Posts Tagged ‘ikea’

Winter in Michigan

By Brit

Ok, January’s over and February has started. The fact still stands:

Winter in Michigan SUCKS.

Sucks, sucks, sucks. Not only for the 12 degrees I woke up to this morning, but the $200 heating bills, and the absolute lack of daylight.

There is about 4-5 hours of usable daylight for taking photographs everyday. Ok, generally it’s less than that. It’s cloudy almost every day, making daylight ridiculously hard to come by. It also doesn’t help that our kitchen is on the east side of the house and the early morning sun is mostly clouds.

I can’t take a damned food photograph for the life of me after about 11:30am, and that’s when I’ve been up and moving enough to cook.

It also doesn’t help that the kitchen, no matter how ridiculously nice it is, is pretty dark. I found some under cabinet lights when I was at IKEA a few months ago and finally got them installed this past weekend.

I can’t tell you how much the lights have helped cooking in the last couple days. I guess I never realized how much I needed more light in the kitchen until I started trying to take pictures of the foods I made and now I’m considering getting more lights for under every cupboard.

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This entry was posted on February 1st, 2010 under Home.

My Spice Rack

By Brit

When Matt and I moved into the condo last April, one of the first things I got set up was the kitchen. I’d never really had a kitchen like this (pretty much everyone who comes over is ridiculously jealous of it) and I was so excited to get everything into it.

I had made a pilgrimage to IKEA with Ginny right after we moved in to get curtains and shower rods and all the stuff you need to buy when you move into a brand-new home. I can’t tell you how long I looked over the IKEA catalog. It was seriously hours. The pages were getting dog-eared and crinkled pretty bad. I finally made my choices (and subsequently threw them all out the window as soon as we walked into that bright, shiny building).

One thing I didn’t falter on was my spice jars. I fell in love with them as soon as I saw them in the catalog and have never regretted the choice.

The jars are the Rajtan jars from IKEA. They’re ridiculously cheap ($3 for 4 jars) and they’re absolutely cute (especially when stuffed with amazing spices). I even use one jar for my vanilla (mostly because Ginny brought me some amazing vanilla from Mexico and I didn’t have anything to put it in – she wouldn’t let me have the whole bottle, psh!)

The problem of the spice rack lies with the actual rack. I don’t have one. I have a shelf I bought one day at IKEA, which conveniently, they don’t carry anymore.

I also have been cooking a lot more since we moved in, and collecting more and more spices, which no longer conveniently fit on the single shelf anymore. I have no idea what to do with this. I don’t want the jars hanging out on the counter, it’d be amazing I could have found that shelf again.

So, you’re probably asking WHY THE FUCK DON’T YOU BUY A SPICE RACK!? Good question. The space between the bottom of the cabinet and the countertop is 16 inches, oh and there’s that 3.5 inch “backsplash.” All of this means there is absolutely no space for a spice rack.

I do have to admit that I haven’t been to Home Depot or Lowe’s yet to look for a spice rack, or hell, just a shelf that I could use to store them on – but I’m not sure how well that’d go for me anyways (I’m probably the most picky person in the world).

My question to you: How do you store your spices? Do you hide them in a cupboard? Do you display them proudly? Do you even use them?

Oh, and if you have any ideas for my conundrum, PLEASE please PLEASE! Do tell!

PS, there’s a brand new design for you three people who read Yuppish on your reader … so, check it out!

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This entry was posted on January 31st, 2010 under Home.

Lucy’s Necklace

By Brit

Today I went to IKEA. It was um, a pilgrimage. I love it there. Seriously. Two hours and more than I should have spent later, I have a lot of things to chipper up the house. I finally finished the downstairs bathroom and I’ll have pictures later on, but I right now I have to show you this:

The most adorable dog necklace around. She looks ridiculously cute wearing it!

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This entry was posted on January 28th, 2010 under Other, Pets.

It’s Never Too Early

By Brit

To think about Christmas, right? I mean, I can always think of things I’d love to get for Christmas. Here’s my list so far.

091109olivetree

Yes, that is an olive tree. Through Nudo, you can adopt an olive tree in their grove for a year. What an awesome idea. The best part? In the spring and in the autumn, they’ll send you the olive oil from the respective harvests. It’s a bit spendy, but you get olive oil, from your own tree! I love everything to do with olives, so this is an obvious choice.

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091109mixer

A KITCHEN AID MIXER. Duh, it’s on every woman’s wish list. I just can’t decide if I want the cobalt blue or the tangerine. The blue is pretty, the orange is pretty, and it’s Matt’s favorite color – which will give me some bonus points (not that I need any though). I used my dad’s Kitchen-Aid last week when I was home, to make french bread. I couldn’t believe how easy it was! It’s probably the most extravagant thing to have in the kitchen, ok maybe not, but it’s something that I will have, someday.

