluten free and vegetarian, and we guess that you could make it vegan by eliminating the butter and using either olive oil or coconut oil. Nice and easy: just bake the potatoes, and mash everything together. Fun, too – you can mash with your hands. We do not anticipate that there would be leftovers. But, if you want to set some aside ahead of time just for that, the dish would heat up well in the microwave, on the stovetop, or in the oven.
Thank you to Ruth Hirsch, Cantine's Island, Saugerties, New York, Betsy Mendelshohn, Takoma Village, Washington, DC, Barbara Buckram, Meadow Wood, Bremerton, WA, Jessica Gaitan, Enright Ridge Urban EcoVillage, Cincinnati, OH. You can meet everyone who submitted a recipe and download them all. These recipes are the beginnings our book on the collective wisdom of cohousing. Get all the recipes! Who's up for cooking? Leave comments on our blog for this entry!
The Judges
Bruce Jones and Robbin Phelps live at Takoma Village Cohousing in Washington, DC. They are married with a son away for his first year in college. Here is what Robbin says about Bruce: "He has been a foodie since he was a kid. Seriously into cooking by age 9, according to his Mom. Loves reading cookbooks and watching cooking shows. By day, an IT director for DC Government. Father of a fabulous 18 year old who at least can make his own mac and cheese, and has been known to make a mean plate of fried green tomatoes." (Robbin is no slouch as a cook, either!)
Delicious!
Authentic Thanksgiving flavors of sweet potatoes and toasted walnuts, with the zing from ginger that awakens the taste buds. It is gluten free and vegetarian, and we guess that you could make it vegan by eliminating the butter and using either olive oil or coconut oil. Nice and easy: just bake the potatoes, and mash everything together. Fun, too – you can mash with your hands. We do not anticipate that there would be leftovers. But, if you want to set some aside ahead of time just for that, the dish would heat up well in the microwave, on the stovetop, or in the oven.
Thank you to Ruth Hirsch, Cantine's Island, Saugerties, New York, Betsy Mendelshohn, Takoma Village, Washington, DC, Barbara Buckram, Meadow Wood, Bremerton, WA, Jessica Gaitan, Enright Ridge Urban EcoVillage, Cincinnati, OH. You can meet everyone who submitted a recipe and download them all. These recipes are the beginnings our book on the collective wisdom of cohousing. Get all the recipes! Who's up for cooking? Leave comments on our blog for this entry!
The Judges
Bruce Jones and Robbin Phelps live at Takoma Village Cohousing in Washington, DC. They are married with a son away for his first year in college. Here is what Robbin says about Bruce: "He has been a foodie since he was a kid. Seriously into cooking by age 9, according to his Mom. Loves reading cookbooks and watching cooking shows. By day, an IT director for DC Government. Father of a fabulous 18 year old who at least can make his own mac and cheese, and has been known to make a mean plate of fried green tomatoes." (Robbin is no slouch as a cook, either!)
What fun contests about "life in cohousing" would you like to see? Send your suggestions to: Ann Zabaldo. Or you can comment on our blog site under this posting. Open to all clean & green, natural, organic, cage & steroid-free contests ...
Edi-bits
A Tree House that sleeps 4, is beautiful and meets code. And is built around a tree. Move over Falling Waters ...
For your dose of the weird: an entire issue of DEZEEN. Public sauna in the photo. Just keep scrolling ...
Window to balcony transformation. You have to see the video ...
A Tree House that sleeps 4, is beautiful and meets code. And is built around a tree. Move over Falling Waters ...
For your dose of the weird: an entire issue of DEZEEN. Public sauna in the photo. Just keep scrolling ...
Window to balcony transformation. You have to see the video ...
Happily Ever Aftering in Cohousing: A Handbook for Community Living is a slim book that packs a big message. (The title is almost longer than the total word count of the book!)
Written by Charles (a.k.a Chuck) Durrett with Bernice Gonzalez and Erik Bonnett of McCamant & Durrett Architects, the book compiles best practices for living in cohousing.
This is the second most important book those in cohousing should read. Whether you are just starting your cohousing adventure, a member of a forming, building or built community this is THE book to read. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest with a very understated declaration:
READ THIS BOOK FIRST!
The introduction alone is the single best constructed argument of why do cohousing in the first place posing the singular question: “If it doesn’t work socially, why bother?”
In the book, Chuck and company describe four areas of best practices for insuring a healthy, working, collaborative community:
Today, let’s begin at the very end with …
Written by Charles (a.k.a Chuck) Durrett with Bernice Gonzalez and Erik Bonnett of McCamant & Durrett Architects, the book compiles best practices for living in cohousing.
This is the second most important book those in cohousing should read. Whether you are just starting your cohousing adventure, a member of a forming, building or built community this is THE book to read. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest with a very understated declaration:
READ THIS BOOK FIRST!
The introduction alone is the single best constructed argument of why do cohousing in the first place posing the singular question: “If it doesn’t work socially, why bother?”
In the book, Chuck and company describe four areas of best practices for insuring a healthy, working, collaborative community:
- Group Process
- Management
- Common Dinners
- Maintenance.
Today, let’s begin at the very end with …
The Cohousing Tax
The dictionary defines a tax as “a sum of money demanded by a government for its support or for specific facilities or services, levied upon incomes, property, sales, etc.”
Who wants to pay taxes? Who ever thought there was a tax to pay in cohousing?
So what is “The Cohousing Tax?” Here is Chuck's description:
Who wants to pay taxes? Who ever thought there was a tax to pay in cohousing?
