have you heard about the guy who. . .

. . . moved into his local IKEA store for a week while his NYC apartment is being fumigated? Yes, it's true! Read all about it at http://www.marklivesinikea.com/. He just moved in on the 7th [today] and is supposed to be posting a new video every day this week.

Whenever I mention IKEA to Owen, he gets this distant, irritated look on his face, put there no doubt by his harrowing first experience there about six years ago. It was my first visit as well, and since my mom was with us, together we explored the many wonders of the store for over three hours. With Owen and kids in tow.

He hated every minute.

Owen is not a shopper at heart anyway [unless we're talking power tools], so the fact that he made it through a three-hour-tour of IKEA is in itself no small feat. My mom and I still love to tease him about it, and he still adamantly refuses to spend time there. Although I was able to talk him into a brief stopover when we were passing through the Bay Area two summers ago.

Thinking about IKEA also reminds me that I bought some great prints there [during the aforementioned last visit] that I still need to get framed. Yikes. Talk about procrastinating. I should add "stop putting off house decorating projects that really should have been done years ago" to my New Year's resolutions this year. Hmmm. It's gonna be a long list this year.