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After deleting potential titles to this post such as "Nazi HOA" or "Trapped in Communist Maple Valley" I decided against those for a more gentle "..." that is more along the lines of how I really feel. Our HOA is currently run by an agency rather than just by the residents because not all of the houses are sold (~5 left). We were digging the sprinkler system trenches as can be seen in the above photo and someone reported us as digging drainage trenches that would drain our water off onto the sloped common areas. Rather than Mr. Anonymous asking us what we were doing or having the HOA quickly come over to see we had to wait almost 3 weeks for approval or suffer a fine. I understand the benefits of an HOA that is run properly, but time delays like this over such simple solutions drive me nuts, (probably just my OCD again!). I resolved to go ahead anyway, but luckily the approval came the same day so we are started again. Now we can fill the ditches back in and hydroseed!

I know many of you use programs to stay caught up on people's blogs. I've mentioned to a few friends about tracking comments as well. I like to track the comments on the blogs of my best friends and family. Here's an explanation if you are interested...right click on the RSS feed button (in blogger it usually says "Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)" at the bottom) and select the options that says something like, "Copy Link Location." Paste that into a word document or your reader if it will let you edit it after pasting. Our blogs feed when copied will say, "http://calderwood.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default." Change the word "posts" to "comments" and add it to your reader. It should read, "http://calderwood.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default." Whenever anyone posts a comment to that blog you will be able to see it in your reader.

More good news for Seattle housing. Although we didn't buy at the peak we were afraid that we bought too close to it. Luckily housing prices here have been fairly stable in certain areas. We just learned that a house in the neighborhood with our same floor plan (minus 1 extra room and deck that we have) with a smaller yard and not as good of a view sold in less than one week for the same price that we bought ours! Here's to Micro$oft, Boeing and the tech industry helping our local economy.

Due to the lack of pix in this post I snapped a shot of an old photo I had in my car for a YM/YW activity. In the spirit of our good friend Collette's "Flashback Friday," here is an old flashback of mine. If you see any flashback posts out there on a blog, she was the originator. I have seen it spread directly to about 8 or so different others, so props to the original! This is a scout camp I went on and my leader printed the photo out for me (far left crazy guy in cowboy boots) because I was standing on the outside of the group. For some reason he said that was very fitting...