So what is “The Cohousing Tax?” Here is Chuck's description:
We all have to pay taxes to government, that’s a given. Cohousing is no different. The cohousing tax is what we pay to receive all the gifts we get day after day, big and small. …Every day it seems I receive 20 to 40 warm smiles… However, every month or so I get a frown.
Some days you’re awesome and once in a while you’re ridiculous. Oh well, that’s the community (cohousing) tax.
… the occasional frown is a small price to pay to have someone teach my child how to sing; for common dinners four or five nights a week; for being able to borrow a car occasionally; to taste great homemade beer, great homemade sauces and homemade cookies, and to enjoy the wonderful conversations that become richer and deeper by the year as I get to know my neighbors better and better.
Some days you’re awesome and once in a while you’re ridiculous. Oh well, that’s the community (cohousing) tax.
… the occasional frown is a small price to pay to have someone teach my child how to sing; for common dinners four or five nights a week; for being able to borrow a car occasionally; to taste great homemade beer, great homemade sauces and homemade cookies, and to enjoy the wonderful conversations that become richer and deeper by the year as I get to know my neighbors better and better.
I, too, believe the occasional frown is a small price to pay.
However, in some communities and maybe even most communities, the cohousing tax exceeds an “occasional” frown. Sometimes the cohousing tax is fraught with downright upset, conflict, hurt feelings, frustration and confusion. On balance, this may be a small tax to pay for the rich life found in a cohousing community where living is by far more than something “homemade."
Sometimes the cohousing tax is great and sometime small. It’s the love, labor and time I commit every day to this investment called community.
Let's not forget that sometimes the cohousing tax is too much for some folks and they choose to leave. When too many people leave perhaps it's time to revisit the tax code!
So far, for me, the gifts of community living in Takoma Village in Washington, DC far outweigh the cohousing tax. We run surplus revenue not deficit spending. But not everyone would agree. It's not for everyone. People do move away.
Chuck is fond of saying at every opportunity that living in cohousing is “easy.”
It is not "easy."
It's hard.
But it is, oh, so much richer, far more dimensional, and a more integrated way of living.
Read this book.
Start with the ending.
It will put into perspective the “taxes paid” to live in cohousing.
However, in some communities and maybe even most communities, the cohousing tax exceeds an “occasional” frown. Sometimes the cohousing tax is fraught with downright upset, conflict, hurt feelings, frustration and confusion. On balance, this may be a small tax to pay for the rich life found in a cohousing community where living is by far more than something “homemade."
Sometimes the cohousing tax is great and sometime small. It’s the love, labor and time I commit every day to this investment called community.
- It’s staying up with neighbors long nights grieving the loss of a child, spouse or parent.
- It’s connecting across sometimes serious differences to find common ground on which to move the community forward.
- It’s rallying around and supporting projects that seem completely out of reach financially and logistically.
- It's celebrating the rounds of birthdays, anniversaries, and milestones making each one new.
Let's not forget that sometimes the cohousing tax is too much for some folks and they choose to leave. When too many people leave perhaps it's time to revisit the tax code!
So far, for me, the gifts of community living in Takoma Village in Washington, DC far outweigh the cohousing tax. We run surplus revenue not deficit spending. But not everyone would agree. It's not for everyone. People do move away.
Chuck is fond of saying at every opportunity that living in cohousing is “easy.”
It is not "easy."
It's hard.
But it is, oh, so much richer, far more dimensional, and a more integrated way of living.
Read this book.
Start with the ending.
It will put into perspective the “taxes paid” to live in cohousing.
Mid Atlantic Cohousing's First Ever Thanksgiving
Quantity Cooking Recipe Contest!
Quantity Cooking Recipe Contest!
Last week, we announced this first ever contest designed to gather those super good delicious recipes from cohousing communities around the world. Scroll down to "Don't Be a Turkey!"
This week, we are announcing an increase in the prize: $50.00 to the winner!
For contest rules, check out the blog post for last week "Don't Be A Turkey!" November 11, 2015.
Deadline: Friday, November 20, 2015, 5:00 p.m. EST.
Send in those yummy recipes! Let's collect them into a book!
This week, we are announcing an increase in the prize: $50.00 to the winner!
For contest rules, check out the blog post for last week "Don't Be A Turkey!" November 11, 2015.
Deadline: Friday, November 20, 2015, 5:00 p.m. EST.
Send in those yummy recipes! Let's collect them into a book!
What fun contests about "life in cohousing" would you like to see? Send your suggestions to: Ann Zabaldo. Or you can comment on our blog site under this posting. Open to all clean & green, natural, organic, cage & steroid-free contests ...
Edi-bits
You Can't Put REAL Dirt in a Rooftop Garden ... No! No! Bad Dog!
World Building of the Year 2015 -- Eric Chang discusses the importance of community courtyards! Watch the video. See the photos of this staggering project. May change your mind about high-density living.
They said it couldn't be done! This Year 1st World Country Germany will get 33% of its energy from renewables!
You Can't Put REAL Dirt in a Rooftop Garden ... No! No! Bad Dog!
World Building of the Year 2015 -- Eric Chang discusses the importance of community courtyards! Watch the video. See the photos of this staggering project. May change your mind about high-density living.
They said it couldn't be done! This Year 1st World Country Germany will get 33% of its energy from renewables!
Categories |
Author
Ann Zabaldo is a passionate promoter of cohousing. She was on the develoment team for Eastern Village in Silver Spring, MD and Takoma Village in Washington, DC where she lives. She serves on the Board for MAC.
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