The Mythology of Ikea

There once was a mythical land called IKEA. Until recently, I couldn't be sure it really existed. I had heard tales of this land of tables, chairs, shoe storage, pillows, lampshades, bedsheets, dishes, and meatballs.  Friends and family insisted I travel to this land and experience its wonders myself; but I resisted.  Ben, too, was hesitant, for there was always something else to do.

Last month, however, something changed. We had a desire to see this Swedish paradise. (Mostly we found and purchased an awesome 5x5 cube IKEA shelf through Craig's List and needed some baskets to organize things).  We made our plans and set out on our journey last Saturday.  We arrived at IKEA at 11:30 a.m. and followed the other pilgrims who seemed to know where they were going.  Our shopping list was pretty focused so we spent the next 3 hours wandering from section to section, picking out various storage items, taking note of ideas for the future, and eating lunch at the famed IKEA cafeteria.  Ben had the meatballs, I had a mozzarella/red pepper panini and we both had yummy apple pie. 

The whole process of actually finding our items was a bit confusing for me. I tried to pull a couple pillows off the wall and baskets of the shelves in the display section until Ben told me we had to pick up our items somewhere else.  I then noticed that others were caring around pencils and paper, writing down item numbers, colors, and other helpful information.  I managed to mess up at some point, though, because when we got the self-serve furniture warehouse, an item wasn't where I had marked it to be.  We wandered a few aisles hoping to randomly come across it to no avail.  We then spotted a helpful computer kiosk that quickly solved our problem.

In short, IKEA was as magical as I had imagined. It smelled of cinnamon rolls and new plastic. Ben and I had a wonderful day and are on the road to organizing our lives...or at least the music room.  Thank you to whoever gave us those IKEA gift cards for our wedding four years ago. We finally used them!

Our full cart...it doesn't look like much, but it's all awesome!