Ikea

John & I drove to Atlanta on Saturday to pay a much needed visit to our friend, Ikea. Our house kind of got put on hold because of the wedding, so we're trying to get back in house-mode. We moved in in August, & we've done a lot, but there's still a lot left to do.

John has had his eye on this piece of furniture from Ikea for months. We had some wedding money left over, so I thought it only fair to let him spend it on something he wants, since every wedding present we received is basically for me.

Ikea didn't disappoint. We made out like bandits. John bought his cabinet/console thing for downstairs & we also bought:

coffee table for upstairs
rug for upstairs
rug for downstairs
wall-mounted wine bottle rack
big, black, ornate picture frame
champagne glasses
a plant waterer thing
2 animal hand puppets for my niece
a tray with same colors as my upstairs office
yellow jewelry tree.

I'm pretty pleased with our purchases. There's still more I'd like to buy, so we're already planning another trip. Our kitchen needs work & Ikea has a lot of cheap fixes. We just need to go prepared next time with measurements, etc.

So on our way out of Atlanta it was chow-time & John remembered there's some Chinese place in Marietta that his friend Reid is batshit for. John calls Reid & finds out where it is while Reid emails us what to order. This email turned out to be almost 4 pages long. Not sure how much Reid thought we could eat.... Anyway, he didn't lead us astray. This was definitely the best Chinese food I've ever had.

When we told the waitress a friend of ours from Nashville sent us, she knew exactly who Reid was & proceeded to tell us what he would want us to order. She was dead on. She recommended the same things Reid told us to order in his email. It was soooooo good. We ordered 3 dishes. Unfortunately, I only remember the name of 1: dried, fried eggplant. It was my favorite. I was worried it was going to be some kind of eggplant jerky, but it wasn't. It was basically a plate of big fried eggplant strips. They looked like french fries. They were good as shit! Once those came, I quit eating everything else. Dried, fried eggplant. Who knew?

So if any of you are going to be in Atlanta/Marietta anytime soon, the place is called Tasty China & it's @ 585 Franklin Rd SE, # 215, Marietta GA 30067. Do it for Reid.