PL is in the middle of finals, so I’ve been trying to be as helpful as possible around the house so she can just study. It’s a nice feeling to be so useful, and I actually enjoy thinking of especially nice things to do to make PL’s life easier and happier (like buying PL and her classmate chocolate peanut butter cheesecake brownies from the Farmer’s Market or getting a pot of coffee ready to brew whenever she wants to turn it on). 1, 2, 3…Awwww.
Her law school study partner has been at the house almost all day everyday since last Monday except for sleeping–which they aren’t doing a ton of anyway. I realized that when someone is around for an extended period of time your normal routines become public–cooking, cleaning, exercising, eating ice cream at 11pm. Our closest friends have been around while we’re doing laundry or dishes, but even with them we usually just hang out with them and save other chores and cleaning for another time. Since PL and her friend were studying, I continued on with my usual activities, but felt a little self-conscious at times about putting our household operations on display. For example, I wanted to organize the pantry, but felt like that would make me look way too OCD and industrious. (fyi: I did eventually organize the pantry, but did it while our guest was gone.)
So, here’s what I did while they studied, and studied some more, followed by more studying.
Saturday:
I started by weeding flower beds in the yard and then sprayed lots of Roundup on more even more weeds since pulling them up wasn’t going very fast. I made a little more progress in our front yard garden bed, but it was really hot by noon so I went inside and took a shower. I organized the pantry-it did actually need it by the way-and went to Lowes (along with half of the population of Atlanta) to buy some plants.
With the plants unloaded from the car, but with the sun being too hot, I stayed inside and watched Superbad on DVD…I just love Michael Cera. The whole time I had laundry going too, lest you think I just sat around and did nothing for 2 hours.
As it was getting dark and cooler I planted Gerber daisies and Mexican heather by the mail box and spread some grass seed on our giant dirt patches in the backyard…probably an exercise in futility but one can dream of having grass one day. (I’ll post pictures soon…after I find the camera and remember to take them, and upload them)
Then I cooked a yummy dinner of apricot glazed chicken (I checked our recipe blog and I never posted that, so I’ll get on that soon too), sauteed yellow squash, and green beans for my law student. It’s not too hard of a recipe and really delicious, but it does involve the food processor.
Sunday:
I went to Sunday school and church and stopped at Chipotle for lunch. I enjoyed sitting under an umbrella on their deck by myself watching the cars and street traffic, but I didn’t stay too long since I had other errands to run. After lunch I went to the Farmer’s market–and got all our weekly groceries there. That’s right, all of them, which I don’t normally do but I’m reading yet another Michael Pollan book and felt like we needed organic milk this week.
When I got home I prepared 60 pounds of chicken leg quarters for the dogs to eat-I used every container we have for the dogs’ food plus a couple more that I found and they are now set for their meals for 20 days. I only cut myself once, and just in case you were wondering, it takes me 2 hours to get that much chicken ready. In case you are also wondering what in the world I’m talking about (I did say my normal private routines became public) our dogs eat a raw diet…and it makes them very healthy and happy. Luckily PL’s study partner already knew that our dogs ate this, so she was intrigued but not grossed out by the fact that we had 60 pounds of raw chicken in our kitchen. Damn dogs.
After filling our freezer with containers of chicken, I went back outside and planted pansies in the flower bed by the front door, planted our side yard flower bed (moss rose, more pansies, and some other flower that I thought was pretty but can’t remember its name). Daylight was still my friend so I planted herbs in the backyard herb garden-basil, rosemary, thyme, oregano, flat leaf parsley, mint, bee balm (no clue what this is good for but it makes pretty flowers), and sage. I had enough daylight and energy to put mulch around the newly planted things and hang up the bumblebee windsock that I bought.
After a shower since I was covered in dirt and mulch, I cooked organic tofu stir fry with garlic, carrots, broccoli, snow peas and green and orange peppers (peppers cooked in a separate pan since I can’t/don’t eat them) and brown rice for my law student plus her study pal. I am totally a keeper.
