Communists

How many of you live in a neighborhood that has a Home Owners Association? I never really gave much thought to HOAs until I recently had a run in with mine. I live in a HOA and I will never never never never never live in one again. Did I say never? Because I will never live in one again. I begged my boyfriend that when we get married to plese never live in a neighborhood with a HOA. He was in complete agreement. He never has like the idea of HOAs and since we will probably end up in the country (which is a whole other post in itself....can you picture me living in the country? LOL!) anyway once we get married we won't need to worry about them. But for now I do have to deal with the dreaded Home Owner's Association which equals....communists.

So here's the story. Yesterday I check my mail and I get a letter from them telling me that I'm not in compliance with an ordinance they have. (Side note here: When I bought my house I received a huge stack of papers giving me the do's and don'ts of the neighborhood. Did I read it? No...it was forever long and I had better things to do.) Anyway, they told me that my window treatments were not in compliance. All window treatments have to be white backed. In other words, if you are standing outside the house and look at the window all you should see is white. Stupid. I have white blinds on all my windows but none of my curtains have a white back. I leave my blinds down most of the time but will open them to let natural light in. I love natural light and use that as much as I can. Who wants to live in a shut up house all the time? One of my blinds in the living room is broken and I cannot open them up. I can raise it though which is what I was doing. I was raising my blinds about halfway. So by doing that you could see my curtains which, again, are not white backed.

So I called mister communist manager and asked him what his deal was. He explained that when he walked by my unit that he could see my curtains. I then explained that my blinds are not always raised but I do raise them because I don't want to live in a cave and I can't help how the curtains are made. He then proceeded to tell me that he didn't make the rules but he has to enforce them. I then told him that I don't have the money to buy new curtains and if he wants me to have white backed curtains than he can go buy them for me. He then responded with, "You said you have white blinds?" I explained again in plain English that I did and that usually when it gets dark I lower and shut my blinds. He said, "Well, then we have no problem and I'll erase this from your file." What? I have a file with the HOA? Crazy communists. But I won so I don't care. My neighbors, however, are not so lucky. They have the bamboo type blinds and they are being forced to change their blinds or get ticketed. Everyone has to have white blinds are curtains with a white back on them. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Now, I know that they have these rules so the neighborhood will stay nice looking and that the property value won't decrease by junky looking houses. I appreciate that and I accept that. It's nice to have the HOA to enforce the things that keep the neighborhood safe and pretty but white back window treatments? Isn't that a tad picky? Whatever, it turns out I'm not breaking any rules as long as I keep my blinds down.

Have any of you had trouble with your home owners association? I would love to hear the stories.

Catch Up

Well good grief!! Who forced me not to get on here and not blog about my life?! Oh wait, that was me! Oh well. Let's see what's been going on...not much. I took a very much needed week of vacation last week. During that time my mom and I went to Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, TN, to shop, shop, shop! It was so much fun. We shopped till we dropped! We were so tired but I'm so glad that we went. If you ever go to Pigeon Forge you have to visit The Christmas Place. It's my favorite store there and we spent a good 2-3 hours there. I'm not joking. Love that place!

Alan came up this weekend and we had a great weekend together. Friday night we went out to eat and then we headed to Spring Hill, TN to visit a friend and then made our way to Rippaville Plantation to their corn maze. It was pretty fun. It was packed with people though and mainly teenagers. They would trampled through the corn to try and scare each other but what do you expect. They were just trying to have fun and I probably did that when I was a teenager. It was so beautiful on Saturday that we hated to stay inside so we decided to stay outdoors as long as possible. Then, of course, we had to watch the Alabama game that didn't come on until 8:15pm. Needless to say, I didn't make it through the entire game. :) Other than that nothing new is going on.

I went to lunch today with a sweet friend who works in my building and we got to talking about blogs and stuff and now I'm contemplating creating a new blog in addition to this one. It would be much different than this one though. I can't explain it though. It'll be just different. So stay tuned. This talk we had actually got me in the mood to write again. I use to write short stories and had a idea or two of a storyline for a novel. Today I got another storyline that I'm actually excited about and can relate to on so many levels so I might actually follow through with this one. I will need your prayers on it, if you don't mind.

I do ask that you pray for me and my family. I think 2011 will be an exciting and eventful year for us. Many changes I think will be happening. I actually can't wait to see what all happens.

Almost Trapped

Last night while I was getting ready for church I went into the guest room to get a jacket out of the closet. When I was standing at the closet I happened to glance back at the door frame and saw a huge black wasp! To say I died was an understatement. I hate wasps with every ounce of my being. It's my hugest phobia and why on earth are they still alive?! It's cold and it's been frosting here in middle TN this week. Shouldn't they all have died a violent death by now?!

