Hello Tiffy!

I want to know what moron decided neon sunglasses are back in fashion. All I see at the pool anymore are these hideous neon generic sunglasses like the ones that came with promotions in the late 80s. Like these:

Oh wait…. I think I know the culprit. Only his are, sometimes, even less practical than just neon shades.

Yeah, definitely to blame.

Today I had a day off for the first time in a while. I started supporting a new MMO @ work which has me swamped. It was really, really nice. I got more done before noon than I usually do in a week so that was nice. I didn’t even really sleep in, but I assume that is because I am just used to waking up on weekdays but..oh yeah…J woke up for work which woke me up too of course. I started cleaning the bathtub but it is so filthy after about 10 minutes of elbow grease, realized this was not what I was going to spend my time doing today. After that, I decided to kill some time, I would go hit up a bunch of thirft stores I have been meaning to check out for the last year. So I did that, and that was an adventure in itself, but more on that later.

After that I grabbed a corn dog and a diet cherry limeade at Sonic, which was a great pre-pool snack (my main focus going into today’s luxury day off). Went to the pool and enjoyed some sun and talked to some cool people. My friend Monica invited me out to the bar so I went and met a friend of hers, which happens to be a mutual friend of many friends of mine. We had a great time chatting and drinking for a few hours then I made it home. It was definitely a dun and relaxing day. So..back to the thrift store madness….

GoodWill Outlet stores. Yes. They exist. They are called “Blue Hanger”. And seriously? They are frightening!

So You may have visited a thrift store before. Yes they are people’s throw-aways, hand-me-downs, whatever you want to call them. Sometimes you can find some neat, random, sometimes brand-new stuff you feel is more valuable than the used price tag. That is most of the fun of thrift stores. Then there are stores where people throw heaps of used, sometimes urine soaked crap into large plastic bins and everyone goes face first into the bins rummaging through looking for god-knows what kind of random “treasures”.

Anyway, all I know is, I saw some seriously crazy shit today. So I get to the Good Will Blue Hanger and I see a warehouse full of blue plastic tubs lined up on long tables. The smell of the place immediately reminds me of grandma’s house. Musty, musky, moth-bally. I see a few random people digging around. This place is freaking me out slightly, but I continue on my journey. I start rummaging and right away I see 2 books in a bin that I swear I was just considering buying at Target not even 2 weeks ago. I realize there is no price on anything, and I see an older lady across from me, rummaging in another bin, and I ask “Hey, how do you know how much stuff is?”. She becomes my GoodWill guru, and fills me in.

“It depends on who you ask.” “If you ask that guy, (motions to a staff member) it is probably 50 cents but if you ask *her* (another staff member) it will probably be a buck.” “No biggie though, everything is real cheap, and be careful, this gets addicting.”

No worries there…

Ok so anyway I start to rummage around, and I find I am so not willing to rummage. People around me are just throwing shit everywhere, getting to the bottoms of the bins. I am so not interested in getting that down and dirty in what to me looks like other peoples garbage. I want to make a note I am not above shopping thrift… I actually love it, usually. When shit is sorted out and the books are in an area, shoes are in an area, toys…etc. This place had everything EVERYWHERE. In any given bin I could find one right children’s shoe mixed in with some pogs from the 90s, mixed in with a high school trophy for adam sanderson, jv football captain from the Austin bobcats (92-93). It was a bit much for me. then the nice helpful lady a few minutes ago comes running at me with her cart full of crap. I see her bolting at me and stop and look. She leans into me as if she has something very important to tell me.

“Hey, one more thing!”
“Oh, hi, ya?”
“You see those staff members filling up those bins in that aisle?” (motions to the farthest aisle)
“Yeah?”
“When they are done filling them up, stay out of the way. People will come running over and knock over everything! Those are the latest items! Everyone is waiting for those!”
“oh…ok”
“Yeah people camp out here all day waiting for those new bins. People stop at nothing to be first to see what there is…this is the last stop for all this stuff, before it goes to the dump.”

I start to look around this huge warehouse of crap and I realize how sad it is that all this crap is totally going into a landfill any day now. It is concerning but at the same time, really nothing one can do about it, other than save it. Suddenly, these weirdos around me, salvaging rotting toys and drinking glasses from McDonalds promotions in the 70s are not as bad as I thought. I mean yes, seeing how people can have a cart full of complete crap is sad on one hand, but these people are enjoying their day, and I could tell they were happy. AND it was less crap to go into a landfill.

As for me, I made it out of there with a few Hello Kitty items that would be perfect for my desk. I left my finds in the car but I will post pics tomorrow. I mean seriously, I got a hello kitty pencil holder, a hello kitty pez lunch box and an adult hello kitty watch with little crystals in it (and practically brand new looking), and a pink organizational basket for $3.25. If anything, it was definitely entertainment… although seeing people line up for rummaging through urine-soaked items (at times) was a little bit freaky.

I am sure I will be back…

Testing from bed. Technology is pretty grand.

Going to the pool is a frequent occurence now, as we in Austin are approaching 100+ degrees daily, but today was especially memorable. So when I was back in California Tri-Trip Steak is one of the most normal cuts of steak that you can buy and it happens to be very lean and delicious. When we moved to Austin, TX we noticed that we could not find Tri-Tip anywhere. The first day we had settled into our new home we went to the grocery store and asked the butcher where we can buy it so we can bbq one up that night as a celebratory dinner and the guy looked at us like we were on crack. We have lived without tri-tip for almost a year now, but recently my co-worker who has a costco membership called to tell me they not only have standard-marinated tri-tip there, they have a chipotle marinated version! I went to costco and got a membership and omg isthat tri-tip ever good.

