There are many of you that I do not yet know and this is a personal story, but I feel comfortable sharing because we are in community, so each one of you is like my distant second cousin three times removed 🙂

The end of May and all of June has been a whirlwind for me. I have two kids (a 13 year old daughter and a 15 year old son). It turns out they like a good academic challenge, so there was a lot of energy around studying for finals.

My son is also looking for his first ‘real’ job, so we’ve been coaching him on things like resume writing and interviewing. My mother-in-law lives with us and we have a decent size garden for living in an urban setting, so we spend a fair amount of time in May prepping the soil and planting. My husband works full time and we have an active dog. We had three birthdays to celebrate, family in town visiting, and farewell party for a my nephew moving away. We had three community celebrations and a larger neighborhood gathering to finish planning.

In the midst of all this, I found out about the opportunity to interview for the position of Executive Director for CoHoUS. SO exciting to me to find something that takes all of the experience and skills that I have been collecting all my career life and bundles it all into a thing that I really believe in. A thing that I live daily, and while challenged, I love it and want many others to know that cohousing could be an option for them!

So then, as if life couldn’t get any crazier, I was reminded that I’m officially in the sandwich generation. We are the people still raising kids, working, and now taking care of our aging parents. I took my mom in for a non-emergent procedure to find out if she needed a pacemaker or stents in her heart. It turned out she needed bypass surgery, now. She is the primary caretaker of my dad, who has dementia, so when she’s not taking care of my dad, I (as the only child) become the primary caretaker. And I just accepted an awesome new job and had my first action packed work trip. Why am I not freaking out? Because of my WildSage cohousing community. I talk to many of my neighbors daily, but some I only see at gatherings, so I sent an email to let everyone know what’s happening, and the responses were amazing. I know that if my MIL needs help watering the garden, if my son needs a ride to a job interview, if my daughter needs an extra hug, if my husband needs a prepared dinner, if my dog needs a walk…all of those things and so much more is there for my family with love and support.

Thankful for Life in Community