Newfound Love for IKEA

We tried shopping locally today to continue outfitting our apartment and it made me appreciate the full day I spent at Ikea yesterday. At the time, it was horrible and I was completely overwhelmed, but there’s something about a $500 couch that’s so incredibly lovely compared to the $2,500 couches in the hip furniture stores in our neighborhood. Especially since they look like the exact same couch!

IKEA in Portland, OR

Even the cutting boards are expensive at our local shops! I’m all over shopping locally but it seems to work better for spring onions and carrots — I don’t mind paying more for those. They’re incredibly delicious. But when trying to furnish an entire apartment basically from scratch I think Ikea is the way to go.

Walking all over our neighborhood today was super fun otherwise — we didn’t come home with much, but the sun came out, there were flowers bursting out everywhere, and there are a lot of fun places to go. How are we going to choose the best coffee shop hangout when there are so many to choose from?

Walking around here did make me realize how out of shape I’d gotten since moving away from and working away from downtown in Madison. I still thought I walked quite a bit, but I’m sore from walking all over here! How am I going to hang onto that nice padding of Wisconsin Winter Fat if I keep walking like this???

My brain is in moving gear and I haven’t read too much, but I’m reading the newest Lightning Thief book by Rick Riordan and it’s pretty good — if you like the first ones, you’ll probably like this one. They’re nice adventure books. Good for tired minds.

Back to unpacking our boxes!

Bridget