Then I did another peculiar chore that is not usually put on display–I made vegetable bags for me and PL. So, vegetable bags? This is a long story, but we learned a long time ago that we actually will eat more vegetables if we cut up fresh vegetables and put them in bags for at least a few days during the week. When we pack our lunches we can just throw a bag in our lunch box usually along with some fat-free ranch dip.
Why I’m Always Tired on Mondays April 27, 2009
Vacation Planning April 23, 2009
Our vacation is getting closer and closer, and while I wait impatiently for it, I’ve been looking up things to do while we are there. PL and I did have a discussion that we might intentionally leave our computers behind and have a no email or facebook vacation–which actually sounds lovely. The only snag is that Emory parking registration takes place at 7am one day we’ll be there (which of course is like 4 or 5 am local time in Las Vegas and we aren’t sure the hotel has free wi-fi even though it’s super fancy). This important task might get assigned to my dad, since he did such as good job getting online and getting us Peachtree Road Race numbers when we couldn’t be at a computer that day.
Most people in my close group of friends haven’t been to Las Vegas, so I don’t think they know much about it other than the gambling parts. If gambling was all you could do there, PL and I probably wouldn’t be going back. We did do some gambling on our visit, but it doesn’t seem all that fun to me to pay $5 to play roulette and then lose that $5 in just a few seconds. The same goes for Blackjack–most tables have a $5 minimum bet, fancier places have a $10 minimum, and that’s just for a single hand. What we did last time is just have a certain amount of money we were willing to spend for the entertainment value–maybe $50 each–and then when it was gone that was it. We had fun playing the games (treating them more like arcade games where you pay just to enjoy them and don’t expect to come home richer), but then didn’t lose tons of money in an attempt to win back what we lost. We did play some of the slot machines and video black jack things (since most of those are 1 cent, 5 cents, 25 cents and a a dollar to play), and didn’t really win much but had fun with it. Our one big mistake is that we didn’t take the cocktail waitresses up on their offer of free drinks. That was stupid! They just walk around and give you alcohol for free, but I’m sure they don’t lose any money doing that since you get competitive and lack good judgement when you’re drinking.
As a side note before I mention some of the attractions we hope to see, I want to describe the overall vibe of Las Vegas a bit. It’s kind of a strange vibe, but I never felt out of place. There are older, retired people who hang out at slot machines and smoke–oh, I forgot that some casinos are smoky which is nasty, but most were ok. There are young, single guys who are just not as cool as they think they are. There are white, straight couples who wear American flag t-shirts. There are foreigners who seem to be spending lots of money. There are couples way too dressed up, even in the middle of the day. There’s a lot of families too, which even though there are plenty of family friendly things, most of the kids I saw were either pre or post-meltdown. I’m a world-class people watcher so it was fun for me. When I’m some place like New York I feel very un-cool and for some reason–even though no one notices me–I want to not look like a tourist. In Las Vegas, everyone is a tourist, and I’d never be so tacky as to be from the midwest and wear a fanny pack, so I’m quite hip.
But here are some of the fun, somewhat bizarre, truly amazing and otherwise really cool things we hope to see and do. Today I’ll list a few attractions we saw last time and hope to repeat. Later I’ll post some of the new things we hope to see and do.
Fountains at the Bellagio
Probably my favorite thing in Las Vegas. (Think those diet coke bottles with mentos times like a billion, and a lot more class). Every 30 minutes between 3 and 7 p.m., and every 15 minutes until midnight a huge body of water comes alive with a choreographed foundation show set to different kids of music (mostly classical but also some show tunes and popular hits). It takes up a giant city block, so there is plenty of space to find a good spot to watch it, but the best view might be across the street, on top of the …
Eiffel Tower at Paris
This is an exact 1/2 replica of the Eiffel tower, and for a small fee you can go up to the top. It’s a great view of the city lights as well as the surrounding landscape. Prior to going to Las Vegas, I had never seen the wide open desert before (I had been to El Paso/Juarez so it was similar but not as scenic), I got to experience a little landscape that’s different from the Southeast. So I really enjoyed the flight into the city and some of these high-up views of the surrounding mountains and desert. There’s also a restaurant up here, but I’m fairly sure it costs more than we’d ever pay for a meal.
