Disclosure: I received ICBINB coupons, a Flip cam, and a gift card to create this video and pay for groceries.

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter contacted me recently to ask if I’d like to visit a local farmers market to gather items for a lunch party with friends afterwards—created with recipes using ICBINB, or course. I turn down a lot of PR offers, but this sounded like fun, and I had a tub of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter in my fridge already, so I do actually use their product. I also tend to be a recluse, so I thought this would be a good way to force myself outside and see what Chapel Hill has to offer.

There are several farmers markets near me. The Carrboro Farmers Market seemed to be the most popular one, but I heard parking was a mess. So I decided to go to the South Estes Market instead since it’s held in a mall parking lot with plenty of spaces. It was also on the way between my place [...]

• Continue reading "Visiting the farmers market for I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter"

The universe loves to toy with me. Evidence?

Object #1: The brown/black BILLY bookcase I bought on impulse at IKEA last month for $59.99 (plus tax).

Object #2: The brown/black BILLY bookcase abandoned at the bottom of the stairs outside my apartment 5 days ago. (Note: This is not the same bookcase. They occupy two different areas of the space-time continuum.) I checked the front and back and the shelf notches, and there is no doubt that this is a BILLY bookcase. Looks like he made friends with the abandoned umbrella that has been there since I moved in.

Considering the length of time that this bookcase has been sitting literally at my doorstep, it’s safe to say it’s been abandoned, probably by the college students who were moving out this week. Soooooo, if I had not been so impulsive at IKEA, I could have scooped up BILLY 1′s twin brother, BILLY 2, for free. As it is, I’m probably going to grab BILLY 2 and put him in the kitchen to use as a huge [...]

• Continue reading "Billy the bookcase’s long short lost twin"

There are several things you’ll need when assembling IKEA furniture.

A big cup of coffee (or your caffeinated beverage of choice).

Tools! I purchased this toolkit at Target after I moved into my own apartment, and it’s the best twenty-something bucks I’ve spent in a long time.

An Allen wrench, thoughtfully provided by IKEA. The Allen wrench manufacturers of the world must highly covet the IKEA account.

Patience. I have no visual representation of patience for you. A good understanding of spatial dimensions doesn’t hurt either.

IKEA furniture typically comes flat-packed in large cardboard boxes, which you can rip open to view the large Swedish puzzle pieces, a bag of screws, bolts, nuts, and a diagram illustrating how to put the item together. There is no text on the instruction book, probably so IKEA can use the same booklets internationally without translating everything. I was putting together the Expedit bookcase and workstation in black/brown.

I was able to understand the little cartoon character’s instructions fairly well, but I ran into problems connecting the wood panels with the wooden pegs. I [...]

• Continue reading "Assembling the IKEA Expedit workstation…expediently?"

For too long, I had heard tales of the Swedish superstore—the IKEA—without ever setting my eyes upon this big box monument to sleek, flat-packed, affordable furniture. Truly, this was a wrong that needed to be righted. So, it was this noble desire (or my need for a cheap desk set) that led me to rent an SUV two weeks ago and drag Big Brother to Charlotte, North Carolina to visit the closest IKEA store.

To make things harder, the IKEA was not in my Magellan GPS. It then became a race between me and Big Brother to see who could use their smartphone faster to find an intersection near the store to enter instead. (Big Brother won.)

Then we drove and drove and drove and didn’t die on the highway, despite the high concentration of morons we were sharing the roads with. Finally, after two hours, we beheld the IKEA!

Or, the “KEA” as it would appear to be titled in this photo. It was a huge, blue and yellow store set in a large lot near the [...]

• Continue reading "I see an IKEA"