Happy Weekend!

The weekend is something that I find so hard to take advantage of properly. I want to fit in fun things, but I also want to get rest. If I rest too much, it cuts into the fun time. If I don't get enough rest, I'm too grumpy to enjoy the fun time. Most people probably don't over think this weekend business quite like I do, but I think what we would all agree on, is that weekends go by WAY too fast.

After working all kinds of crazy hours in Sacramento, I was definitely excited for the weekend. In March, before we left for California, Aaron and I had taken a financial class through our church. The class was called Financial Peace University, and was created by New York Times Best Selling Author, Dave Ramsey. The class encourages people to eliminate debt in their lives, and assign every dollar that comes into your household a name before the month even begins. Aaron and I became very intense about paying down our debts. This in turn, caused us to cut back on going out, or purchasing little treats for ourselves. But after a long week, we decided to reward ourselves for all our hard work.

On Saturday, we went and saw the movie "Couples Retreat." I don't remember how long it had been since the last time we went out to a movie theatre, but tickets in California were $11.50 each! Thank goodness the movie was so hysterical, it allowed me to forgive the price... a little bit. This movie was the perfect treat for us, because we have couple friends that matched up to the characters almost perfectly. It made the movie that much better, and helped us to really enjoy a restful Saturday, outside of our studio hotel room.

Going Nuts Over Nuts!

When I worked in corporate retail, I was brought into stores that were having visits and asked to fold their jean wall and t-shirt tables. I folded each area to perfection, and once 2am hit, I went home. I was promoted in corporate retail, because I was well-rounded, and had an amazing attention to detail. Nine years later, I am in NorCal, applying all the same qualities to the bulk nut and dried fruit business.

After the briefest four hours of sleep in my life, I met J at 5:00am at our first store. Because we wanted to get eight stores done in two days, and most stores end their receiving hours around noon, we decided to drive to five stores the first day, drop product, and then go back and clean each store. Cleaning one store, depending on the number of bulk bins that it has, takes two or more hours. Since we wanted to service five stores, we were looking at a minimum of a ten hour day right off the bat.

The nerve racking part about going to each store, was that most of them had never been maintained when it comes to cleanliness. When we went to clean the bulk bins at the store level, we were only allowed to use corporate approved cleaning products, and our secret nut oil removing weapon... rubbing alcohol. One of the stores we went to that day actually had moths growing inside the bulk bins. Yummy. We had to put a lot of elbow grease into the stores that day, and sixteen hours later, plus Aaron stopping back at one of our stores for us, we still had to complete three more stores the following day.

At least we got to go rest our pretty heads at the always consistent, Hilton Garden Inn.

Oh rental car, how I loathe thee...

The first time I ever rented a car was in Philadelphia when I was nineteen years old. I know what you're thinking, "Isn't the minimum age 25 to rent a car from most companies?" The answer to that is yes. But when two cute girls approach you, one with an awesome fake, age limitations become a non-issue.

While we were in California, I rented quite a few vehicles for the business. Delivery trucks had been ordered, but were taking longer than expected, and product needed to make its way into stores. Originally, we rented one box truck, and one Saturn Vue. I drove the box truck around for a couple of days, and we loaded up the Vue for the driver working the San Jose area.

After Aaron had been working up in the Sacramento/Reno/Lake Tahoe area for only a day, I got the call that they needed more product up there. Because J, one of the other drivers, was responsible for the lower Sacramento area, we decided that I would take over the Vue for the next couple of days, drive extra product up to the boys, and would meet J up there to clean all the stores in the area that she hadn't made it to yet. This was a fantastic game plan.

After working my area all day on Wednesday, I loaded up the Vue with product for the boys. The mid-sized SUV was so weighed down, that I would have probably popped a wheelie driving out of the parking lot if I wasn't on a downhill slope. Needless to say, I picked up some items from the hotel, and headed out towards Sacramento.

I didn't know the exact location I was driving to when I got on the freeway. Aaron had not decided on a hotel yet, but it would be somewhere in Sacramento, we figured by the time I got close he would be settled, and let me know. I was chatting with my mom for a while, when I noticed that my battery on my cell phone was starting to get low, so I found my car charger and plugged it into the rental car's power outlet. Around this same time, Aaron called to let me know the hotel and exit to take. Then, my cell phone beeped the 'low battery' beep. I looked at the car charger and noticed that it wasn't lit up. I looked for another outlet, but had no luck. Awesome. I don't know where I am, and now my only form of communication and navigation is dying. Since my mom was still on the phone, I asked her to Google the location Aaron had given me. She read me the basic directions and I made notes, just in case my phone didn't make it all the way. We hung up so that I could save battery, and I continued on.

My phone died. A two hour drive turned into a four hour drive. My mom, bless her heart, had given me directions to the wrong Hilton Garden Inn. I got off the freeway in the UC Davis area about four times, trying to get back to the freeway I thought I was supposed to be on. I was near meltdown, when I finally saw the exit that Aaron had told me to take three hours prior. I didn't get to the hotel until 11:00pm, and when I got there, the hotel clerk thought I was some crazy girl, and wouldn't give me a key, or let me go up to the room until he talked to Aaron. When I finally got to sleep that night, I had to wake up four hours later.

Oh Saturn Vue rental car, how I loathe thee and your non-working power outlet.