I’ve spent most of my Spring Break working on things that have been lingering in my house/college work/etc. Although there’s still a lot more I wanted to get done, I’m pleased with some of my progress.

But for me, Spring Break just isn’t Spring Break unless I go SHOPPING. I was hoping to get doon sooth to Ikea (a good hour and 20 minute drive) this spring break and today wound up being the day. The original plan was me, mom & dad. But alas, dad has caught the cold that mother got when she flew down to Florida last week. Mom was mostly recovered, so she drove the two of us down to West Chester (that’s south of Dayton, but north of Cincinnati) with my phone telling us where to go. And it got us there just fine.

This Ikea is fairly new and still has the New Store look to it. We arrived right at noon. Which was good, cuz we were both hungry for lunch. I got the Swedish meatballs with gravy & lingonberry preserves along with smashed tators. There was also a fizzy peach drink which I picked up. Mom decided on their veggie wrap and the garlic tomato soup and some of that peach fizzy drink. We agreed we’d get dessert after shopping.

If you’ve not been to an Ikea – well, it’s an adventure. We started putting little things in our bag as we wandered. Mom checked out kitchen cabinets and their arrangements, I just liked looking at the neat-o furniture. We tried out a few sofas and were impressed with the comfort. I got to see the TV stand I’d been eying on their website. I decided I’d get it and we even found some nice green boxes which would fit on it. (It’s not going to be a TV stand, it’s going under my picture window as a set of shelves.)

After we picked up the very heavy TV stand and purchased everything, we dumped it all into mom’s car then returned to the store for dessert. I got the chocolate cake (which elsaf would hate – it’s basically layers of chocolate mousse separated by oreo cookie crumbs) – it was delish! Mom got the almond cake, which was also lovely. So lovely we decided to pick one up in the little Swedish food shop. And a few other items.

The little dessert (and coffee for mom) perked us up enough we were game to finally see Jungle Jim’s. Aunt Becky has sung its praises before. And it was indeed impressive. It’s like a Trader Joe’s x 3 plus a regular grocery. We had a nice time in there, despite the fact that we were getting sore feet/legs/etc from all the walking about. They even had pork pies – so I had to get one. The prices were pretty reasonable as well. All the stuff that I got and it was under $40. Oh, and when we finished shopping, it was 6pm. So we shopped for 6 hours straight (with a few times eating and/or driving to the other store).

We had a long drive home which is when the sun finally decided to come out. Indeed, the closer we got to home, the sunnier it got. Heh. I ate my pork pie and had some salt & pepper potato chips left over from Christmas when A&R were in town. Mom and I finally finished ’em. I think the pork pie had more meat in it than the ones I’d always buy at Harrod’s in London. Heh.

Two more days left of Spring Break. I’ll probably go back into productive mode tomorrow. (Well, I’d better! For one thing, I want to put my new TV stand together and stuff books & things on it.) But today was a nice break from productivity.