So today we went out to the pool to cook up the tri-tip and have some beers, and we made friends with these two guys there. One of them is visiting the other guy, military guy, just got back from Iraq. They asked what smelled so good, I told them it was tri-tip and both of them gave me this crazy look! So I explained again, what tri-tip was, and they had to try some, well I made them. They both agreed it was the best steak ever and one of them said “Holy shit, this californian knows how to make a steak, wtf”.

I think we need to do a tri-tip across america tour, cause honestly this shit is too good and how is it that a state that prides their meats like TX doesn’t know about it? Anyway. Fun day, and I fed a soldier.

Tri-tip news

……………Tiff after going to the lake.

I decided to go on an innertube pulled by a boat on Sunday. I have to say I am in no where near the shape that I should be to do that sort of thing but I did it. Boy was I in pain afterward. However the few minutes of adrenaline rush *were* fun, I will admit. I have polka dot black and blue bruises all over my body and I severely screwed up my back to the point I had to stay home from work yesterday. All good, though. I basically just tore some major muscles that you never use in your back. They are like the muscles if you traced your shoulder-muscle down to the middle of your back, they were ripped to shreds and *oh* did it ever hurt the next day. Well, the next day was Monday, and I had a hard time working that day too. I figured it would not be that bad but I had a very hard time sleeping on Monday night so Tuesday when I woke up I was utterly exhausted and decided to take it easy and stay home from work. I found, amusingly, I was great when laying down and standing up/walking, but sitting was a killer. I could not even straighten my back. Anyway, I went to work today and I feel ten times better.

I am good at getting injured. It really does pay to stay in some kind of shape. Getting on the boat platform was pretty amusing as well to people other than myself. I had to do this “beached-whale hop” from the water onto the boat platform just to get up while other people could just use.. what are they called..oh, the MUSCLES IN THEIR ARMS. Yeah I don’t have any of those. Stopped the EA Active too early… Lol. I plan to get back into that soon though.  Blah blah… Alli pills they are good… Lost 10 lb but gained back 4 after stopping the pills… now I am back on the pills… no need to go on about that, story of my life ya know!

However, I am still loving life here in Austin. I mean really. I love the heat, I love the work that I am doing, & I love the people I spend most of my time with. I would say that this was a great move for me, considering it is almost my 1st Texa-verssary (as I like to call it) I am very pleased. We signed the lease on our apartment for another 14 months and we got 600 bucks back for doing so and a box of godiva chocolates (only had 1!)….(box!)….(jk, only one chocolate).

I am looking forward to July 4th, as it is not only falling on a Saturday this year, finally, but also it is gonna be damn good bbq weather! Can’t expect much different in sunny (or as some call it, sweltering) Austin.

I am a total liar, cause I no longer intend on posting about those previous things I promised about. How about….tanning? Tanning rocks, (if you are the right kind of person), for many reasons!

I have been quietly calculating when the best time to re-start my blog is. I am thinking possibly sometime this month. Stay tuned.

PS Thanks for coming

So the other day I started feeling a lot better but now I would say I am a 9 out of 10. Finally. I think we all know to feel a 9 out of 10 any day of the week is a blessing, and I am so happy I am back feeling good and ready to rock. Only problem is that I need to rest more… I am working myself way too ragged but I was politely asked to work this weekend so of course I am doing so. My condition for working this weekend was that this week at some point I can wake up and open my eyes in the morning and decide to take a day off, to which I will text my boss and say I will not be in that day. That sounds pretty sweet to me, because I can treat every day like it is Friday and if I want to sleep in I can do so. If only every day were so luxurious.

I have had a decent weekend so far. J & I went to the bar across the street last night and had some yummy and fattening food with beer, we hung out for a while and talked about stuff. Tonight, I went out to dinner/drinks with my friend Monica. Monica I have known for a long time. I met her during my previous employed time at EA in the Bay Area and she was from Austin. She moved back, and it was crappy! Well that was pretty fun calling her up about a week before I moved here telling her I was moving here. What a shock, and it is awesome having a built-in girlfriend when you move to a strange new town.

My plans for tomorrow are wake up-go to work-come home-do my second job-look forward to day off. I am beginning to feel a real toll on my health, well-being, spirit, motivation, whatever you want to call it, without regular pre-determined rest……… I do not know how the Japanese do this.

My left ear is STILL CLOGGED! Yes this is BITCHING BLOG. I went to the Dr. the other day due to my sickness and he told me that my ears are full of wax. Yay… I told him I stopped using q-tips because the news said that ears clean themselves out and q-tips can be damaging. He confirmed that the news was telling the truth… but some people’s won’t clean themselves out, and apparently I am one of those people. So I have like tons of wax in my ears. I could hear fine, then though. He says go to the store and get this Debrox wax removal stuff. It is like liquid that comes in a container like a nasal drops container. Anyway, I used that stuff and it was kinda cool I heard all this popping and fizzing, yes that is disgusting but it was also cool. Then I got to wash some of the wax out of my ear. Well that was 4 days ago and my ear is still clogged. Supposedly, this is normal if you have a lot of wax and I probably got the liquid too far in my ear, and now I get to wait for it to dry. When it dries, I should be able to hear again. In the mean time life is annoying hearing it out of one ear let me tell you. If I am sleeping on the open side when my alarm goes off I can not really hear it!

I unplugged it earlier at work for a sec and I was so happy…then 3 minutes later I sneezed and it clogged again. Lol…. I swear my life is a sitcom. I am miserable lately but I feel better today than I have in a few weeks. I guess the meds are working… yay!

I think I am running myself ragged or something, I keep getting sicker…. I am taking tomorrow off. My throat hurts so bad when I swallow I almost tear up

Someone, please send me happy healthy thoughts…