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091109crockpotA Smart Pot Crockpot. Set it and forget it! I’ve never had one, but I’ve always been intrigued by starting something in the morning and then magically, when it’s dinner time, it’s ready! That’s pretty awesome. Even better that now I’m working and Matt’s at home throughout the day. He doesn’t like to cook much, and well, I don’t like to ask him because I like to do the cooking. This solves all the problems. (It’s also now the correct crock pot, there was one I wanted specifically, but I couldn’t remember. Em helped <3)

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091109wiicard

A points card for the Nintendo Wii. Our Beatles Rock Band is coming tomorrow (WE CANNOT WAIT! SERIOUSLY), and we’ve already made a list of the songs we want to download. I think there are like 100 songs already. Awesome. Pat Benetar and No Doubt here we come!!!

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091109greys I love Grey’s Anatomy. LOVE LOVE LOVE. There’s really nothing else to say about it. I don’t have season five though. I used to spend hours every week watching Grey’s. I’m in love with it. I can’t wait to watch the episodes I haven’t seen in awhile again. At least we know that Meredith and Derek are together now and I don’t have to wait to find out what’s going to happen, right?

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091109pwIt’s the fricken Pioneer Woman. I’ve loved her website for years and now she has a cookbook! She makes the most amazing foods, and takes amazing pictures. Ginny and I have decided that there’s probably really like four of her running around that ranch and that it’s really in Utah and Marlbolo Man is  some kind of mormon with fifteen wives … seriously! How else can she keep four kids in homeschool, keep her house clean AND cook and take amazing pictures. Ok, maybe I’m jealous.

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091109bookcaseIKEA’s Expedit shelving unit. I’m in love with this. I’m planning on turning it on it’s side and then using as a quasi side-board. It’s really another thing for storage. We need a lot, a lot, a lot of storage, and this will fit the bill, at least for a little bit of storage. It’s so pretty and it’ll look great with my Fiesta dishes displayed.

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091109boxspringUm, we don’t currently have a box spring for our bed. We tried using the double sized box spring from Matt’s old bed under my queen mattress, you can imagine how well that went. It’d be nice to have one and not worry about ruining the mattress we have. Really, that’s about all I can say about that.

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091109cameraA Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-H20. It’s a 10.1 megapixel camera with 10x optical zoom and super steady shot image stabilization. My camera takes shitty pictures. I’m not going to lie, they’re terrible, and grainy, and embarrassing. It wouldn’t hurt to have a 16GB memory stick for it too, right? This is the one thing that I really, really, really want for Christmas this year (hint, hint, MOM – I know you read this).

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091109ringI wouldn’t say no to this either :)

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This entry was posted on November 9th, 2009 under Other.

Bubs Has A Condo

By Brit

From the day we got Bubs, Matt decided that at some point he’d need a bigger cage. We knew the “starter pack” would, in fact, be a starter cage for him. We just didn’t know at what point we’d need to get something larger. Every time we go to the pet store, Matt always looks at the bigger cages. Honestly, I’m not sure how much bigger they are. I mean, it’s still a cage that sits on the floor, there’s a little bit of a ledge, but other than that, it’s the same thing.

091014cageThis cage is all of $159.99 at PetCo. You’re kidding me right? For $150 I was sure as hell I could build something better for a hell of a lot cheaper. I began researching soon after we brought Bubsy home. I came across the Michigan Rabbit Rescue, among others (mainly QRabbit, but for some reason their site isn’t up).

I decided it would be best to make him a NIC (Neat Idea Cubes) Rabbit Condo, or in their absence, a similar product.

091014cubesI found these cubes at Bed, Bath and Beyond. They were $14.99 for 16 pieces which would make this, if that’s how you’d use it. I ended up leaving BBB with 2 boxes, for a total of $29.98. Awesome. This was going to be a lot cheaper than a $160 cage. I bought 2 packages of 100 cable ties (one at first, which wasn’t enough so I trekked back out to Lowe’s for another). Which totaled just under $10.

While at Lowe’s I found window locks with a bolt so that maybe I could keep the little punk in his cage without him escaping.

091014bolts

With three of these locks, I should be able to keep him in his cage. There’s a lock on each level of the condo. The total cost for these was $6.50 (got them on sale!).

So, this is the final product, a 3 cubes x 1 cube x 3 cubes (measures about 43.5 inches by 14.5 inches by 43.5 inches) rabbit condo, with 2 different levels (and the bottom floor) for his jumpiness.

091014condo

I used four rugs I got from IKEA at $2.99 each, which happen to be not on the website anymore. But they’re awesome, we must have seven of them in our house now (I hope there are still some at IKEA! I should probably head back tomorrow after I drop Matt off at the airport for his Vegas trip).

