GreedyGirl
Pickled Onion
THE EMAIL:
There`s still a couple more days to go on our GG Wedding Reception and I`ve been going back and forth whether or not to save the big treat until the last day...
I`ve decided to put krystalkitty, LaurieK, jjjamms and many others out of their misery and so, yes--it`s time for a WinADay Sweepstakes!!!
If you don`t know about the Sweepstakes, this is where just one little GG can purchase you up to $500 in WinADay casino cash! There are dozens of WinADay cash prizes as well as plenty of GG prizes to be won! Just remember, in order to win any WinADay casino cash, you will have had to have made a minimum $50 deposit in the past 30 days, PRIOR to the Sweepstakes going off.
Enjoy and good luck!!!
AND NOW FOR THE CONTINUING SAGA OF THE DAYS LEADING UP TO THE BIG WEDDING...
Time for Vegas trip #2. This time, there would be little time for fun and games (booze and gambling!). Nope. I was on a mission! While I was flying off to Vegas, I kept thinking about that stupid Vegas sign. There HAD to be something that would be as iconic as that sign where we could have our ceremony. I wanted iconic—not hokey like some cheesy wedding chapel, complete with Elvis officiating. As off-the-beaten-path as I knew this wedding would be, this was STILL our wedding! I didn’t want a joke!
Quite literally as the plane was landing in Vegas, the biggest brainstorm hit me!!! That place with all the old neon signs! How freakin’ cool would THAT be??? The moment the flight attendants said we could turn on our cell phones, I was Googling ‘neon signs Vegas’ and lo and behold—The Neon Museum! The old outdoor burial site for Vegas’ most memorable neon signs had now been turned into a museum and best of all, portions of the museum could be hired for events…like my wedding! Woo-hoo!!! I contacted the museum immediately and within minutes, we’d booked the site! I hadn’t even been in Vegas 20 minutes and I already chopped one of my ‘musts’ on my list straight off!
Next on the list was to locate a restaurant. I rented a convertible, took the top down and drove off to the general vicinity of the Neon Museum in search of the perfect restaurant. I drove…I drove some more…finally after miles and hours of canvassing the streets, I came across what seemed to be the perfect restaurant! This place was within two miles of the museum, had an amazing outdoor deck—it looked almost like a living room that was missing walls, with a big fireplace in the center, sofas, cushy chairs and tables to dine at. The menu was a bit pricey, but this place was perfect! I spoke with the hostess who explained the catering manager was not in, but gave me her card and told me to contact her the following Monday (the day after I’d return home).
I was feeling sorta ok about the restaurant situation—there was an alternate place that would be ok if that first place didn’t sort out, but the second place didn’t have quite the same quirkiness that I love. I figured it was a Plan B though, so I was confident the restaurant aspect was adequately covered. Besides, it was getting late, I was getting massively sunburned in the 114 degree heat (never occurred to me to put the top back up on the car!) and I wanted to get going on the cake. If I could get the cake under control, I’d basically have that night and the next day to myself to have fun!
I headed off to a bakery I’d heard tons of great stuff about—this place was amazing, and accommodating, offering an impromptu cake tasting. OMG! I’d heard about cake tastings, but I was not prepared for what was ahead! A dozen different cake flavors…at least that many different fillings…and at least that many frostings!
After enough sugar to put a diabetic in a coma, I selected the flavors I knew Joe would like best and decided on the perfect cake style. Check the cake off the to-do list! Now I only had relaxing and having fun on my list for the next day and a half! Life is good!
As I left Vegas for home, I was feeling great about everything. Although there was still much to be done, the critical points were out of the way, for the most part. After all, I had three and a half months to get everything done. Piece of cake!
Or so I thought.
Once I returned home, everything in my life seemed to fall apart. Quickly. Everyday I’d wake up to a new crisis. The first crisis began when I phoned the catering manager for that restaurant that I loved, and she let me know that the Sunday before my wedding would be the restaurants last day of operation—they were closing down permanently. She was kind enough to ask if we would consider moving our wedding to an earlier date? Uh, no.
I rang the ‘Plan B’ restaurant. Flat out, they wanted no part of our wedding craziness. Fine! Their food probably sucked anyhow!
Crap. Now what?
