Memorial Day Weekend

This wonderful three day weekend celebrating all those who so generously gave of their time and lives to keep the United States and the American dream alive and well, found the inhabitants of Roccoland busily scurrying this way and that. :)

On Saturday, MeLissa started off her day by making some much-needed "renovations" to our deck area. After serving as the home of Banshee, our errant kitty, for a few months and after a long and rainy "winter" (it very very rarely snows here so we use the term winter loosely), the deck was looking mighty messy. So messy that we wouldn't even take a "before" picture to show you! (We rarely think to take before pictures, though, regardless of the state of affairs so this doesn't really mean much.) After a few hours of pruning, sweeping, organizing and more sweeping, we are happy to unveil the result!

Of course, it no longer looks like this either. MeLissa made a few small adjustments so that it would look even better and so that it would be inviting. Perhaps we'll get a picture of this in the near future. Until then, perhaps you would enjoy pictures of our beautiful hydrangea blossom (a plant gift from Mark's mom!) and our cute little Winnie the Pooh bird bath which was one of MeLissa's favorite wedding gifts given to us by Mark's Uncle Timmy and Aunt Michiko. If we ever remember to buy some more seed mix, we'll take the plants out and feed the birdies that live in the tree beside our deck! Oh, and anyone who has a suggestion of how to remove the mossy green color from our deck easily, please let us know. MeLissa "mopped" it off with lysol and bleach last year but really would prefer and easier method this time around.

After MeLissa was pleased with the preliminary deck results, we went out for some errands. We headed to Office Max to see if they had something that would hold and allow MeLissa to cart around her invitation books. She's now a proud dealer of the Encore Studios line of wedding and social invitations (including Bar and Bat Mitzvah invites) as well as their birth announcements. The catalogs are exquisite and quite large so it was tricky finding something that they would fit in. Office Max wasn't the place. We took a detour to look at GPS units at Best Buy (we're thinking MeLissa might need one of these to find all these nifty vendors and sites she needs to visit in the next couple of months as she gets things up and running). We found a couple that should meet her needs, but we want to do a little more homework before we buy one.

Then, based on a tip from the salesperson at Office Max, we ventured to Target to see what we could find as far as storage solutions. We made a quick pit stop in Cost Plus World Market where we found (believe it or not!) a brand of chocolate that did not have soy in it. Sadly, it did not taste very good so we're limited to Trader Joe's offerings. At Target, we found some great storage units (we bought 3 huge purple bins), but none that rolled which is what MeLissa was hoping for (seriously, these books are huge!). So, we visited Newpark mall to check on the other tip - VIP luggage.

Here, we hit the jackpot. We found a great suitcase that is large enough to hold several albums and rolls. And, the customer service - wonderful! As a bonus, MeLissa was stopped by a couple of young ladies who wanted to see her invitation album and who took her card to tell their friends about her. She may have been right on when she first saw the albums and said these invitations could possibly sell themselves! Oh, and we also found a cute strapless top at American Eagle to liven up MeLissa's wardrobe. ;)

Sunday, we took it a little easier and pretty much only made it to the grocery store. We also got some laundry done...nothing too exciting!

Today, though, MeLissa was again on her game. She did a little moving about of things in the master and guest bed rooms, implemented a few tricks she learned from her buddy, Martha Stewart, and voila - two great looking rooms that are very inviting! She also took a little look to see when it might be feasible for us to go to Colorado and Maui in celebration of her freeing herself from Cubicle Land. That's right folks, she's planning to break the sad news to her employer this week - in order to be more flexible to meet Mark's needs in the coming months (and to, in general, enjoy her life more!), MeLissa is venturing out as a full-time wedding and event consultant beginning June 16 (this is the day that Mark's summer break begins). We found some great options as far as traveling, but we need a volunteer to take care of little Miss Pixie while we're away. Any volunteers?

And, that, dear friends and family is what we did with our weekend. We hope that you had a lovely weekend as well! The countdown to freedom is 17 days today (Monday) and 16 tomorrow when most of you will read this. Please keep us in your prayers and send as many clients as you can MeLissa's way! Oh, and worry not, we've saved quite a bit of resources over the past couple of months preparing for this. We should be able to live and eat for at least a few months even without any income (which is unlikely given all the great ideas we have to get MeLissa's business booming). We appreciate your support!