The rate of progress of this project has been a really hard thing to deal with, in all honesty, it has been slower than our most pessimistic initial assessments. Our predictions were based on the assumption of regularity: jobs, friends, and routines. Our greatest miscalculation was the time it would take to acclimate to a new city that none of us have roots in. Not only did we have to adjust to a new city, but we had to cement our own relationships; with an initial number that shrank from fourteen to seven collective members, some of the intermediary bonds of friendship were not present. In lieu of the more tangible and presentable product of completing work on our homes we have something that—while not as apparent—is of equal value to me: an amazing foundation of honesty and communication.

That being said, our lives have settled and we have finally been able to establish a routine of regularly working on our homes. There have been many discoveries during the demolition process that had us wringing our hands and worrying that we had gotten in to deep and I’m proud to say that we completed one of the scariest tasks so far. We replaced three termite ruined exterior structural walls from underneath a roof. With most of the framing and reframing completed and the electricity being turned on any day all we’ll be moving on to the plumbing very soon. With the pace we’re working at now, it seems that we’ll be able to move people in to our second home any day compared to the rest of our construction timeline.

Progress feels great.

New windows for one of our homes were delivered the other day, we’ll hopefully have these installed in the next couple of weeks.

It’s always nice to get something in the post office box (hint hint) that isn’t a bill and the other day we got a copy of Rachel Atcheson‘s latest zine, Una Mescla. The zine contains a brief interview she did with me about the intentional community which hopefully sheds a little insight in to our mission and outlook. The zine was also a nice reminder of what a small world punk can be, Una Mescla includes contributions from friends and occasional guests of ours: Jen Twigg of the Ambulars, Jake McDaniel who just helped us finish the miniramp, and Chris Moore who runs Venomous Ideas. If you would like a copy you can write to rachelatcheson@gmail.com. Below is one of the questions I answered:

Emma, undeterred by space restraints, brought the full force of the holiday spirit in to her bedroom with lights, paper chains, and a three foot tree. Not one to do things halfway, she also made some amazing “X” ornaments.

Because we simply didn’t have enough on our plates, a few us decided to start renting space in a warehouse about three blocks from our house to use as work/office/rehearsal space. Clearly, the first step was to build a mini ramp. Thanks to Jake and Art Noose for the help finishing up!

Pictures from Ian’s tumblr: