DS20 wasn't formally diagnosed until he was 17. From the time he was about 18 months old I was as sure as a reasonably well informed/well educated mom could be that he was on the spectrum. But his pediatrician, OT and ST said no, he can't be because he makes eye contact. In their minds, and given the current thinking at that time, if a child on the spectrum could fake sociability for the length of an office visit or therapy session then he couldn't be on the spectrum. Fast forward about 15 years and the thinking on what autism (particularly in gifted/2e kids) looks like had changed a lot. Also, by that time he was having significant anxiety. It took two visits with a psychiatrist for the anxiety issues for her to definitely (in her medical opinion) come to the conclusion that he was on the spectrum. Psycho-educational testing then confirmed it. Although I don't think DS's rather late diagnosis harmed him any, I'm glad professionals are getting better at diagnosing earlier. And no, I don't think anything environmental caused his autism (and just FWIW, some on the spectrum find that notion offensive).

I think this is all governed by state law, so it could vary a LOT from one state to another.

1. I was referring to the HOA fining homeowners for non-compliance, not for non-payment of dues. But we were told the same thing about unpaid dues--all the HOA can do is put a lien on the property. 2. In most cases it would take many, many years for fees or unpaid dues to accumulate enough that it would be worthwhile for the HOA to attempt foreclosure due to the expense of that.

It probably varies by state. According to what we were told all an HOA can do here is fine a homeowner for violating the covenants and restrictions. Which homeowners can ignore, and "all" that will result is a lien being placed against the home. Which means nothing unless/until the homeowner wants to sell or re-finance. Which means that HOAs are relatively powerless. But that was all several years ago--the laws governing HOAs in this state may have changed some since then.

Stating the obvious here, but as to the first bolded remark -- It really just depends. We moved here from a HOA neighborhood. It wasn't a horrible HOA, but it was a long way from what it should have been. The covenants and restrictions were in our opinion quite reasonable (nothing crazy like mandating what type of flower pots you can have, etc.), but as time went by the board/management company for whatever reason(s) seemed unable to enforce compliance. Quite a few homes were in our opinions in ill repair and on the verge of being eye sores. When we were ready to downsize we were of course very careful about the neighborhood we selected, and one of our priorities was that it be a non-HOA area. It's an older, well established neighborhood with lots of natural beauty, and people take care of their homes MUCH better than many in the HOA neighborhood ever thought about doing. I totally agree with the second bolded remark.

When we were looking for this house we first looked at an older home in a HOA community. We hadn't yet gotten to the point of calling someone on the board (or having our realtor do it) to drill down on exactly where the fees were going, but were interested enough that we'd gone back for a second look. While we were looking around the yard we noticed a maintenance worker out in the street, and our realtor casually walked over and struck up a conversation with him. In the course of that convo she found out that the neighborhood was facing some very serious, very costly work on its sewer system. That (among other things) scared us away from that particular property and the entire neighborhood, even though it's considered a highly desirable place to live.

Talking to someone on a HOA board about the "why" of fees is standard homework when considering buying. It's the only way you're going to find the answers you're looking for.

Can you contact someone on the board of each HOA and find out the reasoning behind their fees? Could it be that the more expensive one with no amenities is trying to build up a safety fund or is planning on putting in amenities down the road? Unfortunately, in a HOA in NC (maybe other states, too) you're pretty much hostage to the whims of the board. So it's probably a good idea to try to get a feel for the current board even beyond figuring out the "why" of the current fee being charged.

Are there physical symptoms that have caused you to look into an anti-inflammatory diet? Like muscle or joint aches or anything like that? If you have an auto-immune illness going on fatigue can be a huge issue. I have RA, only officially diagnosed last summer, so I'm still figuring it all out. But . . . for over three decades I've been a person who watches her daily calorie intake/expenditure very carefully. And I'm finding that I can't quite be as strict with myself as I used to be even if it means weight creep. Keeping calories low has always caused me a small amount of fatigue, which I used to deal with w/o too much trouble. But add in another, deeper layer of fatigue from an AI disease and I just can't keep the calorie intake as low as I used to and maintain any quality of life. The total combined fatigue of lowish calorie + AI illness is debilitating. If I add in a couple hundred more calories a day I can usually function in a way that passes as somewhat normal. And RA isn't the only AI disease that has fatigue as a symptom. I think all of them do, as your own immune system attacking itself causes the same level of fatigue as when it's fighting off a "foreign invader" like the flu. And continuing on that theme, are you dealing with seasonal allergies? That can also cause fatigue.