This is when things got REALLY bad: It began with my tooth/mouth pain which is actually quite serious and will require surgery very soon. Bryan called to tell me he was selling GG—I may be out of a job! Joe became ill out of nowhere and landed in the hospital, where doctors were perplexed as to what was causing his illness. Then the morning I was picking up Joe from the hospital, well, that’s the morning that I realized our home had some serious issues—I found a mushroom growing between the wall and baseboard in our master bathroom. Doctors confirmed that if we had a mold problem (which was confirmed by a mold inspector a few days later), this would be causing Joe’s illness. Unfortunately, our landlord was struggling financially and broke the news to us that she would be unable to fix the problem. We had no choice but to move…and to do so as quickly as possible.
All of this began cropping up about a week after my returning from that last Vegas trip, with all bits occurring within a month. It was all so overwhelming…and all of this before the wedding. I couldn’t discern what was the most urgent to deal with: Worrying about having a job if Bryan sold the site or finding a new home? I mean, if I didn’t have a job, how much could we afford?
No. Clearly, Joe’s health was paramount to everything. The first priority was to find a home, which proved to be far more difficult than we could have imagined. There was just no inventory of homes available that would be suitable for us to settle into. We had no choice but to lease a home that we knew from the start would only be temporary for us. We’d just have to wait until after the wedding to start our housing search again.
While searching for a home, an angel came swooping in with a stunning idea: “Why don’t YOU buy GoneGambling, Deb?” Huh? That’s just crazy. He explained how I could do it and how this all made sense…best of all, I’d still have a paycheck. After plenty of talks with Bryan, the ‘angel’, Joe and lots of soul-searching, we were able to come to an agreement and you know the rest. The timing was somewhat difficult, though, with the move and the wedding coming up.
Wait! The wedding?!?!? Holy %#@&!!! It was now less than two months away and how on earth could I pull this off?!?!? My days were spent packing the mold-home and I was somehow doing the best to somewhat keep up with work (obviously, I wasn’t doing all that well to that end—thank goodness for Deeds!). How was I supposed to find time to deal with a silly thing like a WEDDING?!?!?
Fortunately, I have amazing and incredibly supportive friends who if nothing else, talked me off the ledge…daily. There’s an old saying: “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” That saying was penned for me, I’m certain! And that’s all I could do…just keep putting one foot in front of the other and somehow keep my sense of humor.
So, beginning September 1st, we moved in our new, temporary home. It took four days to get the move finished (so many problems with the move—I won’t bore you) and finally, by September 5th, I was FINALLY able to dive into getting the rest of the wedding details finalized. Twenty-five little days to get everything done. Could it happen???
Stay tuned and find out!
There`s still a couple more days to go on our GG Wedding Reception and I`ve been going back and forth whether or not to save the big treat until the last day...
I`ve decided to put krystalkitty, LaurieK, jjjamms and many others out of their misery and so, yes--it`s time for a WinADay Sweepstakes!!!
If you don`t know about the Sweepstakes, this is where just one little GG can purchase you up to $500 in WinADay casino cash! There are dozens of WinADay cash prizes as well as plenty of GG prizes to be won! Just remember, in order to win any WinADay casino cash, you will have had to have made a minimum $50 deposit in the past 30 days, PRIOR to the Sweepstakes going off.
Enjoy and good luck!!!
AND NOW FOR THE CONTINUING SAGA OF THE DAYS LEADING UP TO THE BIG WEDDING...
Time for Vegas trip #2. This time, there would be little time for fun and games (booze and gambling!). Nope. I was on a mission! While I was flying off to Vegas, I kept thinking about that stupid Vegas sign. There HAD to be something that would be as iconic as that sign where we could have our ceremony. I wanted iconic—not hokey like some cheesy wedding chapel, complete with Elvis officiating. As off-the-beaten-path as I knew this wedding would be, this was STILL our wedding! I didn’t want a joke!
Quite literally as the plane was landing in Vegas, the biggest brainstorm hit me!!! That place with all the old neon signs! How freakin’ cool would THAT be??? The moment the flight attendants said we could turn on our cell phones, I was Googling ‘neon signs Vegas’ and lo and behold—The Neon Museum! The old outdoor burial site for Vegas’ most memorable neon signs had now been turned into a museum and best of all, portions of the museum could be hired for events…like my wedding! Woo-hoo!!! I contacted the museum immediately and within minutes, we’d booked the site! I hadn’t even been in Vegas 20 minutes and I already chopped one of my ‘musts’ on my list straight off!
Next on the list was to locate a restaurant. I rented a convertible, took the top down and drove off to the general vicinity of the Neon Museum in search of the perfect restaurant. I drove…I drove some more…finally after miles and hours of canvassing the streets, I came across what seemed to be the perfect restaurant! This place was within two miles of the museum, had an amazing outdoor deck—it looked almost like a living room that was missing walls, with a big fireplace in the center, sofas, cushy chairs and tables to dine at. The menu was a bit pricey, but this place was perfect! I spoke with the hostess who explained the catering manager was not in, but gave me her card and told me to contact her the following Monday (the day after I’d return home).
