November was full of events: I had a sleepover with my girlfriends at our vacation house, we had our hardwood floors and dining tables refinished, and our student came to visit for the Thanksgiving weekend!
Once a year or so my friends and I are going for a getaway from our husbands and kids at our vacation house. Mid November was the latest in a year that we’ve done that, and I was worried that the mountain pass might be closed or treacherous to navigate due to snow. It worked out well, the weekend was warm, and it was raining, not snowing, at the mountain pass. So everyone made it to the getaway and back safely. As usual, we had fun! Lots of good food, good company, singing, playing guitar.. The only thing I would have done differently is to play a board game instead of watching a movie. Well, next time…
The next Monday after the getaway we had a crew working on refinishing our floors. The floors had been scratched from the years of usage, and we decided that it was time to give them a facelift – no more cats (we had cats for the first ten years of living in the house), the kids are no longer small – so the new finish should last long. Once the crew was finished, we discovered that we had beautiful multi-colored maple floors! The original owners had them tinted yellow for a more even look, plus the oil finish yellowed over time. The new finish is water based, and the original color of the wood looks so beautiful!
While the floors were refinished, I stayed at the vacation house, where I observed some minor floods from the atmospheric rivers our state was hit with. No damage at all, our house is elevated enough to be out of danger, but it was fascinating to see how the river claims the space in front of our house… It did retrieve the next day, but boy, the river was wild those days, you should have seen the uprooted trees that were swimming past our house…
On a return back my husband surprised me with a new project for me. Since the floors have been refinished, he thought it was also a high time to refinish our dining tables. The work involved sanding down the old finish, applying the new cherry stain and then finishing with a few layers of polyurethane. All of this work belongs to my set of skills, so I was doing most of the work (DH wiped out the stain after applying and made me try several tools to apply polyurethane – none of them worked as good as the original brush we purchased). But the result is surprisingly good, as you can see from the pictures 🙂
Before sanding – faded main surface/darker extension 
After sanding 
After staining and applying polyurethane – final product!
And then, we had our kid 1 flying back home for the Thanksgiving weekend! That was his first trip home since he went to the college, so it was a big deal for all of us! It was nice to have him home, cook his favorite foods, celebrate the holidays with him, and then send him back for his final school week and exams. While he visited, we had suddenly came up with an idea for a road trip during Christmas break – going to Southern California. The details of the trip planning are outlined in this post.
Credit card hacking:
I would also like to provide an update on our Credit card hacking progress, as this is my new hobby, which provides both financial benefits and entertainment for me.
In November, DH continued to work on his Sign Up Bonus (SUP) for Capital One Venture card. I, in addition to getting my first business card (Chase Southwest Performance), applied and was approved for a personal Chase Southwest card! having the sign up bonuses from those two cards will be enough to get Southwest Companion Pass (CP) in January!
November was a month in which I booked a Feb trip to Turks and Caicos for me and DH. For redemptions, I used 36K Chase UR points to book the roundtrip flight NYC to Turks and Caicos and one night at Hyatt near JFK airport, which would have cost us $809 if we paid for that. That means that I got 2.3 cents per the UR point. I also used 41K Delta miles, for the redemption value of $600, which means I got 1.5 cents per delta mile. So, good redemption value! Now hoping that the trip doesn’t get cancelled due to an increase in Omicron COVID cases…
Conclusion:
In November, new road trip had been planned and an exciting trip to Turks and Caicos had been booked. The credit card hacking continues with redeeming miles and points in a small but satisfying way, and working towards SW Companion Pass.
How did your November look like? What changes happened in your life?