1. ikea. ah yes, ikea. indeed, the large blue and yellow box was the guiding force that led us to dallas. let me just be clear: i’m not a fan of texas, to make a gross understatement. so, it takes the colossal, swedish mecca that is ikea to prompt us to voyage west to the land of large belt buckles and even larger egos.

we went to ikea around this time last year, so we thought it would be a good time to head back. if we had it our way, we’d probably go every weekend and deck our house out in ikea goodness. crap, we’d probably pledge allegiance to the swedish flag if it meant a couple free pieces of furniture.

so, total—over the course of two visits on both saturday and sunday—we probably spent about 5 hours in the store, drooling and scheming ways to stretch our budget. we ended up with a car full of some pretty sweet stuff, including a new bookcase, curtains, lamps and shelves. so, it was a trip well worth it.

2. christen. much more than ikea, the best part of the trip was getting away with christen sans children. this is the first time we’ve been away from olive over night since she was born, so that was a big deal. we just really needed a break and time to spend together to catch up and, um, do, you know, married people things… 🙂 (i’m talking about holding hands, people…get your minds out of the gutter….)

i actually can’t take credit for any part of this trip. christen planned the whole thing and surprised me with it early last week. so, in theory, this could have been the “ryan is really nice and takes his wife away for a weekend trip for valentine’s day” kind of thing…but, yeah, not so much… either way, it was great to spend time with her.

3. rock bottom. i like watching that show intervention on a&e. you know, it’s that one where they document the life of a drug addict and then at the end of the show, their family stages an intervention and they go off to rehab where they disrupt everybody and end up in the streets. yeah, that classy show. the standard storyline is that the addict starts with drinking, then marijuana, then heroine, then they’re doing lines of blow off some $1 hooker in a dirty hotel. yeah, that’s when they hit rock bottom and need an intervention.

well, i’m pretty sure i hit rock bottom this weekend.

or maybe it’s the pinnacle of awesomeness. you can make the call.

so, i found a store called shepler’s. it’s some kind of western wear superstore in dallas (oh yeah, it’s like the walmart of dusters and bolo ties…). i think my western shirt count is somewhere around the 7-shirt mark, so i’m sort of comparable to the shooting heroine stage of addiction as is, but the rock bottom point came when i was actually pondering buying a shirt from the “brook & dunn collection.” oh man, i’m having a small seizure just saying it. yeah, brooks & freaking dunn.

so, i had to move away from that rack. now, you may be thinking, “good job. way to show some discernment and clear thinking.” well, as you can see in this picture to the right, the tag doesn’t say “brooks & dunn” but i’m definitely thinking this comes from the “smokey and the bandit collection” or the “burt reynolds circa ’76 collection.” either way, i’m excited to now be rocking this rose-embroidered piece of work. so, great western shirt find this weekend.

4. moving. one final note that’s not actually from this weekend, but is related. we found out this morning that we will be moving in a few weeks! we found a house over in the quapaw quarter last week, loved it and made the move to get it. it’s a great little 3-bedroom house that is formerly the carriage house for the empress bed & breakfast. (the google maps image/angle does no justice, but here it is just in case you’re curious.)

we’re really excited about the move, but, of course, the process of packing and physically moving is a total pain. so, if you have muscles or even quasi-muscles, you can come on down here in a few weeks and help us move!

alright, so that was our weekend. hope you enjoyed it. we did.