So, this is his condo. For $57.94, we finally have our living room back, and he’s as happy as can be. And, I saved $100, which is even better.

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This entry was posted on October 14th, 2009 under Home, Pets.

Home Disasters

By Brit

Matt and I finally got around to cleaning out our third bedroom on the first floor. It had been a place to throw things we had no idea about (now all of that stuff is conveniently in the garage). Either way, the room is empty and I finally got around to putting together my desk so I can start sewing again.

After I put the desk together, I searched the garage looking for something else to put together or find a permanent place for. I found the filing cabinet Matt’s parents got us for our housewarming present. Neither one of us had ever had a proper one. I always used milk crates and Matt used a plasticy one.

I decided it was time to put it together and start using it. The box itself weighed at least 90 pounds (not kidding, it took Ginny and I all of our strength to get it into the back of the U-Haul we moved). The instruction book was 28 pages long. Have you ever seen an instruction book from IKEA that’s 28 pages? No, me either. There were 35 separate instructions inside the book. It took me an hour to get through the first 2 steps. I was pissed at that point, but it was coming together and the next few steps went pretty quickly.

090827office1

Then it happened. I realized that I had fucked this one up big time. Everything was put together right, except the glides for the drawers were in upside down.

090827cabinet2

I’m going to have to take it almost all the way apart again to fix it, which would be fine if I hadn’t already put in an hour and a half of work on it. Oh, and did I mention the 1/3 of the screws that decided that they would strip as I was putting them in? No? Oh yeah, that was a pain in my ass too.

Now, I’m stuck. Matt’s dad is coming at some point to help bail me out since he has something to get the stripped screws out. It’d be nice to have it mostly done, but it was my fault, and well. Duh, sometimes putting it together yourself isn’t the best idea.

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This entry was posted on August 27th, 2009 under Home.

It Only Took a Week

By Brit
I have a problem with my sciatica, or sciatic nerve, or however the hell you say it.  It sucks. I can barely move. I have a hard time walking up and down the two flights of stairs in our condo. I tweak it accidently and scream in the middle of the night. It’s all around terrible.

The whole story starts three weeks ago when I finally got to moving the rest of my crap from the storage unit into the condo.  The amazing Ginny helped me along the way, though, mostly I think for the free ride and company at IKEA (oh, how I love going to IKEA with her).  Either way, I pulled something, or moved something wrong, or some other bullshit excuse and could barely finish the move.

I made an appointment with a chiropractor.  I’ve heard both sides of the story on these guys.  I figured at that time, it was worth a shot.  I ended up picking a holistic chiropractor who was more interested in curing me as a “whole” with vials of crazy shit than actually trying to fix my problem.  The first visit included me sitting on the table, in pain, trying to hold my arm up as the “doctor” was pushing it down, all while I was holding vials of infectious diseases, milk, grass and other hippy-dippy shit.  I had never been to a chiropractor before, so I technically didn’t know what to expect, but I did expect some kind of adjustment or whatever to be done on my back since it’s WHAT I WENT THERE FOR.  I had to demand that the doctor try something to fix my back.  He did try something, it most definitely didn’t work.

Then came the massage.  My first ever.  It was amazing.  If the airline didn’t pay me crap for money, I’d get them everyday.  I would also be the happiest girl in the world.  The massage helped, but I was still in a lot of pain.

I went back to the chiropractor for my “consultation” in which I received my x-ray results and the schedule of treatment which was to follow.  To make a long story short, they wanted me to come in almost 20 times and have 5 additional nutrition meetings with them, costing me almost $600 out of pocket.  Hi, I DON’T FUCKING THINK SO.

I nixed the chiropractor and called the real doctor.  He’s hilarious.  While examining me, he asked about the chiropractor and what kind of exam he did when I told him I was having problems with my back and hip.  Truthfully, the chiropractor did nothing to even see if there was tenderness or pain in the area.

“Well how the hell can he prescribe treatment if he doesn’t even know what’s wrong?”

This is why I love my doctor.  He’s awesome and he’s got a big ass mouth, just like me.  After examining me, medicines were prescribed, I was set up for physical therapy and taken off work until July 31st.

Last Tuesday, I started taking the prednisone as part of the recovery that my doctor prescribed.  A steroid.  Woah, that’s some heavy shit.  I was a bit nervous seeing as some of the side effects include weight gain, sleep problems, nausea … pretty much a whole bunch of crap I don’t want to deal with.

What I didn’t realize until Monday night was the steroids were making me sweat like a sumo wrestler in the Saharan desert.  What sucked most was that it took me a week to realize the medicine was the cause for the sweating and washing more changes of sheets than should be allowed in one week.

I’m happy to be done with it.  I can finally go back to playing in the MLB, like the rest of the steroid users gone soft.

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This entry was posted on July 28th, 2009 under Other.