My Ikea Experience

So I always get really good ideas of things to write about here but of course when I actually sit down to write them I forget. So I'll just tell you about my IKEA experience.
I went to IKEA yesterday. It was kinda scary, never been there before and I had to drive to Britol to get there, about an hour in the Big American Truck (my chevy blazer). I bought 2 of these and 2 other working tables for scrapbooking and whatever other crafty things I come up with (one of each was for Tim). I will take pictures later today and post of you to see. The shelfing unit is great! I almost have it filled up. I'm going to buy those baskets that double as drawers for the bottom of the unit and rest is going to all be open. It is kick ass.
I found IKEA kinda scary though. First I thought there was a parking garage and well that was the store. The store it self is huge. You have to go up like 3 stories to get to the show room. Then once you get there and start looking around you have to write down what you want to buy and then go and find it yourself.
This is not what I'm use to. I'm use to looking around, finding a sales person and saying, "Hey Julie, how are you today? I would like to purchase that bookcase over there."
But "Julie" proceed to tell me that I have to go around and find it myself. So I write down what I need and go down to the self service area and begin to look for the correct asiles where my stuff is located. I have my trolley (flat bed cart) and I locate my items.
The bookcase.....VERY HEAVY!! I was alone as Tim had to work and of course there wasn't a person in sight to help me out, go figure. Well Tim wanted to same bookcase as me or really I wanted the one he did so I had to get 2 bookcases. Each book case consists of 2 boxes.
So 4 heavy boxes later, a sweaty forehead, and a broken back I was half way done. I went to find my table, which mind you I had to purchase each leg separate. So the table was 27 pounds when really it was 20 pounds and each leg was 1.75 pounds. They gave you different colors for the legs. Whatever, I picked the first color that came which was black and come to think of it, it matches my shelf.
Now I have my trolley full of stuff, I walk up to check out, and now it is time to go. Since I have the tank (blazer) I parked far away so that I could fit in the spot. Really, if you have ever been to England is so I didn't have to get out the back of the truck cause the truck will fit, you just can't open the door to get out.
Anyways, I parked out in BFE and since I'm alone I can't leave my stuff there, go and get the car, drive is around to the pick-up point. So I started to push my very heavy trolley towards my car.
I got about 1/3 of the way there before the cart just gave out. It had permant break applied or something and I couldn't go any further. Well lucky enough someone saw me and offered to help. He couldn't get the thing to move so we decided that I would go and get the truck and come back down. I get the truck and attempt to park it and in the end I just blocked the whole row from going anywhere. There were like 3 cars waiting to park as I'm moving these very heavy boxes from the trolley to the car. I also realized that Tim had not cleaned out the back of the truck before I drove down to Bristol and I had to quickly shift the 2 cases of oil, the oil drip pan, his greasy cover-alls, and a box of random screws, nails, and other sharp heavy objects that I could not identify.
Now the truck is loaded and time for me to leave, of course, why not start snowing. Yes I said snow. Nothing major but just something else. I'm about to leave and let the other 3-5 people behind me park when I realized that this aisle of IKEA is not a turn around asile. You all know what I'm talking about. You know when you are at Best Buy, Wal-Mart, any parking lot in the states and you get to the end of the row and there were no parking spaces and you can turn right or left to go down the next row to see if there are any there. This IKEA did not have this. Great...
So I wait for everyone else to back up. Now I can back up...in short distances. I just went slowly and tried to image Tim not yelling at me but giving me to look at how bad I was driving. I finally made it out of the IKEA parking lot in one piece and headed home.
What a day???

On top of that the dog is sick. Dakoda on Friday night he was crying in pain. He didn't want to play, he couldn't get up the stairs, and he wouldn't jump on the bed or couch.
Saturday morning we called the vet. We brought him in, they looked at him and thought his back was bothering him, problaby something muscular. He got a shot and some pain pills and we were told to keep him doped up all weekend and bring him in on Monday to see how he was doing.
Monday morning, he is doing fine, we didn't feed him in case he needed x-rays, and no pain pills so that if something is wrong it wouldn't be masked from the pills.
He was fine when I left for my IKEA experience and he seemed okay when I got home. Then he started to cry again. I called Tim, he said call the vet. The vet said to bring him in tomorrow for x-rays.
Dakoda was doped up again last night and again seemed okay today. When I dropped him off he jumped up on the girl taking him back to x-rays and he started to cry really bad. So now we wait. He is there now and will keep you posted on everything. I hope it is just muscle and nothing anything really major. Poor puppy.
On that note I'm going to run off, still have to finish putting my room together now that I have something to put it all in. Will post pictures of my room/studio later. So excited!!