February 8, 2019

Un-Favorites for Friday

a.k.a. Things I Don't Like

1. We're still being honked at and glared at and stared at when it comes to our license plates. I can only assume the honking is because it's assumed we don't know how to drive the "Pittsburgh way", and our license plates give us away as not being from here so we're easy targets. Whereas, under the basis of reality, we've had more driving experiences than I'm pretty sure most here have had. I mean, not many have driven to the Arctic Circle, right? I don't think this is going to change. Having a Colorado plate and a Wyoming plate will apparently get you a lot of attention in western Pennsylvania. Also, if people could stop looking at us like we're drug dealers, that'd be great. The good news is that the neighbors are all pretty nice now...now that they've realized we're not drug dealers (that they know of, of course).

2. Trader Joe's coffee creamer. I'm still trying to figure out the grocery shopping situation. Whenever we move, this is a hurdle: best prices, best selection, best location, etc. Aldi + Trader Joe's looks like it's going to be my best combination of those three things, but their coffee creamer is so terrible. No flavor, and a bit like slightly sweetened skim milk. So I was stuck with awful creamer until I made it to Giant Eagle (a very over-priced, yet convenient grocery store).

3. Naps. Tuesday was rough with errands, no dog walk, etc. I also made the mistake of drinking sweet tea at 4pm. This kept me up through the State of the Union and two episodes of The Resident and I found myself doing Pilates at 11pm. Wells was up at least twice through the night and, if the dogs were going to get a walk on Wednesday before it started raining, it would need to be before 8am. Which meant that I was up and walking dogs (and baby) at 7:30am on Wednesday. As soon as Wells went down for a nap that morning, I did too. I hate naps so much, but I couldn't even function I was so upset. It didn't solve the problem (My dream right now is to take 3 Motrin P.M.s and wake up in 48 hours, to be honest), but it was better than drinking more coffee with terrible creamer in it.



4. Ikea. We'll call this a draw. I ordered Wells the Antilop highchair for a grand total of $33, including taxes and shipping. It arrived in about 4 days...legless. There was no packing slip so I thought maybe another box would be coming, as that's what the website said to check for. Another box didn't show up. I called customer service and the prompts hung up on me because "all representatives are busy". I tried to use the website but I couldn't find one of the numbers they wanted on the form to explain that I needed parts.
So I drove 17 miles to Ikea and this was super annoying just because I had to do it in the first place. If we didn't live here, I'd have been driving 2+ hours to Denver...and that's the limit of my Ikea experience. Had I ordered this anywhere else, I have no idea if there'd been a store within driving distance.
It was especially because I had to plan around naps and take the baby (and the dogs because I felt bad for them). I almost went last Saturday and left the baby with Scott, but I'm not going to Ikea on a Saturday. Like, I would've just done that to buy the highchair if I had wanted to drive to Ikea. And 17 Pittsburgh miles is like 45 minutes. It's not the mile to minute ratio we'd been used to in Wyoming.
But, they went and got me the 4 legs right away and I was on my way within 20 minutes. It was completely painless, but I was annoyed that I had to spend time doing that.


He either really loves that highchair or he really loves what Ben Shapiro had to say about the Green New Deal. Probably a little of both. 
Also, I need to get some pictures on the walls this weekend. 

3 comments:

  1. Hmm. All the honking is kind of weird. Didn't know there was a specific way to drive in Pittsburgh.

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  2. I can relate to the grocery store struggle upon moving. It's like a full time job the first month or so after a move to do all the research, analyze the data, and make a confirmed decision on the best combination. And the terrible coffee creamer is a thing. I used to buy mine from aldi but it just tasted like syrup (gag). I pick mine up at Target now or the Food lion right down the street.

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  3. I'm anti-honking, but I used to judge other drivers based on their license plate ... but not so much now since we had to rent a car while one was getting repaired. I did notice people honking at me more with a NY plate, so we decided to drive as we thought NY drivers would so we would earn the honks. Passive-aggressive in a roundabout way.

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