From www.xkcd.com. I love this webiste.

Starting a new home on the internet is always a struggle. ( I hate the word ‘blog’. It makes me think of ‘bog’, and bog leads to smog, and why do I care about California, anyways?)

How do you get readers when you want to remain anonymous? This is a biggie for me. I want to keep my identity a secret. I want to be able to write what I want under the cover of anonymity. I want to be able to walk down my neighborhood streets and talk to people I see and not have them judge me because I don’t necessarily agree with their opinions, or I laugh at them behind closed doors or openly on the internets.  I don’t want to find a horse head in my bed.

It’s not like I can go out and be like:

Me: “Hi, Random Stranger. My name is Pinky. I write a blog about Ridgely’s Delight, called, www.ridgelysafternoondelight.  See what  I did there? It’s a total play on “Afternoon Delight” by the Starland Vocal Band.  I know, funny, right?  You should totally read it and let me know what you think!”.

Psycho-killer: “I want to eat your eyeballs”.

I mean! What if they want to steal my liver and sell it on the blackmarket? My liver is in tip-top shape. I don’t have any weird diseases and I don’t drink to extinction. I bet I could get all kinds of money for my assorted body parts! But thats MY body part money, darn it. Keep your fingers off, crazy man! I need that for my retirement!

Anyways, I digress. To the few peole who may have stumbled on my little slice of the internet in the recent past, and who have come back to read me again, I thank you for your continued patronage. With your help, my kick-ass writing, and the powers of the Brain, I’ve slowly been climbing up the Google ranks.  When I first started out, I was down so far, it took days for me to find myself. Now, as of yesterday, I’m on page six of a search for “Ridgely’s Delight”. I couldn’t have done it without you, internet minions. With your help, I WILL take over the wor…I mean, be a page one return one day.

Peace!

The predominate house in Baltimore City proper are known as row houses.  In today’s language, it would be called a ‘condo’, but I digress. Row houses came into style in Baltimore over 100 years ago (the one that the Brain and I live in dates from like 1896 or something crazy like that).

Since the purpose of a row house was to cram as many single family homes into the smallest parcel of land possible, the homes in downtown tend to be very narrow and long, rather than nice and square. Needless to say, there’s not many furniture options for a house that is only 10 feet wide.  We’ve (okay, I’ve) had to change decorating decisions to accommodate our residence.

The antique dresser that I like to use for my clothes won’t fit up the stairs to the bedroom, so it now resides permanently in the living room area. Now I have two shelving units chock full of collapsible bins that we use as dresser and clothing units. The queen bed that we had was given away in favor of memory foam and an Ikea platform bed (assembled IN the room, of course). Now, we need bookcases to help organize our tiny space–and that means yet another trip to Ikea (at the White Marsh mall).  My plan? Hopefully three Billy Bookcases to fill in an awkward section of wall that is currently not being used to it’s full potential.  

Of all the Ikeas that I’ve been to (Potomoc Mills and White Marsh), this one is my favorite. The first time we ever ventured into an Ikea was a few years ago at Potomoc Mills, and it was RIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS. Worst mistake ever. Trust. We got in, and couldn’t get out.  We followed the arrows around and around and around–before I began to suffer anxiety attacks of wandering for days before intrepid girl scouts stumbled on our withered remains.

Anyways, it was over two years before we decided to try THAT again.  Enter Ikea at White Marsh.  I don’t know what it is, but this store is more approachable. It seems smaller and easier to navigate. I especially love Wacky Wednesdays, where everything in the AS IS  room is 50% off.  I’ve scored TWO pre-assembled items (I think they’re BestA shelves, but not sure).  Either way, they were already together, and even though I found them months apart, they are the same color, and both fit perfectly into two small cubby areas where we couldn’t think to put anything else–now making it a functional space. w00t.

I have grown to love Ikea, like the thousands that have gone before me. Long live Ikea!