I attended the HOA meeting tonight at the community I live in. It was about where to put a playground. In this meeting many things were discussed but the main adgenda item was the long overdue playground. The builder was SUPPOSED to install one playgorund in every phase of development that insured our children didn't have to cross a busy main street. Well, here we are, PHASE ONE having been completed OVER 1 year ago & STILL NO PLAYGROUND for our phase! In fact, there is only one very small & substandard playground for ALL the phases! WTF! At least in all of the other phases a spot has been designated for one. PHASE ONE is the only one NOT TO HAVE A SPOT DESIGNATED for our playground. The builder refuses to give up a lot for what we were promised, so the residents met tonight with the head of our HOA to purpose a site to the builder. We found out that we will have to get builder & county approval because zoning has to be changed in order for the playground to be built in the propsed site. WHAT A PAIN IN THE A$$! I'm sick to death of our HOA! If you can buy a home without an HOA....DO IT! On a good note, the base price of the home we purchased is up to nearly $130,000. We bought our home for only $104,000 nearly two years ago. I personally don't think our home is worth what the builder is selling it for, but hey, I won't complain because when it comes time to sell it...it is profit for us! Now we just need to deceide what we're doing with our backyard & to get it done. I'm sick of looking at dirt & weeds. The thing is, we have to get approval for how we landscape our backyard. That ticks me off because who is going to see our backyard except us. Get this, if you don't get HOA approval before you landscape, then the bylaws say you have to get it before you sell your home. If they don't approve it, they can order you to remove what you've done. Sorry, but I THOUGHT I lived in the United States of America! If WE are PAYING for OUR HOME & the property on which it sits, then WHY must we have APPROVAL for simple landscaping. WHAT A CROCK! Like I said before, if you can afford a home WITHOUT an HOA then go for it. I know it's to keep the yards & homes from getting out of control with wild colors & unkept property, but in my opinion most HOAs have too much say in what homeowners can & cannot do. Most residents already refer to the HOA's bylaws enforcers as "HOA NAZIS". That should tell you something right there about how our HOA is viewed. On to another subject. I tried on all of my old maternity clothes today. I think if I purcase a couple of long sleeved shirts & one more pair of long pants I'll have enough to get through the winter. About March the temperature begins to rise enough to wear shorts & capri's on a regular basis. Since I figure that I'm due in July, I'll need to add a summer wardrobe to my collection. I have a sewing machine, some material & my mother that is BEYOND talented with a machine. HECK! This woman is downright GIFTED! I have limited skills in the area of sewing, but enough to get by. Most of my short sleeved shirts SHOULD get me through until March as well. By then I'll probably need the next size up. For most, this wouldn't be a big deal, but since I'm already a size 20 in regular clothes & by the end of my last pregnancy I was almost too big for 2X maternity clothes, it could be a problem. I didn't gain a huge amount of weight with #1 either. In fact, I only gained 20 pounds! That is my goal this time as well. Two great things happened as a result of pregnancy #1. The first was that DH & I were blessed with a beatiful daughter. The second was that I FINALLY grew BOOBS! Yes, I got to keep an entire cup size! WOO HOO! Let's see if I get that lucky with this one! LOL! On to another subject. Three of us walked to & from the meeting tonight & as we dropped the first neighbor off I complemented him on the Christmas lights in his yard. He didn't know where I lived & he said to me "That house that has The Grinch with red & greens lights looks pretty neat!" I said "Thanks, I'll tell my husband you liked it". He said "Oh! I didn't know you lived there! Your husband did a nice job" Our house is the only one that has mainly red & green lights. The Grinch (that stole Christmas) has a little white on him because he's one of those inflatables you buy at Wal-mart. The candy canes that light up our front walk also have red, green & white. Past that, the rest are red & green. We have about 1200 lights this year. It looks nice, but it isn't overdone either. We put ours up on Thanksgiving Day. Almost half of the people on our street put up lights this year. Just like on Halloween, most of the adults dressed in costume. The holidays are just a ton of fun in the community I live in. People are really nice. It often reminds me of growing up in small town Illinois. That is how nice most of my neighbors are. I'm not close to any of my neighbors, but here's a few examples of the people that live around me. My next door neighbor was expecting an OOPS baby with her husband. She already has a daughter, age 8, from a previous relationship. None of her friends or family gave her a baby shower, so I loaned her my bassinet, infant carseat, baby swing & exersaucer. She was SO greatful because if you had to BUY all of that stuff, the cost adds up quickly. I was glad to help her out. When my best friend gave me a four piece entertainment center, we used it to replace two in different rooms. One neighbor (now deceased) had almost no furniture. We offered both of ours to him but he only wanted one. I offered the other to a neighbor that has EIGHT kids. She had almost no furniture either. She was SO greatful. When she cleaned out her garage, she gave me probably $100 worth of clothes for my daughter, that hers had outgrown. I was the greatful one then. My other neighbor (the one I loned baby stuff to) knew DH & I were to be gone for a few weeks. While we were away, she got a notice about weeds on her property that is adjacent to ours. She weeded all of her property AND ours. It only takes one good rain here & our yards are invaded & overcome with weeds. When another neighbor is away, I take in the paper from her driveway & the fliers left on the door. She does the same for us while we are away. A neighbor down the street comes & checks for any signs of break in's when she knows were away. We do the same for her. My lady across the street just had a baby a couple of weeks ago. I gave her a ton of maternity clothes because she didn't want to spend the $$$ on them. She's a plus sized girl also. Shortly after she had her baby, I found out I'm expecting #2. I don't want them back because I got sick of those clothes. She was more than glad to have them. They looked really good on her too! Gosh this entry is getting long! I guess I just felt like writing tonight. Until next time, stay smiling!
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