When I go to Trader Joe’s – and that is a rare occurrence these days – I have to buy flowers because they’re so inexpensive. This bouquet is currently brightening up the kitchen. But, in actuality, there’s not much that interests us there. We did buy a few frozen things to have on hand for when we can’t squeeze in a trip to the grocery store. The fact is, Don’s cooking is so good for us and our needs that we are no longer drawn to Trader Joe’s.
Except for flowers. And our favorite black bean and cheese taquitos, which we love to have on hand. We did stock up on them, as well as a few other items and some almond milk for me. And their lavender soap, which I love. This particular TJs is always SO busy. The parking lot is a madhouse with every driver out for him/herself, desperate to find a parking space. Yikes!
IKEA was fun, but exhausting. It wasn’t crowded, so it’s not as if we had to deal with too many people. But it’s so overwhelming – so much stuff! To be fair to IKEA, it’s because of me. I have very little patience for shopping in a huge store – or any store, to be honest – anymore. After a while, the lights irritate my eyes, the displays everywhere, the sheer amount of items to ‘take in;’ it’s all too much. Plus, I was a bit dehydrated after having had two large mugs of coffee. There’s only so much water I can drink when I know I’m going to be in the car for an hour and a half, so I hadn’t had my usual quota.
All that being said, what IKEA does is really marvelous. And their displays are so well done. The arrows that direct you around the store, the fun little things you find along the way, the information on each item and where to find it, all of it is impeccably done. What did we grab along the way? Only things that we needed and had needed for a long time: new potholders, a steamer insert, a cooking pot, some pads for the bottom of furniture legs, 6 extra spoons (hurrah!) And the mystery item, which will be revealed in due time. We were going to eat there, but we wanted to get going, so we grabbed a veggie hot dog or two at the Bistro right by the checkout and ate them in the car before we headed back north for Trader Joe’s and the thruway. We love where we live, but most any sort of adventure involves a lot of driving time, so when you add 3 hours on the road, two hours in IKEA, and about 30 minutes in TJs, it all adds up. Just as when we have to go into the city for an audition or work – the bus commute alone takes about 3 1/2 hours, the drive to the bus station from our house is about 40 minutes round trip, and then you add in the additional time needed to do business in the city. It’s a long day. There’s usually not any time available for anything else. I’m not complaining, it just comes with our choice to live where we live.
Today, I plan to tackle the project, which will require some help from Don. I didn’t start it yesterday because I promised him I wouldn’t. Turns out I was too tired to do that anyway. We have to move a piece of furniture before I can start.
Oh, the pair of Carolina wrens appeared again this morning, but this time, one of them flew up to the top of our porch light and then walked around the top of the front door. Both of them were on the porch for a while, but no visit to the bird house – at least, that I saw.
Okay. Have to get going!
Stay safe.
Happy Tuesday.
Sounds like a busy day! It’s kind of fun to walk around those stores and find things you need, or even that you don’t necessarily need….and the flowers are an especially uplifting treat! Good luck with your project….look forward to seeing it!
Thanks, Barrie.
Stay safe.
IKEA is not for the faint-hearted. I’m glad you found what you were looking for plus a few extras. Ever since you mentioned how long lasting your flowers are, I’ve bought several bouquets. Sometimes I get over three weeks of them looking lovely. Can’t wait to see the big reveal. Take care. Hugs, Elaine
Thanks so much, Elaine.
Stay safe.
You’re right about that Trader Joe’s (rte 17 north?). It’s always busy and the parking lot is indeed a madhouse! Happy you got out unscathed.
I just saw Spoiler Alert and I loved it! Such a lovely story and great acting – a great debut on the silver screen for you!
Yes, Rte. 17.
So glad you loved the movie, Barbara! Thanks for your kind words.
Stay safe.
I’m glad you had a successful trip to IKEA…yes…it is overwhelming. But, to me, it’s just a fun place to browse. Curious to see what you bought for your girls.
I do like shopping at TJ’s for flowers, but, the only parking is metered parking here in town, And personally I don’t think I should have to pay for parking to shop for food…or flowers in my case.
Have fun with rearranging! ;)
It is a fun place to browse, if it doesn’t so much time to get there!
Agree, you shouldn’t have to pay/park to go grocery shopping.
Stay safe, Donnamae.
Agree with you about the big stores. Have fun today
Thanks, Brenda.
