Casa do Bruce

We’ve posted a few sets of photos from our house-warming. It was a success, although we need more people to make it feel full! So come by during our next party and help us fill out all the rooms in our house.

House-warming Photos

Photobooth

OK, it’s official. We’re having a house warming party. We want it to be big. It will last from noon Saturday until noon on Sunday. Come one, come all. Details and RSVP on this page.

I’m still in my pajamas and work starts soon. I am going in later because I am tired of spending all my time there. No time to write or just be at home. I am “working hard”,which means I am neglecting the fact that I don’t want to be “working hard” for someone else. Sigh.

But this morning, I got to see my housemates and got to take in how caring they are, while Josh and I run around with a doom cloud. We’re just having a hard time transitioning and it doesn’t help that we’re half of the household. But when I see the smiles of Stan and Lauren in the morning (or anytime we see them), I am comforted that the whole day isn’t and won’t be crappy. We have awesome friends, who work hard to be our friends AND our housemates, and who love us, and that makes me want to smile and cry.

You see, when trying to build community you can’t tell people (or yourself, for that matter) that it’s all worth it when the shit hits the fan. When the chips are down, something happens. People in community know that there is a group to hold, as well as individuals.

When Lauren tells me there’s work to do outside, I don’t hear that I have chores to do, I hear that this house needs 4 people to make it work. And when I am hating people, I can make some time to be by myself and work the land. I NEED that. Even if I can barely drag myself into work clothes, I need the gentle push of my friend.

And when Stan says he’ll burn us a disk of the “necessary” Lost episodes, I hear the gentle hug of “It’s okay, this crappy feeling won’t last too much longer.” So I smile. It’s just a tv show, but now it’s more than that. It’s our friend telling us that we’re not alone, we won’t hit bottom, and it’s almost over. Sigh.

This is what community is. It’s two people helping two other people and then we switch. I look forward to our turn to make wheat-free and sugar-free pick-me-ups for our friends when they are having a rough time. I look forward to giving that gentle push so they know we’re watching and we’re able to care for them too.

I love this house AND home.

Last weekend was great. Josh and I got up and had a bit of coffee (not my usual practice, but we have a coffee I like at the moment), and ventured out into the yard. It was “Clean Up Your Backyard Full of Crap” day and I am feeling the pressure to have our house be somewhat respectable when family arrives on Oct 27th.

So out I went, clad in a thick sweatshirt, work shoes, a warm jacket and gloves. I realized that being prepared via clothes and warmth allows me to stay outside longer. We sorted the wood pile (burn or salvage) took apart wheelbarrows, and loaded all the appropriate crap into the Caddy to take off to the dump and recycling site. Man, did it feel good!

Then I had a hankering to rake up some cedar pine needles and make things look pretty outside. It felt so awesome to see a clean backyard! Now I know what Lauren and Stan are talking about, regarding being outside.

Our family used to spend a lot of time outside. Now that I am an adult (officially, now that I’m 30), I realize that I have been missing them, out there with me in the garden. I must be intentional in either inviting them to physically come over, or just bringing them with me in my heart while I pull weeds, rake, and harvest the bounty our land provides us.

I’m eager to have people over and despite our slow progress with our various remodels, it’s good to have occasions to get our shit together and have visitors.

Stay tuned for how we pulled off the pre-wedding event!

We’ll eventually get them incorporated into this site, but for now, the photos of the house live at flickr.

We’ve been working out in the yard quite a bit while the weather is still nice. We tamed back the wild grasses in the garden and cut back blackberry brambles, mow the yard regularly now and built a compost bin out of scrap wood we found in our wood shed/shop.

But today, on talk like a pirate day, Josh and I started to chip away at the what must be decades-old layer of chicken manure in the coop. At first it was easy going, but then we got to the gooey center which had an odorific smell of ammonia and shit. We pulled out the nest boxes and got all of it. We also tore down the sorry excuse for a broken down chicken run so we can put up a couple of new runs when we get chickens.

We plan on getting a bunch of chickens next spring so we can have fresh eggs, manure for compost and perhaps some meat. I also think it would be fun to have some chickens roaming around the garden eating snails and slugs and other insects that are damaging to the garden.

Future outdoor projects:

• get a pair of goats
• clean out the greenhouse to make it usable
• build a bat house this winter (help control the mosquito population)
• get a dog (because I’ve wanted a dog since I can remember)

Well, we had our new appliances delivered today! They are hot. They are energy efficient and sexy.

Now we just need to update our kitchen so that our hot appliances don’t look like lipstick on a pig.

It’s 10pm and although it’s time to go to bed for me, I wanted to give a shout out to my peeps in the downstairs (I’m in my office upstairs, online!). We had a productive weekend going garage saling (sailing? saleing?), working on the house and getting things done. We just had a nice meal together after our community meeting and I’m feeling good. One thing that I love is that yes, we are friends, and also we own a house together, but it is a nice mix. To be sure, it involves lots of examination on my part because I haven’t lived with a group before, but I like the process because I have a good relationship with friends. Although many like to caution us about living with friends, I have to say that I would probably have waited much longer to discuss issues than I do now. Because I have a baseline of trust already built. It’s easier that way.

The backyard is looking more amazing everyday. The fruit is getting yummier. Next year when we have a better idea of what we can and want to produce, you’ll see US hawking our wares at the farmer’s market. Yo. Cause we’d be hip like dat.

Anyway, I digress. The garage sale shopping was awesome and fun and lots of tools were bought (a rarity when garage sale hopping). Very cool.

The appliances come this week and I am STOKED. Never thought a dishwasher, fridge, and washer and dryer could make a girl so happy. But they do. It’ll make our pocketbooks happy too, I’ll tell ya.

Alright, the eyes are closing…more later.

After many moons (okay, just one moon so far) we are expecting our first new appliances next week. We went back and forth, back and forth, and then back and forth again, which is why it took so long.

But why all the back and forthing?

Well, here’s the thing. When you are one or two people decisions get made faster. Sometimes they are hasty or ill-thought out. Sometimes they are intuitive and amazing. But living with others open you up to other ways of thinking, thankfully. We get outside our brains for a bit and hear what others are thinking/feeling about creating a home. This will be an ongoing process and hopefully we will streamline it (process and protocol always helps).

We got hung up on how much things cost, how much we’ll be using the appliances, which appliances each of us will be using, how much energy/water is used, who can deliver it to us and take our other stuff away to recycle and much, much more! But after many discussions we have purchased a stove, a dishwasher, a fridge, and a washer and dryer. The stove was used, the rest was new.

We hope to give the used/usable appliances to good homes.

Pictures are coming!

Welcome to our blog. A group of us bought this enormous house on July 13, 2007 with an enormous yard (by city-slicker standards) and we plan on updating this blog with stories about our lives, our home improvements, our community and our goat (Bruce) which we don’t have yet, but plan on getting one eventually to help maintain our blackberry bushes and kitchen compost.