This is where I talk excessively about shopping

Ohhh, hiii to the three readers who still check this thing. Sorry it has been so long, but I have been so ridiculously busy!

Work has really picked up, and now that my work is right here, I am more inclined to work more than 8 hours. I worked plenty of overtime at the last job (and an ungodly amount at the job before that), but now it's just so darned easy to end up working extra. The laptop is right there calling my name. It sounds like, "Fraaaan....Fraaaaaaan...you know you want to edit meeeee." So there's that.

And then, in case you didn't hear me shouting it from the mountaintops, Pat and I took a trip to IKEA this weekend! The closest IKEA is about four hours away (well, the one near Toronto is technically 3 hours away, but it always seems to take 4 with the border shenanigans and whatnot). We have been talking about going there for ages, but a trip never materialized. We didn't have a home office setup, and now that I work from home, it put a fire under me/us, especially because my make-shift setup the last 6 or so weeks was KILLING my neck. So, the moon and the stars finally aligned, and we borrowed a large SUV from a very trusting and kind friend, and we headed to Pittsburgh! Yes, Pittsburgh.  Greta stayed home with my mom since, as I so motherly put it to one friend, Greta would "just slow us down and take up too much space." It's unkind but it's true.

Behold the glory of the flags.

We got to IKEA at about 3 PM on Saturday, and we didn't leave until almost 9 PM. We actually saw them turn the lights off inside the store.  We had some rather stressful moments when we realized not everything would fit in the truck, but Pat pulled out his boy scout skills and tied a sofa bed frame to the roof rack so tightly and thoroughly that I knew it wasn't going anywhere. And, man, we had that truck filled to the gills. It was a sight to be seen. I will say this, though: what we spent on about 5 million things from IKEA is about what one would spend on a love seat at, say, Pottery Barn. Love. Did I mention I love IKEA?

I even love their cafeteria.

I am ashamed to admit that after the shopping marathon we couldn't muster exploring any of the Pittsburgh restaurants or sights that friends recommended. For one thing, it was late. And for another, we had a vehicle chock full of all of my new favorite tangible possessions, and I didn't want to do any unnecessary driving. And, most important at the time, I needed to find the shortest path between me and a dirty martini. We ended up getting a surprisingly good meal at the hotel and having some surprisingly mediocre dirty martinis.

This is the face of a girl who needed a martini and a seared ahi tuna salad stat, and this is the face of a man who was willing to go shopping for six hours.

We got home Sunday afternoon, and during the last two days, we've spent pretty much every free moment assembling Swedish-designed furniture made in China. I love, love, love all of the new stuff, and I can't wait to go back again. My office is still a work in progress, but my desk and chair are set up, and it is already the best office I've ever had. It just makes me smile. I hope to get some pictures up soon.

Jeez, did I talk about IKEA enough?

The only other thing is I got a sassy new haircut. I just got it tonight, and it's always hard to tell if I like a new haircut until the next day after I've washed the junk out of it and styled it myself. I think I like it, but it has the littlest likeness to the most disastrous haircut I ever got, also known as the "Jennifer Aniston Disaster Haircut of 1995," or "the haircut that gave me bad self-esteem just in time to start college."

And this, friends, about brings us up to date. I hope you're all dandy.

Fran