That was my thought, too -- that Mergath's foot itched during the night, she scratched it with the other foot and . . . the "bite." Or at least that's what I would have assumed had it been on my foot (or anywhere else on my body, really). I wake up with scratches and other odd boo boos on a regular basis and never give them a second thought. But I have super dry, itchy skin. I'm very glad it wasn't a bat bite!!

When the boys were young we didn't care. Master bedroom location wasn't anywhere near a priority for us when buying a house. As we got older and were considering aging in place it did, of course, become a very high priority, and it was one of the main reasons it took us two years to find this house. In hindsight I think we were very lucky. For ten years we lived in a house with all the bedrooms and all the full bathrooms on the second level. I shudder to think how hard life might have been had someone broken a foot, ankle or leg during that time, or otherwise suffered an illness or injury that made negotiating the stairs truly problematic or impossible.

We had a similar issue when we bought this house. There's a storage barn that is wired for electricity, which we knew didn't work. We assumed it had never been hooked up. But after moving in we found a broken line sticking up in the yard. The end we found ran toward the garage (where our breaker box is). So we assumed it was live. DH's brother is an electrician, so we had him come right over and check it. Thankfully the line was dead. We still haven't found the other end of that line, though, and BIL couldn't easily figure out how it had been wired into the breaker box. Kind of scary! He said he'd run another one and do it right, but we really don't need electricity in the barn for anything. I hope you find it easily.

DH has cancer, so I let him choose almost all of our meals--whatever appeals to him and that he feels he can tolerate. All this past winter it was soup. We pretty much lived on soup. We're eating veggie soup almost every day for lunch, and often another type of soup for dinner. Besides that we tend to do simple things like baked chicken, salmon or other fish with simple sides (roasted or steamed veggies, salad), scrambled eggs or omelets (breakfast for dinner), etc. We always have fruit for dessert. I prefer to eat a mostly vegetarian diet, so if I prepare something for DH with meat/fish that I don't care to eat I'll either make a meal of the side dishes or fix me something simple like bean and rice quesadillas or a baked potato topped with veggies and cheese. And we're not above a frozen pizza or other convenience food now and then, either. We average eating out about three times a week. Don't forget to use your freezer--if you make a big batch meal you can always freeze extra for another meal or two. I only have the fridge freezer, but I can still get quite a lot of re-heatable meals in it.

Vet

FWIW -- If your dog is like the majority of allergy dogs and reacts to MANY things, then It can be particularly difficult to correctly identify food allergens this time of the year. Pollen certainly complicates things. I learned all about false positives in that regard one time when doing a 12-week food allergy elimination diet with a dog. We started right near the end of February/first of March, which is really a bad time (at least in my area) to start an elimination diet if you want to be able to "see" anything remotely resembling accurate results. We finally gave up on that and had testing done.

You're right, I did misconstrue what you said. And I apologize for that! But I did it in my haste to make the bigger point of -- puppies really are hard work, and too many people totally under estimate how hard. No doubt it seemed particularly important because I'm currently dealing with someone who seems almost at the point of losing it because her ten week old, very recently adopted puppy is shredding puppy pads. When you work in rescue you learn to expect it, but . . . . Sigh. What did she expect???

