Ikea, Zen and the Art of shopping

Yesterday Jackie and I ventured to Ikea. It's all the way on the other side of town so you have to plan ahead for this sort of thing. We both had items in mind that we wanted. Credit cards in hand and with a spark in our eyes we went for it. We shopped like mad. We were a small time limit of 4 hours so we had to work together. Now, let me take a minute to explain the wonder that is Ikea...for those who have never been. It's the biggest, coolest most fantastic, gigantic furniture store ever. It's about the size of 3 football fields, two floors. It is jam packed with awesome furniture that's stylish and affordable (you save money by putting it together yourself.) It's so well managed and organized but still overwhelming. There is a path that most people follow so that even when it is nut-to-butt people inside, it's still very easy to get around as long as everyone sticks to the direction of traffic. Well I don't know how it happend but Jackie and I were peeing against the wind the whole time. We both picked out furniture and accessories. By the end we had two carts. One for furniture and one for the smaller stuff. Then I realized that we needed to be back upstairs, which is no small task. Plus we only had about an hour left and we still hadn't picked up all the furniture boxes. We worked as a team. I lead the front and Jackie drove the back and we got thru those crowds in record time. By the end we were just exhausted. Chad was kind enough to get my peices together this morning. I went and bought some sand for my table and let me just say that 50lbs of sand is not the same as 50lbs if cotton balls. I have sand all over my trunk, a bit in my living room, dining room and back patio. I have found a portion of my sea shells that I've been collection over the years. Most of them my mom picked up so they mean a lot to me. I am not great with presentation so the pics up top are a preliminary display until I figure it out. But the really relaxing part was laying down the sand in the drawers. It was calming and now I have a new fondness for sand gardening. I love Ikea. I have had a picture in my head of this table for years and to find it yesterday was so awesome that I completely ignored the price tag and also bought the matching sofa table to match. It's nice when the universe balances, even if it's just for a moment.