I'M AT THE NEW SPOT


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WELL, IT'S TUESDAY

I'm pretty swamped here at work I figured you guys deserved some kind of post this week. I'm working tomorrow but after that, I won't be back for almost two glorious weeks. Thursday I plan to go broke splurge and give myself a spa day before heading home for the weekend. Four days and counting until THE BIG DAY! Sometime next month, my name will change to "Gecko Girl Chill" (no hyphen, I'm not that liberated, LOL) so I figured it would be a good time to change blogs as well. I'm moving over to Blogsome Bay so if anyone wants to hook me up with a new template, shoot me an e-mail :-)

Unfortunately, my house still hasn't sold and we have yet to find a new place. I guess the latter is a moot point though because I don't think anyone wants to be saddled with THREE mortgages... Therefore, I can't even think of moving until my house is under contract. There are plenty of great houses out there - just not close to work (I've gotten spoiled by my 6 mile commute), close to the highway, with a finished basement and in our price range. Oh well, such is life.

On a more positive note, two gifts arrived yesterday. One was from my old Cali coworkers (including the girl who replaced me and I only met once, after the fact) and the other was from my current coworkers. That was definitely a pleasant surprise. I hope everyone enjoys the long weekend. If I can get the Blogsome site up and running soon, I might post the link and some pics.

IT'S A FAMILY AFFAIR

Summer is almost here and you know what that means...it's family reunion season. My dad's family has theirs on even years and my mom's family has theirs on odd years. That means I have a reunion every friggin' July. Not that I don’t love my family but my mom’s family reunions are always wack and we’re not close to (and don’t know half of) my dad’s family.

My dad is hounding me about going to his reunion this year. Let’s see –

reunion costs - $125
hotel costs - $142
airfare - $253
miscellaneous - $80
spending $600 and using a vacation day for a weekend in DETROIT…not gonna happen

He’s not happy with that decision but oh well. I feel I’ve granted more than enough of his familial requests for this year – namely agreeing to have my wedding in my hometown (vs a destination wedding) so that family could come and paying for one of my cousin’s kids to go to camp.

Moving on to my mom’s reunion for next year, the family took a vote and decided the next reunion would be in Atlanta. Well, since I’m the only one who lives in Atlanta, that means I’m stuck planning it. I wanted to have the next one at a resort (preferably at the beach) but I was out-voted. The main problem with me having to plan the reunion (besides not having any help) is that I refuse to put on a wack reunion and good reunions cost money...and getting money from my family is like squeezing blood out of a turnip. I’ve tried to start checking out group rates for the hotels around here but most won’t give you a price more than a year ahead of time. Darn them for making me wait two more months to start planning. Anyway, if any of you guys have fun/unique reunion ideas, I’d love to hear them.

RAIN, RAIN, GO AWAY

The rain is really starting to get on my nerves. It was pouring down on Thursday night, which meant that GeckoBro couldn't bring my bike back. It was pouring down on Sunday morning and I hate going out in the rain. On the bright side, there was no problem finding a parking space or a seat at church. Now, rumor has it, it's going to pour down this afternoon which may interfere with getting my fallen tree cut up and removed. I know April showers bring May flowers but April has passed!

The planets have aligned in my favor and I have a FIVE day weekend for the Fourth of July. I’m trying to figure out how to properly take an advantage of what could be a mini-vaca without actually using any vacation time. I was leaning toward going somewhere in the Caribbean since it’s a short flight from here but darn it if Delta doesn’t have ANY frequent flier seats available. Now I’m clueless as to where I could go.

edited - Well, it's pouring down raining as predicted so the tree guy has been rescheduled until tomorrow and I went home for nothing.

GOING TO THE CHAPEL COURTHOUSE

I went to the courthouse on Friday to get my marriage license. I was a bit surprised to see three couples (out of the five there, including us) were getting married immediately after getting their licenses. I don't know that I'd want Cinco de Mayo for my anniversary but I digress...

The first girl was wearing a veil. I originally thought it was cute that she was wearing her veil to get her marriage license. Then I realized the five or six people standing along the wall were with her and she was going to get married right away. She had on a white shirt and khaki pants. When she turned in my direction, I noticed that she was about five months pregnant. She walked away and I proceeded to the counter. About ten minutes later, I stopped in the restroom on my way out and she'd changed into a wedding dress. Not a white dress that she happened to have, but a full-fledged white satin ballgown wedding dress. The strange thing was that she left on her khaki heeled sandals. Surely she could have picked up some el cheapo white shoes for the occasion. My guess is that she'd started planning the wedding and bought the dress then got pregnant and wanted to get married before the baby was born and/or wear the dress while she could still fit into it. She and her attendants proceeded through the courthouse and down the stairs. We were tempted to follow her and watch her get married but we didn't.