Volcano at The Mirage
Every hour on the hour during the evening, a giant “volcano” erupts in front of The Mirage hotel. It’s not mind-blowing even with the water, fire and music, but it’s fun to watch (and free), so it’s worth trying to be in that part of town some point in the evening to see it.
Conservatory and Botanical Gardens at the Bellagio
There are free seasonal exhibits at the Bellagio, and like everything else in Vegas, it is done on a huge scale. When we went to Las Vegas the first time it was in December, and the Conservatory was decorated for Christmas and it was very pretty. It’s all plant based, so there are lots of very interesting plants, but also all props are done Rose Bowl Parade style with everything being plants, seeds and flowers. I’m not sure if we’ll be there for the Spring or Summer exhibit, but either way it will definitely be something we check out.
Time Wasting Website Review: This is Why You’re Fat April 22, 2009
Oh Americans…we can’t find a food that can’t be made a little better by adding cheese, bacon, or deep frying it. I present This is Why You’re Fat. It’s a fascinating blog of some truly amazing foods. I’m happy to say for the future of my cardiac health that most of the foods look disgusting to me. Additionally, since I don’t smoke pot, things like the snack food pizza (pizza topped with doritos and corn dogs) aren’t anything I crave on a regular basis.
I do have to confess that I think this might be the best omlet ever (chicken fried steak and gravy omlet with cheese and onions):
However, I’m afraid that meatloaf with a delicious macaroni and cheese center might sound gross, but it’s slightly intriguing. And a deep fried grilled cheese just looks amazing.
Baby Plant Update April 21, 2009
April 21st baby plant update:
1. Tomatoes and Peppers are growing strong and have real leaves.
2. The Basil just sprouted! We got these seeds as a favor from a baby shower, and planted them a few days ago. (and, I really like this picture)
3. The garden bed…looks pretty much the same, and still isn’t finished.
We’re having a lot of people over to the house for a party on May 2nd, so I hope that by then I’ll have the garden bed ready, or I’ll at least just move the tools to the shed.
People are commenting on blog posts from a month ago, so it’s time to update my blog more often April 21, 2009
I’ve felt busy lately, but I guess I wasn’t doing anything exciting enough to write about. Or, just too busy to realize I was doing some fun things along with all of the work. Lots of work. Then some more work. But I feel bad complaining about how much work I’ve had to do lately when PL is studying 19 hours a day right now for finals. Things have slowed a bit this week at work, so it’s nice to try to get organized and dig through several piles of papers that I didn’t touch last week since I worked on just one huge project all week.
It’s also nice that I don’t have a crazy week this week since PL has her first final tomorrow, and I can keep her fed and keep the house from becoming a disaster area. She’s also a sucker for people who can’t take care of themselves–her words, not mine–so a panicked classmate has been hanging out at our house a lot studying with the calm and brilliant PL. I have absolutely no clue what they are talking about most of the time, so I just cook for them and then go to the back of the house to read.
PL and I did actually spend a few hours together, awake at the same time even, over the weekend. On Saturday we ran in the Sweetwater 420 Festival 5k. We’re up to a point where we can run for 25 minutes or so straight through, but we’re slow and that doesn’t get us very close to 3.1 miles. We took some walking breaks, and it was also a really hilly course…but we finished and got a cool t-shirt. It’s really motivating to me to run in a crowd like that, and to start in the same place as the really fit looking people. We quickly fell back in the pack though and our pace group is the group of slightly overweight, slow people who need to walk a lot–which we totally are–but we think of ourselves as being in the fit group so we’ll keep running until that’s true. Now that the semester is almost over, the weather is nicer and it’s staying light later, I feel like we will be able to run more regularly. We also started putting star stickers on the calendar on the days we run, and it might be silly, but it is extra motivation to see lots of stars up there.