Anyway, I screeched and panicked and thought I was trapped in the guest room forever. Finally I mustered up enough courage to run (literally I ran as hard as I could) and get my Windex and squirt the mess out of that little thing so I could kill it and flush its gross self down the toilet. This thing was like the bionic wasp. I sprayed it until finally it couldn't fly anywhere and when I would squish it with my photo album (closet thing to me) it would lay there a second and then pull itself back up and start crawling across the floor. I had to hit the thing 20 times before it finally stopped moving. I was shaking so badly afterwards it wasn't funny. That's how bad my phobia is regarding things creepy little things. I still don't understand their purpose here on earth except to paralyze me with fear.

PS - I hate living alone.

All 4 the Hall 2010

Last night I was able to attend a fundraising concert for the Country Music Hall of Fame. I went to this last year (which was it's first year) and had a great time but I didn't have any plans to go again this year. A friend called me up yesterday afternoon and said that her boss had just given her two tickets for the concert and wanted to know if I wanted to go along. Of course! A free ticket to a concert? I would have been silly...just silly...to turn that down.

Keith Urban was the host of the show and he didn't disappoint last night. He started it off with a 30 minute concert. It was so good! I could have listened to just him and would have been fine. (Side note-Nicole Kidman was there but I never saw her.) Anyway, after a quick set change he brought all kinds of artists to sing and they did awesome. They each sang two songs so Vince Gill (who I'm not a fan of really...but is slightly gaining my appreciation year after year) came out first. It's funny because all the other artists are dressed nice and looking all good but he always comes out in jeans and a Predators (NHL) jersey. Way to support your local team. Then after him was Martina McBride, Billy Currington, Miranda Lambert, Alan Jackson, Allison Krauss, Charlie Pride, John Mayer and Dolly Parton. It was so good. Watching Dolly sing "Jolene" was probably the highlight. What impressed me the most of the night was that Vince Gill and Keith Urban both stayed up on stage the entire time and played guitar for each singer and sang back up for each of them as well. It was pretty cool! I took pictures of each artist and even took a couple of videos but I was sitting on the club level at the back of the area so everything looked very small. But I still felt like I had great seats!

Oh! One unique thing about the night. We noticed that there was a interpreter for the deaf. I had never seen that at a concert before. I kept going back and forth from the stage to watching him sign all night. What was pretty funny was when Alan Jackson got up to sing. He sang "Chattahoochee" and watching that guy try to sign that song was hilarious. It was so fast and that poor guys had to be sore by the end of that song. What I want to know is how do you sign the line in that song..."hoochee cootchie"? I probably shouldn't have asked that out loud. Forgive me. :)

It was a late night but it was so much fun. The ticket price for the night each year is not bad considering what you get in the concert. The ticket prices are only $25. If you can and love country music this is a must see concert to go to each year.

What I Did Over The Weekend

My boyfriend likes to shoot guns. He collects them and he likes to target shoot and skeet shoot. He's been trying to talk me into going shooting with him for quite a while now but it was just something that never interested me. I grew up around guns. My dad and brother both hunt and dad taught me at a young age how to hold and shoot a gun. I just hadn't done it in years. Last month or so my dad, boyfriend, mom and myself went to a gun range to shoot some guns that Alan had brought up. Mom didn't shoot of course but went because her and dad were going to the store afterwards. I did shoot some of the pistols he brought up and I was pretty close to the bulls eye every time. I'm a pretty good marksman if I say so myself. :)

Well over the weekend Alan really wanted to go with him and shoot some of his rifles or shotguns. I have no idea what they are. Anyway, we both realized that I'm actually pretty decent at shooting any type of gun and have pretty good aim and can hit the targets most of the time. Alan used my phone to video me shooting so here is proof that I'm not too shabby. :)

Update

I'm sure that most of you that know me and my family have already heard that my brother and sister in law are expecting their third child. We are pretty excited about the announcement and a few weeks ago we learned they are having a girl. My niece, Anna Grace, is beyond thrilled that she's getting a baby sister. My nephew, Luke, however is disappointed that it's not a dog. He really wanted a dog. Ha!

I was talking to my sister in law on Friday and they have finally come up with a name for Baby Girl Donoho. This has been a huge debate since her and Chad could not agree on anything. My brother is quite the picky one but after much debating and talking they are naming her Emma Faith. I really like it. They wanted to keep the spiritual name going for the middle name and it goes along well with Anna Grace. I'm excited and I can't wait to meet her in February. She is already so much loved and wanted. It's funny because when Anna Grace was born you have this huge amount of love for her and you think you can't possibly love another one as much. When Luke came along its funny how that exact same of love you have for the first is there for the second one and now with Emma I already feel that same amount of love for her and I haven't even met her yet....and I'm only the Aunt! I can't imagine how I'll feel when I have my own children. :)

I had a great weekend. I spent it in Alabama with my boyfriend and his family. We had a very nice relaxing weekend. I loved it. It's good to be home though and I woke up to 45 degree temperature! It's awesome. I love Fall. The leaves are changing and there is a crisp in the air. I'm ready now for some bonfires, roasted marshmallows and hot apple cider.

Happy Monday!