Friday, June 27, 2014

A Texas Outing

 Yesterday I went with my husband Jerry to
Llano.. (related to Llama?)

He was invited to be the guest player at the Thursday night singer/songwriter get together.


He had asked me ages ago to go with him and I
had never committed, but my daughter was with a friend and my sons are older now so I had no reason not to.


Besides I"m making an effort lately to do more.
I don't mean just do more I mean to get out and
about more. You know... get out of my comfort zone a bit. I've been getting a bit strange lately to be honest...kind of hermitty.

Ok, so off we went and even though Llano is not a big deal I haven't been there in more time than I care to say.... it still counts for an outing.



It took us a bit over an hour to get there and then I insisted on playing the tourist a bit and stopping to take a few photos.

Llano has one of those darling little downtowns from a movie set. It's a darling little place.

 Jerry was playing at a place called The Badu House. He was out on the patio.



We had a tasty little meal on the house..( always nice)



 Watched the host and his buddy play for the first hour....











Then it was Jerry's turn. My stomach always turns
when he gets up on stage. I fully expect him to cry and run off the stage, oh wait! that's me who wants to do that.


He did great.

Here's the beautiful Llano river,
A darling town,
lovely people
good fun
and water! what more could you ask for?

Friday, June 20, 2014

Juliette's Trip



 What a busy June we've had!

My daughter finally went on her Girl Scout Trip


All those days and nights spent selling cookies and
working other events, and they each earned the funds to go to Savannah Georgia.

They left on the first Friday of the month ....guess what time they had to be at the airport?....




 Well the flight left at 6am, so I had to have her there by 4:15, which meant we had to leave our house by 3:45.. in the morning.!!!

We were afraid we would oversleep..
(Years ago I would have still been out at that hour... but that's a subject for another post.)

Juliette was excited to go, 4 nights on her own, ( well without me)
and her first airplane trip!

Yes, that's right, her first airplane trip... myself I hate to fly.. that loss of control, but for this group it was great.

I was only able to see her off to the security check point..
The  girl scouts were searched, fair and square just like any other terrorist suspect.




Then they were off.
The adults sent me constant updates and Juliette herself texted me
frequently.

The trip was all planned out, and although the troop leaders obviously tried to make it educational... the girls still had a great time.

They visited ( of course) the Juliette Gordon Low house.




Visited the Mariner Museum
















On their last day they went to Tybee Island, visited the light house

took an Ecology Tour....



and proceeded to get terribly sunburned.

I think by Tuesday she was ready to be home, and I'm pretty sure she learned her lesson about sun screen.




Wednesday, June 4, 2014

What Doesn't Kill You

scales of justice : Statue to education, justice and equality in Budapest  I have mentioned our POA  and the issues we were having with them.... But I haven't posted much about it for a few reasons...

First of all if you haven't ever had any legal issues at all, which was my story before this.. getting hit with a lawsuit is pretty traumatic. I mean here we were basically minding our own business and we keep getting letters about what our neighbor, Al Blair( also the board President for perpetuity)  who hides behind the POA Board is unhappy about. So, we would get communication from this board and we would feel, well it sounds corny but I personally felt violated.
Then I would start to find someone to blame, and of course if the "authorities" say we are wrong, well we must be, right?

So we start fighting, and I was  lashing out at my kids, my husband. I started spending my time, and I mean ALL of my time reading about court cases, codes, laws etc., days and days of this...

I  felt like I was being watched, I  didn't dare leave a rake out for fear our "neighbor" would complain about the mess. I would tell my husband  who had just worked a 14 hour day to put his mess away for the "neighbor". So this goes on for a while.. this fear, and let me tell you if you do any research at all about the power of these groups you need to have some fear, fear is appropriate in some cases.

But not always... not if you honestly have done nothing to really, honestly be facing a law suit over.
Not if you can look your reflection in the eye and say "wait a minute.. WTF is going on here?"
 and the true answer is ......something stinks...

Because you see, we were (are) being asked to:
pay almost 4000 in attorney fees
pay for a 500 survey
pay 500 a month if we fall in violation again
allow the board to walk our property
go to  a meeting and be properly dressed down by our lords and masters know as the "Board"
Resubmit previous plans ( which they already have)
Tear down any structure they did not approve
Hold no business activity on the property

This is not Belleterra... I mean really every single home out here is in violation of something... but they don't live next door to Al Blair. So we asked the universe for help...
and guess what? We got it.

Out of the blue and I mean out of the blue, an attorney called me by the name of  Bill Davis.
(Well actually I posted a question on a webpage called "HOA Reform Coalition" and the owner sent me his contact information, but hey what are the odds that he would live in Dripping Springs too?)
I can't say enough about this guy, he's brillant and he sees through the distractions to the clear truth.
Also, a very funny, likeable person... 

Oh yeah did I mention he despises HOAs?


I will be writing more and often about this adventure. That's what it has become. An adventure that
I know without any doubt we will come through victorious..

As Juliette and I like to sing to each other, "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, footsteps even lighter"