A new sort of GPP April 7, 2009
Julia has a blog feature called GPP–Gratuitous Pet Photo. This is of a similar sort, even taken by Julia, …except for it’s someone’s actual child, not a pet. I’m told they need a little more supervision. This was taken at a friend’s wedding this weekend–it’s me and a cute, nicely-named fellow named Atticus Abraham. He’s telling me he has a belly in this photo.
ATNTFTB: A Novice In Search of Bounty+ Bonus Baby Plant Update April 3, 2009
There’s a renewed interest in gardening taking place these days, and the New York Times just published the first article in a new series on starting a vegetable garden. The first article, today’s All the News That’s Fit to Blog, is by a Minnesota writer who, along with his daughter and girlfriend, hope to start their first garden this Summer.
It’s less of a “newsy” article and just good reading. Here are a few enjoyable parts: “So, in the stifling whiteness of January, I resolved to plant a brand new vegetable garden. The plan is to transform my family’s diet, save a few coins, make over the property — and, maybe, receive a congratulatory note from Michael Pollan for my new green virtue.”
He also consults a gardening expert and gets advice on what he should grow. He wants to grow things he likes to eat, and also things that are easy to grow. Easy to grow? The garden expert he consults tell him, “Easy is a relative term.”
He concludes: “My garden, as it lives in my mind, is perfect: undulating and bountiful and soft underfoot. Sometime in the next week, though, the first dumb green shoot of that artichoke will grope its way out of the dirt and start screwing everything up.”
Right now my garden is also still perfect in my mind, aside from the fact that it’s not ready yet. The baby plants are hanging tough. They graduated from the dining room to the living room near the window. Here’s what they look like right now–taken on April 2nd.
The tomatoes (on the top right and bottom right ) are getting stronger and a few peppers (in the middle right) are finally starting to sprout. The Brussels sprouts and broccoli (middle left and bottom left) are pretty tall but kind of weak looking and flopped over.
Since the last set of photos, I had to thin out each pot to just leave the strongest plant. The logic there is that not every seed will sprout, so you plant 2-3 in each pot and then keep the weakest one. I didn’t like doing that, since it seemed like such a waste of good plants, so I think in the future I’ll just put one seed in each pot and not worry about it if some don’t sprout. On the top left section of plants there wasn’t anything planted so when I thinned out the seedlings to leave just the strongest in each pot, I just left everything there–so that explains what’s going on up there if it looks strange on the photo.
The next step will be to transplant them to their own bigger pot when they develop 2 sets of real leaves. Right now everything just has a matched set of tiny baby leaves. The leaves there now are just the seed leaves. Everything that has has sprouted so far comes from seeds that are dicots (remember AP biology?) so there are 2 leaves at first. Something like corn is a monocot and will just have one leaf when it sprouts.
3 Things April 3, 2009
Just 3 Things. That’s all I’m trying to get done each day this week. Well 6 actually, 3 at work and 3 at home. I’ve been having some, um, productivity problems at work and also having a hard time staying ahead of the curve on keeping the house clean.
I have two major work projects that have been moved from December, to January, then to February, and March…you get the point. They really need to get done now. It’s not a crisis that they haven’t been done yet but they are actually things that are really important to do. And it is a crisis if they don’t ever get done. There’s always a bigger, more urgent or more important project to do, so I’ve been able to justify ignoring these tasks since I had so much else to do. But I’m slowly getting caught up on other stuff, and it’s a now a slower part of the year for me, so I’m out of time to procrastinate on these anymore.
