So you both knowingly purchased a house in a community with an HOA, decide you don't like the rules (when the rules were already spelled out before you purchased), and now to combat the "problem" you will seek a position on the HOA board. Very doubtful you would actually do this, I doubt you would really want to invest any of your time with all the meetings or dealing with any problems that may arise. I know you are just blowing smoke. Your "desire" to be elected to the HOA board is not because you are interested in your community and desire to see it remain a nice place to live - you just want to join for your own selfish reasons. It's very simple - if you don't like HOAs, then don't move there. You have no right to complain about it when you knew beforehand what you were getting into. Sigh. FWIW, HOAs vary a lot. I've left in several HOA communities. In one that I lived in you had to get HOA approval for changing a plant in your backyard. I could sort of get the idea of having approval for the front...but the back? Sigh. Anyway we moved to a place with a HOA that was much, much more laid back. There were regulations that were much less intense and the HOA generally wasn't filled with control freaks. There was one person who wanted to be (and had previously been on the HOA) and ran for election and wasn't elected since no one wanted that type of enforcement. So, two different HOA boards with the same rules can be very different in how they enforce. As for the one saying it is easy to find places without HOA by finding junky places that is really very one-sided. We currently are building a house in a non-HOA neighborhood. You can guess it probably doesn't have an HOA due to the fact most homes are on at least an acre and the houses aren't cookie cutter and many people have more pets than most HOAs would allow. However, the houses are all neatly kept and the price ranges on the street range from around $200k to over a million.

Sorry I missed your earlier post. I agree with all Laurie wrote. However, I discourage watering by the clock or the calendar -- by a certain amount in specific intervals. The amount is always drenching until water flows out the bottom. As for the interval, there are too many variables that affect the amount of moisture in the soil to follow a fixed regime: the plants changing needs (health, growth stage, increased size of root ball, decreased size of root ball, preparation for blooming, season, annual cycles, maybe how safe it feels!), ambient temperature, ambient humidity, air flow around the plant, light exposure, probably barometric and other intangibles I'm unaware of. So, for me, that leaves three ways to know when the soil is dry enough to water again: - by touch -- poke a finger well into the soil. If it is bone dry as far as you can reach when it was not a few days or a week earlier, then there is probably moisture below your reach, but not so much that it would not benefit from water during active growth; - with a hygrometer -- same principle as the finger, it just reaches deeper into the soil; - when the leaves begin to soften or wrinkle (when it is not from the age of a specific leaf) after being firm and smooth. I do not recommend waiting for the third indicator. I've never even had healthy leaves become soft after three months without water in mid-winter. Did you happen to take a picture of the root system when you changed the soil? For me, changing soil or repotting is an opportunity to separate the rhizomes, removing and withered sections (they can be added to the new soil as biomatter to break down and feed the plant), examining all the rhizomes for health. respacing plants for ideal growth conditions, possibly starting extra pots for my use or to give away or for restoring weak plants, growing out extra offsets and propagating extra lengths of rhizome. Isolated pieces of rhizome or excessively long rhizomes leading to healthy growth but with no growth points showing will probably die back. So, I remove them or snap them off to propagate in a separate container or containers, where they are likely to sprout new growth. I'm an incorrigible propagator. That's enough for one post! I'll respond to your other questions in a bit.

Yes Mongo, I was wondering about quality and quantity of light. For putting on makeup I really like having lots of lumens. In the east bathroom that DH now uses for most of his grooming, I have 100watt halogen bulbs on each side of the mirror. I think that is around 1600 lumens per bulb. But a calculator I just used says its 2000 lumens. So at the mirror for DH to shave it is 3200 to 4000 lumens. It works well for him. In my other bathroom (west) that I use for makeup, I have 2 sconces that each have 120 watts halogen. It seems to put out less light. But the room has more dark pieces of furnishings, so maybe that is why. According to the calculator I should have 4800 lumens at that mirror. I would not want less. I have a dimmer on that switch, but never use it because I need the light. I also have 2each 50w halogen overhead lights in the ceiling. This room is 8x10. I would not be happy with any less lighting.

I'm no expert but if it were mine I wouldn't unpot it quite yet at least until it starts getting some leaves on it. The roots are very fragile on these plants. The first one I got I instantly repotted and it destroyed practically all of the roots and I ended up with root rot and lost it. They can get root rot very easily. I now have these 2 others and I was very careful repotting them into a more gritty mix for fear of root rot and curiosity of what their roots may look like verses the first one I had. They didn't seem to have a great root system either. Very few small roots and not very many left after the repotting. They are growing and doing fine though. I've read you should keep the soil moist but I let my 2 dry out pretty good before watering. Neither of mine get a ton of sun both sit about 10 feet from a window. I've heard they hate drafts and are very fussy about being moved around. I bet your Ming will turn into a very beautiful plant if you don't fuss over it to much and don't over water it. Good luck!