Pudding Time!

There was an application on Facebook about a year ago, before they introduced the concept of the ‘SuperPoke’, which would allow you to taunt a friend. The taunt most frequently used against me was to ‘tease someone with false promises of pudding.’ See…I love pudding. I make time in my day to sit down and eat my pudding cup. Because seriously…is there EVER a bad time for pudding? Don’t answer that.

Moving on.

IKEA, the Swedish furniture Nirvana, has become my real life version of being teased with the false promise of pudding. Because you see…no matter how hard I try, and no matter who make plans with…I just can’t ever seem to get to IKEA.

Everyone else in the world has been there…except for me.

My aunt and uncle went and promised that they would take me with them the ‘next time’…and it never happened.

My cousin was planning to go and promised she would take me with her. She went without me.

My friends have gone and promised to take me with them…and they haven’t.

See what I mean? It’s the ultimate false promise of pudding.

Last Sunday LibraryDiva woke me up nice and early and told me to ‘get in the freaking car already.’ She said that we had places to go and things to do…but she wouldn’t tell me where we were headed because it was ‘a surprise.’

We drove and drove and drove and stopped to have lunch at Cracker Barrel…

Which is groovy…cause they have really good food.

We got back in the car and drove some more and ya’ll, guess where we wound up???

*Squealing with glee*

We parked in the GIGANTIC parking garage, took two escalators, picked up a store map and a big yellow shopping bag and spent the next five hours wandering through a little slice of design heaven on earth.

I found this cabinet hanging up in the ‘living in 327 square feet’ display…

And fell in love! I want it!!!

We wandered farther and found this…

The kitchen of HistoryDiva’s dreams! *Sigh*

Tucked under the cabinets of another kitchen I found this adorable dry goods storage unit…

…and I’m seriously crushing on it. I just might ask it to move in with me.

LibraryDiva fondled these chandeliers so much that I was a little worried we would be asked to leave by store security.

We sat on sofas and in chairs, we oohed and ahhed over bookshelves and closets and sofa tables and art prints and dinning tables and kitchen gadgets. We compared cabinet designs, countertop materials and lighting fixtures. I bought a wok for eight bucks. It was one of my best days EVER.

We were some of the last customers to leave the store and wander back out to the car.

(On our way back toward the interstate I snapped this picture of some downtown city lights.)