Neither the second couple or the third couple had a group like the first couple. I don't know who was going to be their witnesses. The second girl had on a white dress, sort of a formal sundress. The guy had on a dark suit with white pinstripes. I'm not a fan of those Steve Harvey suits but they were somewhat matching. The third couple was coordinated as well. I guess the girl decided not to fake the funk by wearing white in light of the fact that her/their two sons were with them. She wore an ocean blue dress and the guy had on a blue shirt to match. I guess getting married can be cheap ($43.50 for the marriage license) if you want it to be. If I didn't have any money, I'd rather have a house wedding than a courthouse wedding but I guess that's just me.


RANDOM FUNNY STORY
I got my hair rodded over the weekend but I normally (as in 99.999% of the time) wear my hair straight/wrapped. My cubemate told me he likes the curls and that he had pretty curly hair when he was younger. He said that his hair was pretty dry though so he would put jheri curl juice in his hair so that he could rock the Rick James look. Mind you, this is a white guy. He said he'd get some pretty funny looks going to the beauty supply store buying curl juice. LOL.

TGIF
well it's Friday for me

All is well in GeckoWorld. C2A referred me to a guy who can probably fix my window and one of jezchill's coworkers is going to cut up the fallen tree next week for only $25. There was a message on my answering machine last night from a realtor who wants to show my house today. Hopefully the window and tree won't deter the buyer. While I am not looking forward to having to move twice in the span of a few months, I AM looking forward to getting my house sold and depositing that phat check into my savings account. I'm on track to meet ALL of my financial goals this year. Woo hoo! Saturday I plan on checking out a few houses that seem promising. I'm not going to get my hopes up but I will keep my fingers crossed. Once we get settled in a new house, I can FINALLY get another car. Did I mention I've wanted another car ever since I got this one way back in July 1999? LOL.

In the meantime, I'm trying to think of some more trips to take this year. My calendar for the next seven months is looking a bit empty. We have the honeymoon in TWENTY-FIVE days and Vegas in September and that's it. I'm hoping we can get Cirque du Soleil tickets. That's the main reason I go to Vegas. I absolutely love the Cirque shows. One of my goals is to see them all. I had to go all the way to the airport on Tuesday to redeem a Delta voucher I had for the Vegas trip. Darn them for closing the ticket office near my house. Anyway, the customer service rep (or whatever you call them) was wearing a three piece suit. I don't know when Delta got so spiffy with their uniforms but I must admit the guy did look dashing. However, he seemed a bit out of place standing behind the ticket counter next to frumpy, middle-aged, cardiganed women wearing sturdy shoes.

I took a salsa class at the gym last night. It was quite fun and funny. There's nothing like seeing the same guys that were just benchpressing 225lb dumbells get their swivel-hip (BC 2005) on. They were mamboing it up. It's hard to look tough when you're twirling and dipping.

Well, that's all for now. I'm hitting the road in the morning. You guys have a great weekend.

WELL THEY RUINED IT FOR THE REST OF US

Don't you just hate it when a couple of goof balls ruin it for everyone? I work in what can be called a "secure area". Because of that, vending machines aren't allowed. To save everyone from the plight of no snacks, some kind souls took it upon themselves to create snack areas on every floor. These wonderful people go out and buy snacks to stock the snack areas and post a price list. A coffee can is used to collect money and it's on the honor system. You get your snacks, toss your money in the can and all is well. Every so often, money is taken from the coffee can and the snacks are replenished.

Well, this morning an e-mail was sent stating that the snack area on my floor is being shut down. (This previously happened on another floor as well.) The reason? They are not collecting enough money to restock the supply. In plain English, someone is stealing the snacks and/or the coffee can money. WTF? For one, it's trifling because I don't think anyone who works here is THAT poor. Secondly, these same people are trusted with all kinds of sensitive information but can't be trusted with snacks and chump change. Bastids. For now, I can go to the floor below for my snacks (they have better ones anyway) but I suspect it will only be a matter of time before their area is shut down too.

In other news, trees don't like me. I don't know what I ever did to any of them. If you recall, I returned from Europe to find a tree branch had broken my window. (Which STILL isn't fixed by the way. Who knew it'd be so hard to get a window replaced in this town.) Yesterday I was doing some stuff on the computer and heard a strange noise. I looked out the window to discover a tree had fallen down in the backyard. Thankfully it fell away from the house and didn't cause any damage. But now I have to try to find someone with a chainsaw to cut it up and haul it away. Sigh. Did I mention I'm trying to sell my house? Broken windows and fallen trees are NOT a good look.