Lesson Learned

So the past 3 days I've been at our National Nutrition Conference (FNCE) in Boston! Yay exciting because its a change of pace, but it gets dark at 4:30 pm, it was raining, and I was tired a lot of the time. However, I was in charge of booking our hotel. My boss likes to stay as close to the convention center as possible, if not in the convention center hotel. Well, that wasn't happening-we jumped on it too late. So, we ended up booking at the Intercontinental Boston (a 4 or 5 star hotel on the waterfront-hey it was the closest!). Probably the most expensive hotel I've ever stayed at before. Anyway...we checked in to them being over booked in the 2 queen bed rooms so we were upgraded to a suite! One with a living, dining, 2 bathrooms-glass shower and HUGE tub separate, etc you get the point.

I'm nosey and I like to see what everything is in the room, but I was trying to find the TV guide so that I knew what channel Amazing Race was on-turns out the guide was on the TV. Through my search I stumbled on the mini bar and the prices!! to the mini bar. Holy Cow! $5 for a 10 ounce diet coke, $8 for peanut m & ms, $18 for a shot of grey goose, etc you see the point here. Well, I learned my lesson with these highly expensive items when after I had touched and taken them out in excitement over the price I found out (from my co-worker Christina-who I didn't believe was right until we called the front desk) that every time you touch something-whether you eat or drink it or not, you get charged automatically! What?! I know you are thinking the same thing...how can they do that. Well, its an automated system that has sensors and can tell when you remove something and it is automatically charged to your bill. It doesn't make sense only because if you are nosey & excited like me I just took them out to show my boss how much they were and placed them back in their rightful places (I even "faced" them-made it so the label was in the front since that's how they were before my fingers touched them). So there it all is touched, but still there and they still charge! They still charge even though a guy comes around daily checking the mini bar and restocking it. I would think that he would see that its still there, but it doesn't matter. Wow! Fortunately, since we called front desk to see if it was true the receptionist said she would have it all removed providing that it was all there when the mini bar guy checked it the next day. Phew! That was a close one. I'm sure I wont have to worry about it in my personal future since we are cheap and go for hotwire.coms <$100 hotel rooms/night (not over $400), but remember that when you almost puke over the prices of the mini bar. I knew my mom always told me to look with my eyes and not with my hands! To be honest, I'm still shocked as I'm typing!

He's Got Skills

This is the last of our projects before winter comes and we (really mean Jake) squished it in right before the frost the past 2 weeks. Our deck was in need of a face lift. Its a nice size, but the people who built it didnt treat or do anything to it. So for 4 or more years its been being weathered and this is what it looks like...not a color any kind of wood should be! Actually, I dont have a before before picture up-this is after we cleaned it with some kind of cleaner we got from Lowes. If you can see the fence in the background-that was the color of the deck before before.

So we had to clean it-which was step 1 and then it had to dry. The lady at Lowes told us NOT TO POWERWASH and gave us tons of reasons why. So we picked up some cleaner for $15 sprayed it on and washed it off 10 minutes later. Easy as that.

Jake started out staining the railing since he knew it would be a multi-step process just for the stain. This picture (below) shows the color the best out of the rest of them. A nice cedar-mahogany color to brighten up that ugly dull deck.

This started step 2 of deck staining-the actual deck.

And a couple final pictures-although the sun was so bright you can hardly tell the color.

After 3 days and days between waiting with about 10 hours of work-its complete! And looks great :) Now the fence still looks like crap-so we are trying to decide what we are going to do. Jake thinks he wants to stain it too....I told him I'm not in on that project-its going to take weeks! He's ambitious when it comes to these projects. He has mentioned spray painting the fence, but oddly enough it doesnt bother me as much as the deck did. Its not getting done or even on the list until spring/summer time.

Now, we are going to get started focusing on the nursery which needs painted first-only a project for daddy!

2 1/2 Years of Marriage & I Never Knew!

Yesterday Jake didn't have to go to work until noon so that meant a little more time in the morning together before we each left. While we were getting ready in the bathroom he asked me if I know how to put toilet paper on the roll..of course I said yeah I just did that one the other day, why? Apparently I put it on the roll wrong! He said don't you know that you always put it so it comes over the top so you don't have to go "fishing" (was his exact word) for it at the bottom?! I laughed and said are you serious? We've been married for 2 1/2 years and been living together for longer than that and this is the first time you've ever said anything? He said, yeah, I just usually change it! BAhah! Isn't that the funniest thing ever :) I always heard of people debating on how the toilet paper rolls, but (there are a lot of things that bother me if not done correctly) toilet paper on the roll is not one of them! Which way does your toilet paper roll...over the top or underneath?

Operation Clearance Update

Mission complete at 9:45 am at my first stop-T.J. Maxx. I stopped by on Saturday and saw they had 50% off and thought I'd return today to see if the prices would be even lower...and I was right! More than 75% off! Not many choices, but I found the cutest Strawberry Shortcake or maybe just Strawberry costume for $3.00 for the little miss next year. And, a pumpkin costume for my unborn niece or nephew-Anthony's girlfriend is due in May. They are going to look so cute in their clearance outfits! No need to stop by Old Navy or Target.