Tiffantastic

So, I am going to take a moment to list some of the good people I get to enjoy in my life. Everyone should take the time to sit down and think about this every once in awhile. If I leave anyone out, I’m sorry. This list would go on forever if I didn’t try to keep it short.

1. Dylan- Dylan consistently takes time out of his day to catch me up on all the new tech news (just a little thing I appreciate). He also keeps me feeling like a rock star by complimenting me all the time. He is a very intelligent, fun, and honest person, and I am thankful to have him in my life. I have enjoyed all of our adventures together, and look forward to all I know we will continue to have.
2. Mom & Dad- My mother and father have always been there for me if I have been in need of anything. I really appreciate them for that. My mom is the nicest person ever, and could not ever hurt anyone. My dad has been going through a rough time lately, but he has always remained true to his convictions, and has remained honorable in his decisions. I love you both.
3. Lacey- My little sis. I am so proud of the woman she has grown up to be. She is so smart and contemplative. She thinks for herself, and develops her own ideas. I truly enjoy all of our conversations, and look forward to the ones we will have in the future.
4. My friends- I have known most of my friends since I was 12 or so. We have all been through a lot with each other. Break-ups, moves, lost loves, but we have always been there for each other. Although there has been some drama lately among a couple of them, I hope we will eventually get our groove back.

Gary Vaynerchuk, internet celebrity and wine guru, has requested all his friend to pass this message on.  He says:

I want to try to get the WHOLE INTERNET COmmunity behind this mission I have to make sure that tomorrow people write and talk abd blog and twitter and just flat out SING about people that are AWESOME and GOOD. It is time that we take control of the fact that WE are the media and pump out a day tomorrow that will make NOISE across this WORLD! Please take the time tonight to gather your thoughts as you come up with ideas on how to spread the word about AWESOME people! I am looking for blog posts, twitters, powncers, facebooking, digging, flickring, stumpling on all things that are good about PEOPLE!
Please tag all work “GPD08″

I will post my list tomorrow, but I just wanted to get this on here for now.   You can view his video about Good People Day ‘08 here.

Having lived in the town that experienced the most powerful tornado ever recorded, tornado season gives me the creeps. Since living in Moore, there have been two very strong tornadoes that have passed through. In 1999 we had an F5 tornado come through and demolish a very large portion of the community. Then, in 2003, an F4 hit here.

During the F4, I was at work about 4 miles away from my house. Everyone at my work took tornado precautions, and sat anxiously in the dark because the power had gone out. We sat listening to a battery operated radio, as storm chasers broadcast their findings. After a few minutes, the radio said that a tornado had touch down at an intersection only 10 blocks from my house. I immediately started to panic. Had my house been hit? Where my roommates alright? I couldn’t call them to check because, as anyone who has lived through a large disaster knows, cell phone tower get jammed, and you can’t make calls.

As soon as we were cleared to leave the building, I told my boss I had to leave. I began driving home, which was normally a 5 minute drive, however, I could not make it back to my house. So many roads had been blocked by police because of debris hazards. I tried to navigate through neighborhoods as an alternate route. While I was doing so, people were yelling at me to stop gawking, thinking that I was driving around to look at the damage. That just upset me even more, because I was only trying to make my way home.

Finally, I determined, that all the roads to my house had been barricaded. I would have to park a distance from my home, and walk the rest of the way. As I passed the road barricade, I saw the extent of the damage. Houses were ripped apart, cars were thrown upside down in the middle of the street, whole trees were thrown around like little twigs. As I continued to walk home, I almost stepped on a downed power line that lie in the debris.

Eventually, I made it home. Everyone was safe, and my roommates told me that they had stood on the porch and watched the tornado go by. I told them that was a stupid thing to do because we have a basement, and the tornado demolished some buildings about 5 blocks from our house.

My area of Oklahoma has been under a tornado watch for most of the night last night, and today. The uncertainty of it makes me apprehensive.  I have been luckier than most in avoiding the damages of our tornadoes, but it still makes me nervous.

So, I have decided that I am going to make it my goal to post at least one blog entry per day. Hopefully, I can stick to it, because writing feels like a type of therapy for me. I get to take a few minutes just to reflect on what is going on for the day.

Today I am taking some time to learn about html. I would like to be able to work with Dylan on any projects we may come up with. This way, I can do the web side, and he can take care of the programming.

I am at Cosimo’s right now, and it has been really slow this week. I’m not really sure why.

My grandfather passed away a few days ago. He has been bedridden and incompetent for a few years due to a series of stokes. Despite this, none of us were expecting his death.

He was a man that was very determined to live. When my father asked him how much longer he wanted to be alive, he replied, “Well, I’d like to live another 40 years or so”. Those additional years would have taken him to about 130 years old. In addition, his father lived to be over 100, so we all thought it would be no problem for him. As my sister commented, the man seemed to be “invincible”.
Despite all this, none of us could figure out what he was holding on for. His wife of over 50 years had passed on already, and his quality of life was very poor relative to his previous years. Whatever, it was, I guess he finally decided to let go.

It is always emotional when a family member passes away, but I have been lucky. People around me have never gone “before their time”. They have always been elderly, and have lived full lives. I hope I will be lucky enough for that to be my story as well.

I have recently developed a mild (ok, maybe more than mild) addiction to twitter. I just think it is the most amazing thing ever. If you are on there tweet me @tiffantastic. Also, join the @veryGreenTeam so that we can win the color wars. What are you waiting on?  Go. Go!

Also, I recently experienced something else really cool. I got a tweet from @kevinrose and @garyvee. They were streaming live video from their Nokia N95 on qik.com. It is a pretty awesome technology, which killed my productivity for a while because I couldn’t stop watching it.