On the home front: Our dogs shed a lot and we have the world’s fluffiest cat. Plus we eat most of our meals at home and cook a lot so that makes a lot of dirty dishes. We also create a lot of dirty laundry–I do have to confess that I seem to wear 2 times as many shirts as PL in any given week and I don’t know how. It’s also now yard work season and our yard is looking like a jungle while the elderly neighbors’ yards all look neat and clean.
I occasionally read a few blogs on productivity and getting things done. The GTD (Getting Things Done) system is too involved for me, but I think it’s a great system for those who need a little more structure. I have a good memory and always keep one master list of all of my work projects (whether or not I do them, I still have the list), so I haven’t really needed to totally overhaul my entire to-do system. I do benefit from breaking up big projects into actual tasks to go on my to-do list, but GTD is just more detail than I need. I do most of that mentally and have a good memory–I just need a little occasional help to get re-organized and motivated.
That brings me to 3 Things. Just do 3 Things every day. But make them count. I’ve read about this a few times before, and love that it’s called Lazy Productivity.
Here’s how it works: Make a list of 3 things to do at the end of the day, and then then do those 3 things the next day. (I still need to work on the day before part so I won’t wake up worried about forgetting something I need to do.) Try to do the first task when you get to work in the morning, before email or other small things get in the way. Others suggest actually having a list of 4 things: one thing you are proscrastinating doing by doing the other 3 things instead.
I find that doing one thing first thing in the morning creates a lot of momentum to keep working–it really does feel better to get something done than it does to spend an hour or more in the morning wasting time but worrying about how much you need to get done. I know that’s one of my biggest problems. I get to work, check email, read some news, and then can’t quite get started on work. And I look at my list of a dozen or so things to do and know I can’t get it all done. So I read some more things online. Having something that needs to get done first thing in the morning helps me avoid that vicious cycle of getting a slow start to the day.
Yesterday, I got rolling on my 3 things as soon as I got to the office. I finished 2 of my 3 things before lunch, and then spent most of the afternoon on my 3rd thing which was a little more time consuming. Then I was done. And I gave myself permission to take a little break. After that, I felt so good about finally getting those 3 things done that I spent a few minutes working on some smaller projects.
I tried the same thing at home. I didn’t write this part down, but when I got home from work I wanted to do three things.
1. Vacuum (the dogs were at daycare and therefore not actively creating more hair faster than I could clean it).
2. Do the dishes before we cooked dinner and made even more dirty ones.
3. Put some work stuff that’s been sitting in our living room for 3 weeks in my car to take back and store there instead of walking around it each day.
When I got home from work, I immediately put the seats in my car down and put the work stuff in there. Then I vacuumed. I was done with all of this in 30-40 minutes and took a break to play online and read magazines before PL and the dogs got home. We had dinner, watched the Rachel Maddow Show Podcast, and then I did the dishes. I did my 3 Things, the house looks great, and I still got to spend several hours doing whatever I wanted.
I also like this system because it makes a big work-load seem managable. We all have many more than 3 things to do at work or home, so you might be thinking that this system isn’t actually all that practical for getting things done. But I know that when I feel like I have a ton of things to do, I get overwhelmed by how big all of the projects seem and then don’t really manage to do anything. Not even one. So really, three is much better than zero.
Oh no you didn’t… April 2, 2009
I log into my bank and credit card accounts online pretty regularly–almost every day, certainly a few times a week, just to check on things. Today I noticed that my credit limit shrank. A lot. On March 31st I had a credit limit of $32,200. On April 1st, it was $16,500. That’s a 51.24% decrease. First, since I’m mad, let’s temporarily ignore the fact that my credit limit shouldn’t have been that high in the first place. Let’s also ignore that I would still be in deep trouble if I reached the new smaller limit.
