Monday, January 28, 2008

Desk Hunting

I am on the hunt for a new computer desk/workstation.... and I can't seem to find ANYTHING that suits us me. I have been looking for something since November, and no where in my travels have I found anything that I just LOVE.

However, I did see a desk at IKEA, and although I really didn't love it, it would work for the space I have for an office desk, and at this point I was sick of looking for anything more, so I decided to just get it, and live with it.

On Saturday, PC was available for the day, so I decided we would go to IKEA and pick up the desk I had been pondering about for over a month. In my mind, we would go into Ottawa, go to IKEA, get the desk, and then do whatever else we wanted to do afterwards. However, the day did not go like that at ALL.

First of all, when you take PC out for a day of shopping, you definitely follow his agenda first... and you make it your agenda or else you risk him not leaving the house with you.

First stop... St. Laurent Mall. This was on both our agendas because we were hungry, but more so on PC's because he wanted to get a button replaced on his leather jacket at the mall. So we accomplished those two items... then I made my way to the Body Shop to use up my free birthday gift (best rewards card ever at the BS - but that's another post entirely). After that, PC lured me into Koyman Galleries as they are closing their St. Laurent store, and 30 minutes later we purchased not 1 but 2 Group of Seven numbered prints for our living room.

Then... while I wandered into a shoe store, PC went to his own shoe store. I used my birthday money to purchase some new EMU boots and was pleasantly surprised with my find (I didn't think I would find the ones I liked). I managed to team up with PC again at his shoe store and we left the mall around 4:30.

The majority of the day was gone, and we hadn't even done the second item on his agenda - Lazy Boy Furniture.

PC's dream has been to get a La-z-boy recliner for the basement. I use to use the idea of purchasing one as ploy to get him to finish the basement quicker, but when it was finally done neither of us really mentioned it. However, he had not forgotten about the chair, and with La-z-boy's current sale on, we spent an hour or more sitting in chair after chair after chair, before finally deciding on one. Yes, we bought a brown leather La-z-boy - PC's dream chair... well let me rephrase, PC's amended dream chair. The Cadillac of all Cadillac chairs was a little too big for my liking... and so I had to talk him down to the more modern Cadillac version, which took some convincing on my part, but luckily I prevailed, and we ended up with a far nicer chair (in my eyes), and bigger savings in the end.

So... at this point it is 6:00 pm, and we are just leaving the east end to head to the west end, as we have dinner plans with friends, which means no time for IKEA, AND we spent way more money than expected on a day that reserved for purchasing one item - a desk.

Fortunately, our friends also wanted to go to IKEA, so after arriving at their house, having some snacks, we decided to tackle IKEA together. The only problem is, when we arrived at the desk section, the desk I had picked out (after numerous visits to IKEA on my own) PC wasn't thrilled about it. This made me not excited to get it, and then we started looking at all of the other desks in the store... ending up back at square one, with nothing. After another hour of looking, we walked out the store with $93 worth of stuff that wasn't on our list, and NO DESK.

What a frustrating experience. I don't know where to shop for desks in this city? I have been on every office supply web site from here to France, and still nothing that is half decent, and in a decent price range (I did find a really nice one for only $1449!). I am not sure if I will ever find a good desk... and one that both PC and I can agree on. Tonight I don't curl until 9pm, so after work I have 3 solid hours to put looking for desks.

Do you have any suggestions on where I might find a decent dark wood desk, with storage, a key board tray, and lots of working space? Please do share any suggestions you might have... I could really use them today... or all week for that matter (until I find a damn desk!).

Labels: , ,

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

1 for you, 1 for me!

Today while shopping for some Christmas gifts, I notice a bit of a trend .... the trend being that at every store I shopped at, I bought one gift for the person on my list, and one gift for ME.

This is the problem with Christmas shopping. Lately, since being on French training for a century (12 months), I have been away from the Rideau Centre (which was/is located 10 steps from my office), so I practically never go shopping.

The last time I bought anything for myself, was back in September when PC and I went to Montreal for our anniversary - that makes 3 months of no purchasing for me... which is definitely a record. So... today when I set out to hit a few stores, I naturally found some good gifts items, but since I hadn't been near a mall in FOREVER, I also found some things I needed wanted.

3 stores & $75 later I had myself some new accessories!

Why do I do this?

I think with every purchase I made for ME, I rationalized the fact that NO ONE would buy me these items for Christmas... and all the items that I purchased were on SALE, so that's a good thing! I mean seriously... let's be realistic, I am the wife of Peter Coleman.... he would not want me to pass up a SALE all because of some measley holiday we call Christmas... (lord knows he would never show that kind of restraint)!

So... the purchases in my head were justified, but now that items are at home starring me in the face, I must admit I do feel a little guilty!

Does anyone else have this problem... ?

Labels: , ,