Stay safe.
glad you had a good, if long, day yesterday and that you found the mystery item and some very pretty flowers!
will be fun to see what you bought at ikea for the girls.
i have several ikea stories. :) the closest ikea to me is just south of minneapolis (a suburb, really), making it almost four hours away. it is right next to the humongous “mall of america” (which has, among many other things, its own indoor amusement park with a full-size roller coaster and water-flume ride) … so that ikea is always super-busy. the first time my sister and i went there, we arrived just before the store opened. it was so cold out, they kindly let us all wait inside. kind of felt like we were in the older days of buying concert tickets … willing to wait in line for something exciting. haha. wandered around the showroom (top floor, where we had been allowed to wait indoors) and then got to the (ground floor) marketplace where we could get things we wanted. we took our purchases to my car, wondered about lunch, then looked at a clock and saw it was after 2:30! we both said the same thing, that nearly five hours had gone by so fast, it felt like we’d been hypnotized. haha. another time at ikea, my sister and more than two dozen other people got trapped in the elevator for two hours … became scary because it took way too long, children were crying in there, it was shoulder-to-shoulder and very hot, someone else really needed a bathroom, people were having trouble standing so long, and ultimately two people fainted. karen (my sister) sent me a text to let me know she was stuck in the elevator so i found an employee and told him about the problem. apparently there was only one employee who knew how to fix the problem (not good) and he wasn’t working that day (very not good). help was promised, but no one seemed to be doing anything so (along with probably other people) i called 911 and the fire department finally got them out. the sweetest ikea story is from when my sister and i went to the ikea near kansas city. arrived very early, no one else around, no cars or businesses nearby. as we were walking outside towards the door, we both stopped, looked at each other and i smiled, asked if she smelled something. at the same time, we both said “grandpa’s pipe” … our paternal grandfather used a cherry-vanilla tobacco … and cried some happy tears. :)
can i add a wish? it would be great if the grocery stores around here had carts as nice as those at ikea (those carts just glide and make 360-degree turns like an olympic ice skater … so smooth)! or at the very least, can i not always seem to pick the cart with the squeaky wheel or the one with a front wheel that gets stuck/forces a weird angular move or has something stuck on a wheel so it makes that “clunk … clunk … clunk” noise every three seconds?!? i do switch carts when i get an annoying one. just wishing every cart could be like an ikea cart. :)
okay … off to get stuff done. hope you, don and everyone else have a very good day. stay safe.
kathy
That’s a lot of IKEA stories!
When I was in graduate school, two of my fellow class members and I drove in an old car to the very first IKEA in the country, in Plymouth Meeting, just outside of Philadelphia. It had just opened. I bought a set of IVAR bookshelves there that I had for years and years. It was so exciting. We couldn’t believe the reasonable prices, perfect for a student budget.
Stay safe, Kathy.
Waiting with anticipation for the big reveal. It’s always so great to corral a collection with the right sort of display option.
I know what you mean. I went into an IKEA one time in my life in a big city and I was just … lost. I cannot handle big stores, period, not even when I was the littlest little-girl holding on to my mom’s hand. I can’t deal with fifty gazillion choices. There was a precursor to Macy’s in a town near where I live (the store chain hasn’t existed now for years; wasn’t high end (up some notches from JC Penney but probably not-quite Nordstrom level; there actually weren’t that many of them and they may have been limited to California, I’m not sure); somehow, when I was a teen and in my 20s-30s, I enjoyed it in there; however, the way they had it arranged gave the feel of small shopping ‘areas’ within the store, and I just went directly to the ones I liked.
Good luck with ‘construction’ today!
I loved IKEA when it first opened and for many years after that. Still do, I just don’t have the patience I used to. I went to the very first IKEA in the country right after it opened. It was just outside Philadelphia and as a poor graduate student, I was finally able to buy some bookshelves – the IVAR. I wonder if they still make it? I also found it valuable when I went back to San Diego to work – I bought inexpensive pillows and sheets and slipcovers to brighten up my apartment. It’s great for things like that. And so well organized.
Stay safe, Vicki.
Good to know. Of course IKEA has a good reputation and has been around a long, long time. But I do wear out quickly in big stores. On the other hand, my sister-in-law can spend (waste) an entire day in them and never buy a thing; I had a ‘boss’ who was the same way (it was his only ‘hobby’ besides work, spending his entire Sunday shopping; to each his own, right?).
I was just reading an online article about an interior designer who singles out certain items at Target which are good values, like accent lamps, throw pillows and other things to spruce up/refresh a space like picture frames, but he didn’t like their bath towels for instance. Said you should try to invest in quality bath towels.
