Community Living // What we loved

Living with friends has a lot of good going for it. I’ve already talked about the financial benefit of living communally but this was not our main motive (nor in fact the most financially beneficial use of three spare rooms).

So let me share with you about what I loved best:

1)    The company.

I love being with people. There’s probably only one thing I love more – being with people I love. Errol works long hours and I was often finding myself at home going crazy with two small children. Having a second family living with us meant that when the men went of to work Heidi and I were free to watch day time TV and paint each others nails. Ahem. I mean. We had the joy of caring for our little ones together and sharing many a long conversation. Long conversations with another adult GASP – heaven.

In the evenings that I used to spend pining for my husband who works late often I would sit and chat with Heidi while we wasted time worked on our computers. Sometimes we’d do something crafty together and it was altogether quite lovely.

2)    Motivation.

When Heidi and John moved in on the eve of 2011 we all made a commitment to lose weight together. I don’t know about you, but I am terribly unmotivated alone. When Errol goes to work and I am left at home alone with the kids I am rendered unable to say no to that entire lindt chocolate bar that’s beckoning me to eat him. And when I am alone and trying to juggle to wild ones the last thing I feel like doing is setting up the pram, getting hats, sunscreen and snacks and walking to the park. NO thank you. We’ll be driving! Having someone there to keep me strong and provide me some healthy competition was great for me. I lost weight for the first time in my life. Heidi and I joined the gym and it was so fun having someone to work out and gossip with.

Now, weight loss aside, living with other people provided other motivation to. While it may have been tempting to lay in the lounge surrounded by a weeks worth of mess blasting angsty girl rock – the sheer embarrassment of doing so made sure I maintained at least a mild semblance of normal functionality in the day to day. Days that might previously have been spent watching Pocahontas and attempting to fold washing were replaced with adventures to the beach or outings to GoMA.

3)    It’s economical.

Economies of scale people, economies of scale. Making a meal for 2 people (and 2 people pretending to eat the meal but actually just mushing it around the table and then throwing it in your eye) nearly always ends in waste. We share cooking and meals and this meant that with not that many more ingredients than I would have purchased for just our little family – we fed two families.

Our electricity bill went up a bit with the extra people living there – but certainly not doubled. Same with water consumption.

Theo shared his cloth nappies and with only an extra load a week – two little bums were covered in cloth.

There’s probably many more aspects of the economy of community living but I am the sort of person who buys pre-made fruit salads and wonders why 250g of fresh produce is so expensive so I am probably not the right person to ask.

4) It’s fun.

Living with friends is really, really fun. Especially if you pick friends who are, by nature, hilarious. I cannot tell you how many times I near crawled back to my bed in a fit of laughter over something Heidi or John had told me. Or how often we stayed up way later than we should watching goodness knows what and squealing in fear because our alter ego might pop out from behind the couch and scratch our finger nails off (okay, so maybe it was Black Swan).

Of course, it’s not just the adults having fun. Having live-in playmates was kind of awesome. There was always something happening and always someone to play with. It was so sweet to watch the kids interact and learn to play together well.

I know I said this was going to be a five part series but please check in later this week for the 6TH and final post on Community Living // Family Shopping – A photo essay.