Oh wow... if you're up at 5:30 (and it sounds like you've got a pretty long commute), I don't blame you for not wanting to do things in the evenings. You probably need to get to bed pretty early, don't you, to get up that early?

It sucks... everybody has different schedules and priorities. Are the other people on the HOA able to get up fairly early? Just wondering if doing stuff early on a weekend (like 7 or 8am) would be a compromise, since usually stuff isn't scheduled that early (so they'd have plenty of time after for whatever else they're doing).

Business hours... I agree, I find a lot of places kind of difficult. Especially if they only offer M-F 8-5 type hours, since that means I can't go unless I take off from work. There's a little vacuum shop about 20 minutes from me that I wanted to go to (when I was shopping for my vacuum cleaner), but I had to skip, b/c I didn't think I'd have time over lunch to do it... and one of the reasons I don't use an independent mechanic is that all of the good ones near me are closed on Sat and Sun! I don't want to have to take time off from work to do an oil change!

*hugs* Not sure any of this was helpful (sorry) - but wanted to say, "I hear ya!"