Friday I did my first brew kit, It was Brewer's BEST Belgian IPA
Things I learned
#1 take control of how hard you are boiling your brew. I thought I did a good job of mixing the
liquids but I did scorch a little on the bottom from being too hard on the boiling.
#2 again boiling too hard in that I had a boil over when adding some hops the first time.
I will slow down the boil a good bit in the future.
#3 was in the cool down I was spraying water on the cover which was not a problem till I
decide to check the temp of brew and some of the water on cover fell in pot.

Now some good news
I love the smell of hops brewing in the morning. It smell like homemade beer.
I thinking of doing a line of soaps, shaving soaps or what ever that has the hops smell to it
How about Summers Eve with a hop smell to it..

In a couple of days I will transfer to secondary and dry hop it. Then wait about 10 days transfer again and sugar
carb it then bottle.  Wait my 2 weeks then start drinking.

Grats on your first brew!

Swing by your LHBS and get a bottle of Fermcap-S. Couple drops of that in the boil kettle helps to reduce boil overs.

I wouldn't do that until its done fermenting...you want that chunk of yeast still in there to finish it out.  Just saying, don't just go by an arbitrary day because the instructions said to (especially on your first brew, if you did this recipe a few times and knew how things went maybe...)

Glad you had a good first brew. A couple of suggestions.
1) dont limit the boil, a good violent boil has been proven to make better beer. Use Fermcap to keep from boilovers, or, turn down the heat until is subsides and then turn the heat back up. 99% of boilovers occur when adding hops.
2) Not a good idea to cover the pot when cooling, the condensation that will collect on the bottom of the lid will fall back into the pot, and could (not likely) an infection. All the brewers I know do not cover the pot when cooling.
3) THE MOST important thing to rememeber is, its just beer, and it will be good. Brewing is my FAVORITE hobby.

1)  Everything I have ever seen/read/heard says you do not need a "violent" boil.  Is the boil constantly turning over (well above simmer, but not jumping out of the pot?)--that seems about right.  I think a boil off rule of thumb for 5-6 gal batch is about 1 gal/hr.  For example, if you need 8 gallons to get to final volume of 6 gallons in 1hr boil, I would probably tone it down.

2)  If you just clean and spray the lid with star san, it really shouldn't be a problem, that 200 deg sanitary steam coming up off the sanitized wort really won't have anything to infect your beer-plus steam heat sanitizes as well.  Maybe you got that confused with not covering the boil (which is a problem due to DMS buildup and drip back in).

1) Well then lets substitute violent for vigerous, and this type of boil does several things, the more vigerous the better chance of driving off DMS, it also gives a better hot break, and improves hops utilization.
2) Yes that is also the case, to aid in DMS here as well.

Ok 2 more oh crap moments going from the primary to secondary.
1= bought a new 6 gallon carboy. Always used glass 3 gallon size so I figure to try this for beer secondary.
  I told them to give me a drilled stopper and 3 piece airlock. Today i found out right when i was cleaning it up the stopper
was too small. Was the size for the glass carboy. Trip to hardware store and I had to coonass rig up a stopper by using
a 1.5" treaded plastic plug. Teflon tape and drilled it out for airlock.
2- i am use to working with 3 gallons glass for my wine making and I all way kept them in a 5 gallon bucket.
  Stupid me i filled the 6 gallon plastic carboy and then tried fitting into the plastic bucket. Lets just say that
about 1/3 fitted in and is stuck now. When I get the plastic carboy empty then I will remove.

But hey them hops sure do smell good.I am very hoppy, hoppy right now.