So, what gives? I scoured my March and April statements for a notice about my limit changing. Is it even a surprise that nothing was noted in there? I didn’t get anything in the mail–if they did send something they probably packaged it with those cash advance checks they always send and I tossed it. If I get something in the mail today or over the next few days, it still wasn’t advance notice. I’ve never missed a single payment. I’ve never even been late with a payment. I’ve been a customer for close to 10 years. I don’t normally talk about specific institutions or businesses, but…Bank of America…bite me.
Given the overall badness of the economy, banks are tightening up credit limits to reduce their risk. It had been a customer satisfaction strategy by banks to keep raising credit limits, even giving unsolicited raises–but not anymore. The number of people delinquent on their credit card payments has increased by 12% over the past quarter, and as a country it’s pretty clear we’re all way over our heads in debt. PL and I don’t really have any credit card debt and no car payment at all, but we try not to think about the mortgage on our house that’s probably worth way less than we paid for it and the insane amount of student loan debt it’s taking for PL to become a lawyer.
A recent This American Life Episode, “Bad Banks,” noted that our national amount of debt is equal to our national GDP–the last time that happened was 1929. Oops. We clearly all have debt problems and probably should tighten our credit belts. I get that. I really do. But lower someone else’s credit card limit.
I haven’t decided if I’m going to call to complain and get it reinstated. It probably won’t help, and I’m not actually willing to back up my threat to leave them with actually leaving them. Even though I’d like my $15,500 extra credit limit option to create crippling debt burden back, I probably can’t find any other bank that will give me a high limit.
This credit limit slash doesn’t really affect me on a day to day basis, but other customers wouldn’t be so lucky. Had this card been a $2500 limit card and it was cut to $1000, I’d be pretty much maxed out at the moment, and maybe even in danger of going over my limit. I’d also be using up a much higher percentage of my available credit–a ratio that really affects your credit score.
I checked my other credit card, my $1000 limit Kroger Mastercard that I use for most of my everyday things because of the 15 cent gas rewards, and it’s still $1000. So far the worst thing they’ve done to me is send me the ugly red card with the Kroger logos on it when I requested the pretty green one with circies.
What about you?
Vacation Countdown Begins April 2, 2009
I hinted in an earlier post that PL and I would be going on a vacation soon (May 10-15 to be exact)! We really need one. I’m in a funk at work and still not recovered from some huge projects. PL spends all of her time studying and still has to get through finals. We’ve been doing ok budget-wise (also translated into too busy to go anywhere or buy anything, but I highly recommend it as a good strategy for saving money) and PL is also going to get a scholarship this summer to help support her in her unpaid saving the world internship. So, we felt like we could afford to take a good vacation rather than going away for a weekend away somewhere closer to home. One weekend would be better than nothing, but we both feel like we need to go further away and just hang out together.
We had a few fun options on the table–Fort Lauderdale and LasVegas were both towards the top of the list since we’ve vacationed both places before and loved those cities. We also still want to go to San Fransisco, Portland, Chicago and Seattle but didn’t think it was the time of year to catch the best weather any of those places. They are also more expensive plane tickets and/or hotels and we’re not sure what we would do with a full week there. The quest for warm and sunny weather aside, Fort Lauderdale and LasVegas are places that are actually quite cheap vacations, even with a plane trip. Airfare is usually pretty cheap to those cities and you can also get really good deals on hotels.
Fort Lauderdale still has a lot of the older small motels from an earlier pre-high rise condo era, and it’s a city where those lodging options are cheap, clean and well-managed. We stayed in a lovely small town just outside of Fort Lauderdale after I turned in my Masters Thesis and we spent most of the week reading by the pool–after 3 years in grad school I actually got to read a novel! Our last vacation was to another beach, albeit with PL’s parents, brother and nephew, and we spent most of that week reading, putting together puzzles, and swimming with the kid. It was great, but that beach literally had nothing to do and we learned that despite thinking that doing absolutely nothing all week seems appealing, we actually are the kind of vacationers that like some activities to keep us busy.
