Christmas Tradition

My niece, Sue, has of late become a very famous blogger. She has had as many as 76 comments on one post! I feel real special if I get more than two. To show her gratitude to her faithful readers and to openly steal Christmas traditions from them for her own personal use, she is running a contest. Even though she has admitted on her blog to have lied in the past, we are all assuming that she will actually determine a winner and send out the prizes. After all, her reputation is on the line here.

Here's my entry - (remember, Sue, I am your very favorite aunt and you are my most favorite niece).

This tradition came about more out of desperation and keeping my sanity. One Christmas Eve many years ago, I was feverishly wrapping a mountain of presents for my 5 children. Of course, it was after they had gone to bed, so the hour was late. While wrapping, attaching bows and gift tags, I thought there had to be a better way! So the next year and every year since, the first thing that I bought was wrapping paper. I spent time picking a particular paper for each child. My own personal guidelines were that the paper had to be primarily green or red and the theme of each roll had to relate in some way to each particular child. Since my children were all in school by this time, I would wrap each gift the same day I purchased it - well most of the time - without ribbons or gift tags. Then the wrapped packages would be stored in a closet or hopefully a secret hiding place. On Christmas Eve, Santa's job was greatly simplified since each child was paper coded. Occasionally, the kids would find the wrapped packages (they've admitted this). But all they could do was try to guess which wrapping paper was theirs.

The bonus was that since all the kids were beyond the age of believing in Santa, I could use the leftover paper the next year for gifts going to extended family and friends.

The plan saved my sanity and has made Christmas Eve less of a hassle. It's been fun to search for the ideal paper for each child. Now that the kids are grown and some with families of their own, I try to paper code each family.

A little gratitude, please

I had my 18 month old grandson here for a little while today. His mom had a couple of job interviews. He is a happy, sweet little boy and pretty easy to have around. I was happy to help out.

However, taking care of my grandson made me think back to the days many years ago when I relied on my own mother for a lot of child care. I worked six days a week from 7 AM until 3 PM. My mother took care of my son for 5 of those six days. I would drop my son of at 6:30 AM and not pick him up until 3:30 PM. She took care of him for a couple of years - 5 days a week. Looking back, I don't think I ever appreciated what she did for me. She was always fully dressed when I arrived at 6:30 AM, and when I came back, her home didn't look like a toddler had spent the day there. It never crossed my mind that she may have been exhausted, not feeling well or would just plain rather have done something else with her time.

Several years later as a single mother, I called my mother to take care of the same child when he had the chicken pox. I had to work and, of course, day care wouldn't take a kid with chicken pox. My mother lived about 40 miles away then. Without hesitation, she came and got my son and kept until at her house until he was pox free.

I think that most of us take a lot for granted in life. I just expected that my mother (and my father as well) would help me out when ever I called. I know that I never really expressed much gratitude to her. It's too late now since she passed away over 24 years ago.

Anyway, thanks Mom for all that you did for me. I understand now how hard it may have been at times. But you never complained.

Do You Want To Buy A Ticket?

These tickets may go fast and the money will go to a worthy cause.

Here's the deal...our HOA is having their semi-annual meeting next Tuesday night. It should be a doozy! Next year's budget will be presented. The HOA president told me that the fees will be nominal for 2008. However, another budget item for legal fees due to a mediation will also be presented. The fur will fly when owners demand to know who is suing the HOA (it's the Nimbys). Even though the majority of people in this neighborhood have plenty of money, they won't be too happy about an assessment for legal fees - especially over trees and views.

An additional agenda item is for an amendment to our Design Guidelines that is being proposed by the Nimbys. The Nimbys want all trees that are now over 24' or at sometime in the future will be over 24' tall removed. Specifically, they're proposing this amendment to give them a little ground to stand on in their claim about our trees blocking their views. But, any provision in the CCRs and Guidelines has to be applied to every homeowner, and therefore, every tree in every yard. You can imagine how people will react to that.

Anyway, this meeting should be a interesting to say the least. The HOA president suggested to me that people may want to buy tickets just to witness the Nimbys being ripped to shreds by the high powered Type A personalities that live in this neighborhood. I suggested that the proceeds from ticket sales be applied to legal fees. Call it creative fundraising!

So don't miss your chance as seating is limited.

Maybe not the bad guys!

I'm sure many of you can relate stories about battling with insurance companies to get them to pay claims. They are notorious for making life miserable for us premium paying peons.

Well, I guess not all insurance companies are tightwads. My daughter that had surgery last September just called me. Her insurance company paid ALL of her hospital bills...to the tune of $23,000.