I was feeling sorta ok about the restaurant situation—there was an alternate place that would be ok if that first place didn’t sort out, but the second place didn’t have quite the same quirkiness that I love. I figured it was a Plan B though, so I was confident the restaurant aspect was adequately covered. Besides, it was getting late, I was getting massively sunburned in the 114 degree heat (never occurred to me to put the top back up on the car!) and I wanted to get going on the cake. If I could get the cake under control, I’d basically have that night and the next day to myself to have fun!
I headed off to a bakery I’d heard tons of great stuff about—this place was amazing, and accommodating, offering an impromptu cake tasting. OMG! I’d heard about cake tastings, but I was not prepared for what was ahead! A dozen different cake flavors…at least that many different fillings…and at least that many frostings!
After enough sugar to put a diabetic in a coma, I selected the flavors I knew Joe would like best and decided on the perfect cake style. Check the cake off the to-do list! Now I only had relaxing and having fun on my list for the next day and a half! Life is good!
As I left Vegas for home, I was feeling great about everything. Although there was still much to be done, the critical points were out of the way, for the most part. After all, I had three and a half months to get everything done. Piece of cake!
Or so I thought.
Once I returned home, everything in my life seemed to fall apart. Quickly. Everyday I’d wake up to a new crisis. The first crisis began when I phoned the catering manager for that restaurant that I loved, and she let me know that the Sunday before my wedding would be the restaurants last day of operation—they were closing down permanently. She was kind enough to ask if we would consider moving our wedding to an earlier date? Uh, no.
I rang the ‘Plan B’ restaurant. Flat out, they wanted no part of our wedding craziness. Fine! Their food probably sucked anyhow!
Crap. Now what?
This is when things got REALLY bad: It began with my tooth/mouth pain which is actually quite serious and will require surgery very soon. Bryan called to tell me he was selling GG—I may be out of a job! Joe became ill out of nowhere and landed in the hospital, where doctors were perplexed as to what was causing his illness. Then the morning I was picking up Joe from the hospital, well, that’s the morning that I realized our home had some serious issues—I found a mushroom growing between the wall and baseboard in our master bathroom. Doctors confirmed that if we had a mold problem (which was confirmed by a mold inspector a few days later), this would be causing Joe’s illness. Unfortunately, our landlord was struggling financially and broke the news to us that she would be unable to fix the problem. We had no choice but to move…and to do so as quickly as possible.
All of this began cropping up about a week after my returning from that last Vegas trip, with all bits occurring within a month. It was all so overwhelming…and all of this before the wedding. I couldn’t discern what was the most urgent to deal with: Worrying about having a job if Bryan sold the site or finding a new home? I mean, if I didn’t have a job, how much could we afford?
No. Clearly, Joe’s health was paramount to everything. The first priority was to find a home, which proved to be far more difficult than we could have imagined. There was just no inventory of homes available that would be suitable for us to settle into. We had no choice but to lease a home that we knew from the start would only be temporary for us. We’d just have to wait until after the wedding to start our housing search again.
While searching for a home, an angel came swooping in with a stunning idea: “Why don’t YOU buy GoneGambling, Deb?” Huh? That’s just crazy. He explained how I could do it and how this all made sense…best of all, I’d still have a paycheck. After plenty of talks with Bryan, the ‘angel’, Joe and lots of soul-searching, we were able to come to an agreement and you know the rest. The timing was somewhat difficult, though, with the move and the wedding coming up.
Wait! The wedding?!?!? Holy %#@&!!! It was now less than two months away and how on earth could I pull this off?!?!? My days were spent packing the mold-home and I was somehow doing the best to somewhat keep up with work (obviously, I wasn’t doing all that well to that end—thank goodness for Deeds!). How was I supposed to find time to deal with a silly thing like a WEDDING?!?!?
Fortunately, I have amazing and incredibly supportive friends who if nothing else, talked me off the ledge…daily. There’s an old saying: “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” That saying was penned for me, I’m certain! And that’s all I could do…just keep putting one foot in front of the other and somehow keep my sense of humor.
So, beginning September 1st, we moved in our new, temporary home. It took four days to get the move finished (so many problems with the move—I won’t bore you) and finally, by September 5th, I was FINALLY able to dive into getting the rest of the wedding details finalized. Twenty-five little days to get everything done. Could it happen???
Stay tuned and find out!
