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Laboring Weekend …

Jessica … we went to the new IKEA this weekend. Woohoo. What fun.

Unlike most of America who spent Labor Day taking it easy, Wifey™ and I spent the three-day weekend in full “labor” mode. The reason, in October Wifey™’s parents and their friends are coming on down from Canada to the good ‘ole USA. San Francisco, specifically. Their first trip down … ever.

So, we spent the weekend sprucing up the pad. Specifically, the office, which hadn’t quite recovered from the move back in March. Oh, what a chore.

But let’s get back to IKEA. While the rest of the free world has known about IKEA for decades, those of us in the Bay Area have only known of it for a couple of years, since the first one opened up across the Bay Bridge in Emeryville. We’ve been there a couple of times since it opened, but going anywhere near the city and moreso, Oakland is more of a chore than anything else.

Last Wednesday, IKEA opened a new store in East Palo Alto. Way cool. Not East Palo Alto, but IKEA. East Palo Alto is the kind of area where you don’t really want to be in at night … or day … or anytime. But the IKEA is close enough to the freeway so that it doesn’t feel like you’re really in a bad part of town. Except when you pass all the broken down stores and stuff, but once you get passed that, it’s all IKEA … all the time. That bigass blue building that you can’t miss if you tried.

We arrived at about 9:30AM, half an hour after opening. No line to get in, parking galore. In fact, we managed to get through the entire top part of the store in good time, then went downstairs to get all the good stuff. We literally filled our cart to the top and left only spending less than $100. I love IKEA. Cheap stuff is awesome.

So, with our shopping trip out of the way we headed home and began the projects we’d set forth for the afternoon. We hung an IKEA shelf and some of the clear kitchen canisters in our kitchen. And then spray-painted the tables and lamps in our living room an antique bronze. They look awesome.

Then, Monday we labored. Cleaned out the office closet, throwing away fifty percent of the stuff that was in there. We actually managed to clear out half the closet so that our guests will be able to use it for hanging clothes.

Of course, now I’m tired. It’d be nice to have a three-day weekend where we don’t have anything to do. Just sit and barbeque like the rest of the people do on Labor Day.

After a long day … it’s nice to just go home.

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