We are kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop. You know, a letter from the insurance company saying it was mistake and she owes a bazillion dollars!

Trees, View and Shovels..

I am taking donations so that I can buy heavy duty "you know what" shovels for the entire neighborhood. Or maybe if I get enough donations, I can convince that guy on the cable TV show "The World's Dirtiest Jobs" to come and do the work for us.

Trees and Views

We are still trying to go with trees here. But, decided that we should remove a couple of trees that the Nimbys were complaining about. Today some very efficient tree guys came and took them away as well as moved another one. Luckily, it didn't cost a fortune.

We have a wonderful large space on our uphill property line where these two trees stood. I am SO happy the Nimbys now have an unobstructed view....of our family room and breakfast area, as well as the previously mentioned roof. I will have to be sure I'm fully clothed all the time, OR NOT!

On a cheerier note, the Nimbys have also submitted a proposed amendment to our HOA CCRs regarding tree height, views, blah, blah, blah....too complicated to go into here. So I have spent the last couple of days commiserating with my next door neighbors about a couple of statements we will read at our HOA meeting in November. You know, "united we stand, divided we fall". We've decided to take no prisoners and are ready for battle. Even though the Nimbys "you know what" (thanks Al for that great comment) has been rolling down hill for quite some time, we are trying our darndest to shove as much of it as possible back up their way.

Which leads me to a "shoving it your way" action I took today. The Nimbys delight in letting their light shine forth - so to speak. They have 2 non-conforming motion activating flood lights on the rear of their home (which just happen to activate just about every time a microscopic spec floats by and consequently flash on and off in our bedroom windows all night), they also have non conforming colored globe string lights across their rear lot line pergola and numerous solar powered stake lights around the perimeter of their yard. Even though we have no way of getting any screening from all this light shining forth, we've tried to ignore it. Oh and they also have 2 pink flamingos perched in a tree - been there all summer.

But today I decided that I had nothing to lose and sent an email to the poor guy on the HOA board who gets all the "rat on your neighbor" emails. I ratted on the Nimbys lights and flamingos.

You be the judge

A year ago the house uphill from us was sold. It didn't take long for the new owners to start to make major renovations both inside and outside the house. We came home from a 2 week trip last fall to find that all of the landscaping in the rear yard (that borders our rear yard) had been taken out, a fence put in and a construction on a swimming pool had started. It was a surprise to say the least. Since we live in an area with an HOA, I figured everything had been approved by the HOA. It was not that big of a deal.

Last Spring, the new owners (I'll now refer to them as the "Nimbys" as in "not in my backyard") started on the new landscaping. The HOA CC&R guidelines, among other things, require that fences be screened. The Nimbys new landscaping didn't quite provide enough screening given the fact that they now had a pool, huge kid's swing/climbing set. So we planted some trees across our back lot line to give a little more screening. We were careful to follow HOA guidelines as to mature height of the trees. We also did not plant the trees in our uphill neighbors "view corridor".

You'd think that most people would like some trees - you know, a little contribution to combat global warming. But the Nimbys seem to think that they had a home on a VIEW lot and made a complaint about trees in our yard, and in our next door neighbor's yard, blocking their view. They demanded that all of the trees in these two yards (32 in all) be removed. Most of the trees have been around for 5 years or more!

Here's the view the Nimbys have from their yard:



And these views:



Yep. I agree. Our trees are blocking their view......OF THE BACK OF OUR HOUSE!!!

However, our trees provide screening for us and from the views into the Nimbys yard. Here's a "view" we've had this summer of the Nimbys yard.

A flock of pink flamingos took roost for about two weeks. They'd probably still be there if I hadn't made a complaint to the HOA.

And this one is really special:


When I first saw this on the Nimby's back deck on a Sunday morning, I thought that someone didn't quite make it back into the house after a pool party the night before. But on closer inspection, I realized it was a blow up doll wearing a t-shirt with a message just for us. The poor thing hung out on the deck in the blazing sun for almost a week.

Anyway, because the Nimbys didn't like the idea that the HOA Board said no trees had to be removed, they've hired an attorney. That means that the HOA Board has had to hire an attorney. This is where the whole thing gets ridiculous. Every homeowner in our subdivision, INCLUDING THE NIMBYS, will have to a pay a special assessment to the tune of about $1000 per homeowner so that the HOA Board can have legal representation. So the Nimbys are technically suing themselves.

This whole situation is really gathering steam. A meeting with the HOA Board, the Nimbys, us and our neighbors, and attorneys for both sides, will be held in the near future. I just can't wait.

In the meantime, you be the judge. Trees or views?