30 Day Blogging Challenge Day 14-My Biggest Pet Peeve
Well here we are at day number 14 in my 30-day blogging challenge! This is 14 days down, 16 more to go! By the time I am done with this challenge, you will all know so much more about me and my horses as well as my strengths, and my weaknesses. I wanted to offer a little more to you about myself, and thanks to me reading the incredible blog She Moved To Texas, I found her 30-day blogging challenge and decided to emulate what she had done. This is still a part of my 30 day blogging challenge, but I changed my biggest riding pet peeves to my biggest pet peeve because of something that happened to us over the weekend. And our little homemade greenhouse that if we want to keep will cost us around $63,000.
Country Living with HOA’s
I have shared with you parts of my property, my barn, and where I ride my horses. But let me give a little more information, as it relates to this blog post. We live in a subdivision with about 65 homes. All of the homes are on lots from 2 to 3 acres. So not a huge amount of space, but enough room for the neighbors to be a little more spread out. But in our subdivision we do have an HOA. The HOA is pretty minimal, and I had the privilege to meet 2 of the board members this past Sunday, when they came to my house to inform me that I had a complaint lodged against me. I was thinking “Oh crap, what have we done.” I have to say the HOA board members were very nice, and almost apologetic. But apparently, we had a complaint out against us because we have 3 outbuilding on our property, and according to the “rules” (I use this term loosely) we are only allowed to have 2 outbuildings. We have a little red barn, a horse shed, and a little green house that my husband built about 3 years ago.
And it is interesting to note our neighbor, who is the only one that can see the green house, came over to find out what my husband was building. He was also really interested to know what we would be growing in that little greenhouse. (Marijuana had recently been legalized in our state) And my husband was polite, and told him we would were trying to garden without the deer eating everything. But apparently that wasn’t what our neighbor thought we would be growing.
I thought it was done and over with, because we hadn’t heard any comments from this neighbor in a few years, which was fine by me. If that man never talked to me again for the rest of his life, that would be too soon. I have no idea of what I did to offend this guy, it was probably when my family moved in 12 years ago. But every comment out of his mouth is an underhanded dig. He is just mean.
But he is also on the HOA board, as a “member at large” of the board, which means he can do whatever he wants with his property, and then he drives around looking for reasons to write complaints on other homeowners. And it seems since he had the opportunity to make a formal complaint, and justifiably because we do have 3 outbuildings and we are only allowed 2.
SO when the HOA people came to my house, I had been dreaming of getting a larger barn, and since I had them as a captive audience, I thought I would ask, how big of a barn could I build on my property? And their answer was as big as I wanted, as long as it was 20 feet off of any property line. And, since I would be removing 2 of the buildings, our green house could stay, and we would not be in any violation of any HOA rules. Which was really great, because I had just gotten a price quote back from the company that I would like to build this barn, and it was a little expensive, at $63,000.00
I was so excited!
Dreaming Big
I went and told my husband, and then told him about the whole barn idea, and what I thought was good news to come from bad news, my husband didn’t see it that way. He was angry, and basically suggested maybe it was time to sell our house, and go find some more property, with a barn. I’m not going to lie, my heart sunk a little. I mean we (actually me) always talk about finding a really great house and more property with a great big barn, but I never really thought it would actually happen. And the entire catalyst for this was some grumpy old man who has nothing better to do than stick his nose into other people’s business. I mean, our little green house wasn’t hurting him, or anyone else. And there are other people in our neighborhood that have 3 outbuildings, so we figured, if they can do it, why can’t we? Well, we can’t.
Which brings me to the point of my post. By far, my biggest pet peeve is people not minding their own business. There are those that feel it is necessary for them to give their opinion on how you do things. They are always right, and if you don’t do what they feel you should do, they make things unpleasant.
Personally, I feel that people should be allowed to do what they want to do in their own home, as long as it doesn’t cause harm, or potential harm to others. Maybe it’s because I like my privacy, and I work a lot, but I am not the social butterfly of the neighborhood. I don’t care what my neighbors are doing. I don’t care if their grass is long, or they don’t have the most beautiful home of the neighborhood. That’s their business. If it doesn’t hurt me or my family, I DON’T CARE. A person’s home is their castle, and they should be able to do as they please.
And yes, I am aware that I am violating a rule in our HOA, and we have already made plans to remove the greenhouse. So my anger is not about the green house. My anger is toward busy bodies.
Making Lemonade Out of Lemons
Even though I never really thought it would happen, my husband and I have decided it is time to move. I guess I should look at the positive, and we will get to have a home that we have picked out together, and we will have more property, and my horses will be able to graze, and I can have a nice barn, with a nice riding arena. I will continue to focus on the positive, and look at this as a new adventure!