FWIW -- I'm guessing when you say "mixes" you mean the intentionally bred mixes like Labradoodles or Maltipoos? It's fine IMO to differentiate, but technically they're just as much "mutts" as a Heinz 57 mix. And I'm not saying that to be snobbish--I have nothing against the purposefully bred mixes, and I know some who are truly incredible pets. A good dog is a good dog regardless of heritage (and in my very biased opinion almost all dogs are good dogs ). I don't have any good resources, but my standard advice to potential adopters is to try to forget about looks and focus on temperament/personality and energy level. Those are the things that make a dog very easy or extremely difficult to live with. You can learn to love the look of any dog, but it's difficult to impossible to learn to love a dog whose basic temperament or energy level doesn't mesh with you or your family. Realistically consider how active your family is, how much time they have to devote to training, etc. A family who likes to hang around the house and isn't active will do best with an entirely different type of dog than a family who wants a dog to hike and walk dozens of miles a week with them. I can't overstate how important it is to make sure you can meet a dog's physical exercise needs. And for many of them it's just as important, maybe more important, to be able to meet their mental exercise needs. Also, look for the middle-of-the-road puppy or dog. The one who is neither overly outgoing or (on the other extreme) overly shy or fearful. Look for the dog who calmly observes and then comes to greet or join in. Those are the dogs who are almost certainly going to be easiest to live with. That said, it can be very difficult even for experienced dog people to get an accurate read on a puppy/dog in a shelter environment or at an adoption fair. In most cases you'll get the best info on dogs who have been in an experienced foster home for at least a few weeks. I disagree with the idea that puppies are easier than babies so why not get one? Yeah, sure they're easier than babies overall and they grow up a lot faster. But it's a totally different commitment. No well adjusted parent thinks of dropping their infant off at the municipal shelter or of re-homing him, but I guarantee you it's a rare person who doesn't consider returning or re-homing a challenging puppy. Shoot, even very experienced people who get a puppy likely think "why did I get myself into this" somewhere in the first year or two (and it's probably quite common to wonder about it every single day, and multiple times on particularly trying days). I don't have anything against first time dog owners getting a puppy as long as they understand--and fully accept--that raising a puppy into a well mannered adult dog will almost certainly be a LOT more work than they ever imagined. Perhaps exponentially more work.

Our daffodils have come and gone. The one cluster of tulips we have is beautiful! We planted a dogwood last spring and two redbuds in the fall, and those are on the verge of popping out. Ditto the azaleas. Our neighbor gave us a bunch of day lilies Saturday, and we've just finished planting them. The liriope and mondo grass are starting to take off. We're thinking of getting a Japanese or black tulip magnolia for an empty spot in the back yard.

Biltmore always makes me feel a bit queasy. But for me I think it's mostly the crowds, and the motion of the crowds, and being inside. I've never been there when it wasn't wall-to-wall people. I don't like moving crowds anywhere, but it's considerably worse inside than outside (leaving a crowded inside event like a college basketball game or concert makes me feel that way, too).

This house and our previous house has/had the master bathroom adjacent to the walk in closet. We’ve had no issues at all. Both have been good sized bathrooms, though. Big enough that steam going all the way into the closets wasn’t really a possibility. But we don’t tend to take really long showers, either.

Brick adds a lot of expense. A few years ago when we were considering having a house custom built the contractors we interviewed estimated that brick versus siding would cost $30,000 - $40,000 more. We eventually decided to buy instead of build, and one of our highest priorities was having a brick exterior. In the past we've had both sided and brick homes, and we find brick to be far superior and well worth the extra cost if you can afford it. Our brick homes have all been maintenance free and seemed to be much more sound proof than the sided homes we had. I don't think I'd ever consider painting a brick house. I don't recall ever seeing a brick house before/after painting where I thought the look was improved. And any way you slice it the paint is going to be more maintenance.

We're on a septic system. I've spent most of my life on one, and I don't think I'm overly picky or paranoid about it. I use bleach whenever I need to and don't think a thing about it. But flushing cat litter -- no, that's not something I could ever bring myself to do, I don't think. I'd worry not only about the septic system but also for the plumbing lines.

I'm working on hugely reducing our use of single use plastics, but I have a long way to go. But for bathrooms and office trash cans--I've always lined those with a bag, but I've also always taken them to the kitchen trash can and dumped them out instead of replacing the bag every time. The bags in the bathroom trash cans get replaced if something nasty/liquidy is in/on the bag, but that's incredibly rare. I'm pretty sure I don't average changing those bags more than once a year. I probably could do away entirely with the bag in the office trash can. Pet waste is a big issue for me, too. We don't currently have any cats in residence, but we do walk the dog every day and he has to be picked up after. Generally I buy pet waste bags but try to get the biodegradable type.

We never saw any reason to limit time spent in bedrooms. But three out of the four of us are introverts who absolutely need lots of quiet time for optimal mental health. So I can't say that it ever really occurred to me or DH that alone time was something that should be limited. On the contrary, in our home it's encouraged.

I'm sorry, and I hope you get some relief soon! The worst pain I've ever experienced in my life was from a sinus infection. And I've had two c-sections and a hysterectomy. They were nothing compared to that sinus infection from you-know-where.