I have now been back in Oklahoma for about 10 months. Dylan and I have settled in nicely, and are trying to do some remodeling and repair on our ancient house. I think the windows in here are probably actually from 1928, when the house was built. Not good.

Since the cost of living is so much lower here, money had not been as tight. This has led to some new hobbies for both of us (and some electronics purchases). I have been making new types of art including, more photos, ceramics, jewelry, and t-shirts. Dylan has learned how to brew beer and wine, and has now made our house look like frat boys live here because we have so many empty bottle everywhere. The pro to this is that we are never short on some type of tasty beverage.

Well, I guess it has been a couple of months since I have written on here.  Let me give a brief update of what has been going on.

Dylan and I have been working on the house a lot.  We semi-remodeled the bathroom.  It is a Mexican theme now.

I am still doing ceramics, and did get a smaller wheel to throw on.

We are going to go to New Orleans for Thanksgiving.  I am pretty excited about that.  I haven’t been there since I was a baby.

I feel like I am going brain dead because my classes this semester haven’t require much writing.

That’s about it for now.

I am going to make some cool pumpkins tonight.  Maybe I will post some pics of them.

My mother and I have been taking a ceramics class together.  I am really enjoying it.  In fact, I think that I will take more classes in ceramics in the near future.

After class last night, I couldn’t stop thinking about clay.  All day today I was daydreaming of going to the ceramics lab to make something fun.

Eventually, I hope I can get a wheel at home so that I can continue to make various projects.

Hello to anyone who actually reads my ramblings. I have had quite a crazy month.

Those who know me also know that I own a house in Moore. I purchased this house about 5 years ago, and have been renting it out while I was living out of state.

The renter I have in there now is in his mid-thirties. He has a couple of children who live with him on the weekends.

His rent is due on the first of the month, however, today is the 19th, and I have yet to see a penny from him. I have been paying his water, gas, and trash while he has been living in my house for free!

No fair, I say! So, despite many attempts to contact him to work out payment arrangements , I ended up having to seek an eviction. I go to court on Wednesday (the 25th) to get this freeloader out of there.

I was somewhat worried that he might also try to stick me with the electric bill, which he is responsible for. So I called OG&E to tell them not to let him put the account back in my name without calling me. OG&E told me they had to remove the meter from my house because of crazy things that he was doing! I found out that OG&E had eventually replaced the meter, but also found something more interesting.

I went into my yard to look for the meter and found that the renter had broken into the cable box, pulled the cable out of it, put a splitter on it, and run cable into the house.

It seems he is trying to steal from everyone.

Wow. It has been a long time since I have been able to write.

Things have been really crazy in my life. We have decided to move back to Oklahoma. So, Dylan and I are staying with my parents until we can find a house.

I kind of feel like I am back in high school, but now I am allowed to have boys in the house when my parents aren’t home!
I have been working at Cosimo’s, taking a mosaics class with my mom, and working some nights at Del Rancho with my friend Steffanie.

Mom and I intend to eventually do some mosaic work at The Old School Business Center.

I just wanted to post a quick update. I will try to write more soon.

I am always curious if anyone ever looks for the boutique my mother and I own on google.  When doing a google search the fist thing that comes up is a pizza place in Florida.

I also found a blurb about us on someone else’s blog. It is a girl who’s bracelets we carry in our store. Her line is called JD Star. The bracelets are really cute, and would make great gifts for girlfriends. She keeps photos of them, and stories of her life on her blog.

Dylan and I have been trying to find a used car to buy.  We really need a second one because I need to be able to drive to and from Oklahoma to Cosimo’s without leaving Dylan stranded without transportation.  Plus, our air conditioner is broken in our current one, and the summer will be HOT without it.

We went to San Antonio today to look at a car that is on ebay.  I was really nice, and we hope we can get it even though it looks like it might cost a little more than we were wanting to spend.  It is a 2002 with only 19,000 miles on it though.

While we were is San Antonio we visited some places my parents used to take us to when my sister and I were kids.  It was fun seeing it all again.  Dylan and I roamed the river walk for awhile, got some Mexican food, and had a prickly pear martini.  Then, we went to the Alamo, which was lot smaller than I remembered it being.

Well, Mom and Dad brought all of our boxes down yesterday. Now my dining room is overflowing with randomness.

My mother and I went to an arts festival yesterday. We enjoyed strolling the streets of Austin looking at jewelry and art, and drinking a margarita. Yummy!

However, today is not so fun. It has been a day of hotness and laundry. Right now I am taking a break in the air conditioning because I have been outside in the humidity pretty much all day.  Our a/c broke in our car.  The mechanic told us not to fix it, and just to sell the car. So, we have been driving in the heat.

My mother-in-law is coming down to Austin from Lawton to visit us tonight. Then, after Cosimo’s closes tomorrow, my parents are driving down here.

My husband and I did something that turned out to be really stupid. When we found out we were moving to Austin from DC, we decided to sell all of our furniture and mail our clothes, dishes, and stuff like that back to Oklahoma. We were then going to drive our car to Oklahoma, rent a truck and pick our boxes up.

We did all this because a truck was $1300 (plus a lot of gas) to rent from DC to Austin. The truck was only $300 from Moore to Austin. So, we thought we would save some money.

Well, when we got to Oklahoma not even half of our boxes had made it. We had to go to Austin with very little of our stuff. We have been eating on paper plates and drinking out of paper cups. Let me tell you, it is lots of fun.

So, my mom and dad are leaving Moore after Cosimo’s closes and driving their truck down here to bring us our 26 boxes that didn’t make it to Oklahoma in time for us to pick them up. I will finally get to wear some different clothes then.

Also, always remember that mailing 32 boxes is not much cheaper than renting a truck!