While not traveling around the world, doing yoga, dancing the hula, looking for things to compost, or figuring out what to do with the most recent stray dog/cat/bird/goat that for some unexplainable reason has attached itself to them, Toli and Christine can be reliably found in front of their computers. Toli is a geeky software engineer who would rather be a cowboy and organic farmer. Christine is a perky marketer and website coder who would rather be shopping at Hobby Lobby for her next craft project. We've been married 5+ years, and, despite what our parents and friends think, really do intend to start a family ... soon..ish. We have a website at www.lerios.org with pictures of ourselves, our cats, as well as various Greek dishes we like to make.
We have spent a lot of time working and living in a yoga/wellness community in Hawaii and hope to participate in creating a similarly supportive and cohesive environment with Central Austin Cohousing. We look forward to cooking communal Greek food dinners, teaching yoga, and raising our soonish-to-be children (and already-here pets) in Kaleidoscope Village.

 
Many things in my personal history attract me to cohousing.
I grew up in New England and remember town meetings for decision making. My family was unhappy and felt disenfranchised when our town stopped making decisions at town meetings.
In high school and college I had a number of natural communities - like many, not as much since.
In college I lived in an experimental dorm, designed to be a democratic intentional community.
Throughout much of my post-college life I have found communities harder to maintain, even though I continue to surround myself with people who say they desire that.
Although I want to give, share, support - give as much as I get, creating cohousing in Austin is to me a supremely selfish act, for all involved. I selfishly want to have friends and neighbors around when I want them. I want the six degrees of separation benefits of an expanding community.
Also I am enamored of all of the things that others say draw them to cohousing: economies of scale/sharing, shared meals, and multi-generational living.

• Interests: the world or ideas in general - but more specifically science fiction, economics, hiking, my dog
• Occupation: Computer Security Consultant, Project Manager

I’m self-employed as an indexer. My other job for the last decade has been working to bring cohousing to Austin. Obviously, this has been a longer, harder slog than I was expecting, but when it comes to cohousing, I won't take no for an answer!
 
Since I first heard of cohousing, it has been like finding that missing puzzle piece. In today’s wired world, it’s easy to know someone from the other side of the planet better than you know your next-door neighbor; it’s so unnatural to have friends and family all over but live mostly among strangers.
 
Our tagline is “building a village in the city.” I love living in Austin, but want dual-citizenship in Kaleidoscope Village. I look forward to common meals, recycling projects, even workshare.

Hi, I'm Mike Slama, representing the west coast wing of Central Austin Cohousing from the SF Bay Area in California. I'm recently retired from a 25 year engineering career making hi-tech silicon widgets. Along the way, I spent a couple of years (1989-91) living in Austin, and liked the area lots. I first became exposed to the concept of cohousing in Austin via an article about McCamant and Durrett published in the New York Times shortly after they wrote their book, and decided that I had to live that way someday. I became a member of several groups that tried to develop cohousing in the South Bay Area, but, sadly, all of them failed. I've toured about 15 cohousing sites, and liked them all! Needless to say, I was delighted to find CAC! I'm a dance nut. Started with Balkan Folk dance many years ago in college, and continue with it today. I liked the music so much that I play a Bulgarian Flute called 'Kaval' in a local Bulgarian band. Recently, I've moved more into social dance, and spend 8 hours a day on all the weekends between Thanksgiving and Christmas dancing waltz, schottische, and polka with all comers at a local Dickens Faire. During the day, I'm usually out in the garden. "Square Foot Gardening" was a PBS series/book some years back, and recommended an 'intensive' gardening technique that I've used for the last 20 years or so. One of my Austin Folkdancing friends is currently in the Austin Master Gardener program, so I'm hoping for some synergy!