community / village / life together

so, a couple of my good friends talk about their "tribe" or their "village" and how much they love how it takes care of them and their family. how they do life together. i have been lucky to be a part of a couple of online "villages" that have banded together around eachother during recent tradgedies. but it makes me think more and more about how to create this kind of a village in real life.

i find it to be quite a challenge to have a true sense of a village living in suburbia. with only one car (grumble grumble). with all my friends in other areas of the region. with a busy 17 month old that still doesn't sleep through the night (and a mommy who doesn't know how to go to sleep early anymore - yes, i know i'm still up. :P)

i long for a close-knit community. i long for closer friendships with my friends. i long to be more supportive and in general, more in the lives of the people i love.

i find this challenging because i seem to be pretty addicted to online communities/forums. i love my Facebook, and am a pretty active participant in at least 1 forum and less active in a couple more. this leads to a lot of online time. so much that my daughter likes to crawl over to me, beg to be picked up and sit on my lap while i'm at my laptop (embarrased smiley). so, what do i do? it is so easy to be a part of an online community. it's only words, and you rarely ever interact in real life (unless you have IRL friends on your forum too). you can "be" someone else too, when you're online.

so, how do you balance your online life with your IRL community? how do you balance home life with your blogging/other online presence(s)? i long to know. and to be challenged to really develop my friendships.

poop

so dh and i recently cancelled our diaper service and started washing our own. and the question i asked myself this past week - why the heck didn't i start this earlier?????!! it's saving us $100 a month ($20/week with Bear Bottoms) that we currently don't have, and it really is easy. and it works with our front loader too! i always thought there'd be a lot of different cycles you'd have to run back and set it on, but all i'm doing is a cold wash/rinse without detergent and then a long hot wash w/ detergent (currently using Tide Free & Clear) with an extra rinse tacked on the end. there's a button to push to get the extra rinse, so i only have to go back down to put it on the hot wash and then to put them in the dryer. and when we get a clothesline up, i'll put them out there.

so, i've rented some dipes from a good friend and eventually want to build up my own stash (slowly :P). there's a contest being run by Dirty Diaper Laundry that i would love to win a Bum Genius 4.0 from. please visit their website via the button to the right. :)