If you ever need to furnish an entire house including all the kitchen stuff, may I suggest that getting up early and arriving at IKEA before it’s open is the way to go? Using the list you made using their website. After you have a coffee and cinnamon roll to prepare for the task, you find a nice coworker like Jaspareet K who offers to make you a pull list plus do the order form for the rest of the stuff that isn’t self-serve.

While she does the paperwork, go to the kitchen section and pull all that stuff on your list. Plus a few other things that weren’t there.

When you get to the self-serve warehouse, get someone to help you stage all the stuff you’re buying since you’ll have a ton of carts and those flat things. Then once you’ve got everything, get a couple of people to help you through the lineup. Buy the bags–you’ll need them.

Then get one of the guys who works in the loading zone to help you load. And load and load.

Buy some food at the Swedish market. It’s going to be a long day and meatballs might be just what you need. Get the lingonberries too. It’s kind of like cranberry sauce, right?

Wait as the rest of the order gets pulled from the back. Chill because it’s the biggest heaviest stuff that they’re getting. That chill time plus the drive time will let your body relax since the truck will need to be unpacked and it will be time for more lifting. Write your blog. Cool down. Take a photo:

After we load ’em up, we’ll be heading out to the Owl House.

Happy Thanksgiving! I am thankful that so far everything’s working out as planned. And I am grateful for all the preparation that Bruce did.

No gratuitous dog photo today. The Gs are enjoying Thanksgiving with their pals Tracy and Larry.