I could go nuts at Target back in the day for the Simply Shabby Chic line from Rachel Ashwell as her stuff went well with my little vintage cottage of the era. She’d come out with a new bunch of decor items like, what, maybe once a quarter; and it could be a lot of accessorizing with stuff that wasn’t all just comforters and sheets. I remember one offering had a lot of pale yellow in it; I just loved it; that whole scheme like the patterned lamp shades with pale blue and pale yellow (floral) which didn’t seem too ‘baby-room/nursery-ish’.
Another time from her was pale pink floral with some browns and I’m usually not one for brown, but it worked, especially the light-cotton window curtains/panels; seemed so 1940s to me, like what I’d seen in color photographs from my parents’ early ‘married’ days. At one point, I forget which year, such a long time ago now, she offered Christmas decor I enjoyed, like snow globes or small tabletop storage boxes with bottle-brush trees on the lids. I was into it. The very first item I ever bought online from a store (I had a lot of trepidation doing it at the time!) was one of her small glass-topped, garden-esque tables which was sold out in the Target brick & mortars.
I now haven’t been in a Target since pre-pandemic; I used to love the dollar bins/shelves in the front of the store. I miss going into Michael’s, too. An old standby for me from the 1970s was also Pier 1 Imports (hippie vibe at the time, for my first apartment when I owned practically nothing, which suited my tastes like paper umbrellas [handpainted] and paper lanterns to hang from the ceiling; the quintessential macrame plant hangers; fringed floor pillows; natural-colored glazed or unglazed vases and flower pots; oh, I could go on!) but their stores are gone now from my area (maybe entirely in the U.S.; I’m not sure; I think they went bankrupt recently).
You prompted me to look up the IVAR; found this on an archived article from IKEA: “The IVAR shelf turns 50 in 2018 and has a fascinating story.” Goes on to talk about how versatile it was (solid wood). I didn’t read to see if it’s still currently available. Probably is! Sounds like a good investment; something about it lasting ‘forever’.
It was very functional. Not beautiful, but fine for my needs at the time. I had a lot of books and record albums, plus a stereo. I need shelving and it did the trick!
xo
Ikea can be fun (those tidy rooms in the furniture displays!) but like you our closest one is just a bit too far away. TJs is another story – we have one very close and they have excellent produce as well as flowers, plus those handy empty wine boxes to pack the groceries in and re-use for various things. The prepared food doesn’t tempt me.
Anxious to see your new doll display idea!
Ceci
Thanks, Ceci!
Stay safe.
Will pick up the taquitos when we go to Tj on Friday
We go when it opens first thing in the morning so it is not to bad
When the tourists come that is another story
Do you think Don could share some of his recipes?
Thank you
I doubt it, Linda. He creates on the fly! Doesn’t really write anything down. He did share his sugar-free apple pie recipe but that’s a recipe he found on the internet.
Stay safe!
I enjoy IKEA but it’s too big for me these days and I would have to take shortcuts! Usually my kids will go and I’ll get them to bring me what I want. I love TJ’s but seldom shop there now. My Mom still cooks but many of their frozen items would be something I would buy if I had to cook. Because I don’t like to cook. Anyway glad you had a good trip.
I don’t like to cook either. It’s not pretty at dinner time when Don is away!
Stay safe, Linda.
I hear you about the shopping. I don’t like the lighting either. I have a lot of energy normally, but I get so tired when shopping! Glad you found what you needed.
Yes, shopping enervates me. Saps my energy.
Stay safe, Jenny.
I do love IKEA — and yes, it is exhausting, which I why I probably won’t go till I can walk a little better or longer. I always find something fun or interesting. I don’t buy most of the frozen stuff at IKEA except sometimes gyoza. We’re too far to buy frozen! But their prices are so much better on things like olives, artichoke hearts, even pasta and I like their olive oil. If I was closer I’d buy flowers often (and sometimes do get something like a bulb garden). Great prices.
And it’s a fun road trip. (With us it’s usually combined with a visit to the grands!)
I just learned the woman who does my taxes is in a coma in the hospital and has been for a week, that if/when she is out of it, will have a long rehab process. So, her brother is having to dig through the stuff left off and match it up with clients and contact them and we have to find someone to do the taxes. I just can’t manage those myself. Hopefully Rick can. The person I heard of who did a friend’s charges over twice as much. Yikes!
I’m sorry about your friend, Jeanie. Our tax person is getting older and she has filed our taxes LATE for the past two years. But we like her and she is supposedly taking on a partner. She promised she wouldn’t do that again, but she’s short staffed. Sigh.
Stay safe, Jeanie.
The first time we had to go into a Costco after the short shutdown, a trip made absolutely necessary since my hearing aid had broken, we were there only a few minutes before my husband became so overwhelmed by all the sensory overload told me he had to go back to the car.
I understand!
Stay safe, Linda.