We decided we wanted this vacation to be a combination of doing some fun things and relaxing. So, we both overwhelmingly picked going back to Las Vegas. We went to Las Vegas for 4 days for PL’s 25th birthday and we loved it.
We don’t seem like Vegas people do we? But for whatever reason, we both love it. The fact that it’s not authentic (fake Paris, fake New York, fake Venice, etc…) is amusing but not bothersome. It’s a city that knows it’s pretty tacky and so totally over the top, so that makes it ok. And right next door to something really bright and neon is a super elegant and luxurious hotel, and that’s ok too. I think the first time I saw all the way down the Strip at night I said something along the lines of, “It looks like Capitalism threw up.” We’re not quite as wild as Vegas’ image suggests we should be to party there, but I kind of suspect nobody else really is either–it’s just nice to think that you are a laid-back and cool person who can walk around with foot-long margaritas in the middle of the day.
The hotels are really nice, at least ours certainly was, and they are so giant that they didn’t really feel crowded even though there were lots of people–anonymity without claustrophobia. Hotels also slash prices drastically on weekdays–for example a room that costs $300 or more on a weekend will be much closer to $100 or even less during the week. We stayed in the Luxor since we got an insanely cheap rate for a nice room that week. Luxor is the Egyptian themed hotel (not really my thing but it wasn’t too overwhelming). Part of the hotel is shaped like a pyramid and it’s slightly odd to ride at at a 45 degree angle on an elevator. The hotel also has a Sphinx and a giant light bean coming out of the top, so it’s certainly easy to find your way home. We did a little bit of gambling at our casio and several others and spent time in several cool arcades–which we actually liked much more than the gambling. Mostly we just had fun walking around and seeing the different attractions at the hotels, most of which are free. There’s also an M&M’s store in Las Vegas which just might be the happiest place on earth.
I also took us on a surprise day trip to the Grand Canyon for PL’s birthday. I was so nervous that PL would freak out over having to get on a tiny plane to get there and back, but she wasn’t as afraid of heights or small planes as she claimed to be. I’m such a good influence on her–she eats all sorts of vegetables she didn’t think she liked before we met, she will go up tall things now (except our roof), and somehow Emory Law has gotten her to eat shrimp on several occasions now…next up? Liking beer?
I think the main drawback to Vegas is that restaurants are pretty pricey. There is a good range of reasonably priced places though, right in line with what we usually spend at home, but we don’t normally eat all 3 meals out each day at home. We normally try to save money on vacation by sharing entrees, taking leftovers with us and also getting a few groceries to be able to eat cereal and sandwiches for some meals. But in Vegas there are sometimes charges for extra plates to split meals, and no fridges in most of of the rooms for leftovers/groceries. That’s a lot of meals eaten at restaurants, and that’s never cheap.
We also really enjoyed our hotel, but it was pretty far at one end of the Strip and most of the cool stuff to see and do is in the middle. We wanted to try a different hotel this time, since found that we spent a lot of time in our own hotel since there was so much to do right there. One other hotel we particulary enjoyed visiting was the Paris hotel–complete with 1/2 replica Eiffel tower and 2/3 replica Arch de Triumph. There were frequent cabaret acts all around the casino and lobby, and we just liked the overal look and feel of the place. Paris also advertises extensively in LGBT publications, as does the rest of Vegas acutally, so we wanted to support them. It’s slightly more expensive than where we stayed last time, but still a good deal and also a much nicer hotel.
We’ve started to think of certain activities we want to make sure we do–some new things and some repeats of favorites (I could stand and watch the fountain shows at the Bellagio all day and night). We travel really well together and like to plan a few activities in advance, but are also really flexible in deciding what we want to do each day. Our only vacation problems involve me having low blood sugar and being disagreeable because we can’t decide where to eat. As we make any firm plans, or maybe after the trip, I’ll write more about some of the fun activities we plan to do.
