My sister, Nancee Lee, and I have a strange addiction regarding the outlet mall that is 45 minutes from where we live.

I feel like we drive up there once a month.

Anyway, we almost always find great stuff, and when we don’t we still have a great time.

We had planned to go on Friday evening after work.

But we got so excited we went on Thursday night instead.

We are funny like that.

My favorite find was the horizontal stripe grey shower curtain from West Elm that I have been drooling over for at least a month. It was actually in my cyber cart on the West Elm website but I had not decided if I wanted to spend the money.

Voila! I found one in the clearance bin for $9 at the Pottery Barn outlet! I almost did a little dance.

Then we headed over to the rug section.

Rugs are like my kryptonite.

I don’t know why.

I just buy them all the time it seems. We both scored round jute rugs, 6 ft and an 8 ft for $50 and $74. Both over 60% off. We were in heaven.

Common sense note: Pick up decorating neutrals like jute rugs and basic shower curtains when you find a good deal. There are unlimited possibilities with items like these.

So as is our usual practice, we grabbed some dinner before heading home.

Our normal place, Aegean Pizza was closed for the evening.

So we had to settle on Olive Garden. :(