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So we rented the car and did The Ikea Thing today, which is exhausting in every way possible. It was great, grand even. When The Boy and I went to Ikea a few months back, we made the terrible mistake of going on a Sunday. May I just say, for the record, that I will never again go on a weekend. The place was empty today, and just so much more pleasant. But: exhausting. However, I got away with a few good things and didn't completely bust my pocketbook, so all is well.

That said, I will not get out of bed for the rest of the evening. I will also not, I repeat NOT, attempt to assemble anything until tomorrow. My body is just wrecked from the day, no matter how much I enjoyed it.

Here's my thing, though: Ikea provides a delivery service, which I thought would be worth the 50 euros because I am eight months pregnant, and they delivery the next day. I live up four flights of stairs which, granted, are far better than my previous six flights, but still... I didn't want to be carrying heavy objects up all those stairs.

Kathypath came with me for the adventure and I began wavering on the delivery issue while we were in line. Could I lure her into helping me carry things with the promise of fresh-baked zucchini bread? She is one of the kindest people on Earth, so of course she would have helped me - and smiled while doing it - but still I felt it was a lot to ask. I mean, she already made the whole trek out there with me and everything, why add manual labor the equation? She's my friend and I would like her to remain my friend.

Eventually, I gave up and decided to opt for the delivery, mainly because we were seriously behind schedule and were worried about making it home in time with all of our purchases. Having to add in several trips up and down stairs with the clunkier objects would slow us down even more. So I stood in line, then set up the delivery info, and just a few steps before payment, the Ikea employee says to me, "However, we don't carry items up stairs. We will leave them in your downstairs hallway."

And with that, we left.

Once there was no choice in the matter, we saw that saving the 50 euros was the better option, but still. What good would it do to leave those things in my hallway?

Poor Kathypath was staring down the barrel of a loaded gun, thinking she would have to carry the crib up the four flights to my house (yes, bought the cheap-o crib which, oddly, was my favorite crib in the place. I guess I'm cheap.). But then, THEN! My neighbor opened his door and said, "Do you girls need help? She shouldn't be carrying things," (looking at me) and the dear sweet man carried up all of the heavy boxes himself. That left us to carry a few light but bulky items (crib mattress, etc).

50 euros saved and eternal love to the Neighbor Man! What an angel. I might just bake him cookies. We couldn't stop saying, "You're so nice! Thank you! This is really nice of you!"

So tomorrow is going to be a great day. After running around for so many days in a row, tomorrow is my day to "nest," no matter how much I hate the term. I'm going to start setting things up, and run some laundry so that Romulus will have some clean and sparkly new clothes waiting for him. I'm also going to pack my hospital bag, as the midwife has asked me about my bag at my last two appointments and I have semi-lied in saying that it's mostly ready to go (I still have to go get the actual bag out of storage, much less pack it). I'm going to re-wire my computer and TV set up to make room for my new chair, and then I am going to go on an organizational extravaganza with my clear plastic bin goodness picked up from Ikea today.

I've intentionally saved up tons of talk radio programs, so and NPR and This American Life marathon is ready to roll. I feel like this is my first true day off in a long time, and I can't wait to spend it setting up shop around here.