Karin's Adventures

Living in Germany for almost half a century gave me sufficient exposure to IKEA furniture to be beyond thrilled when I discovered, that the company had expanded their reach into the USA. There’s even an IKEA within less than two hours driving from where I live now. I have yet to visit that store, but while I wait for an occasion to drive there, I can simply have my purchase delivered via FedEx.

My department recently moved into beautiful, newly renovated office space with a striking lack of book shelves. So, after searching local stores and the usual big online retailers, I found myself falling back on my trusted old friend from a previous life. IKEA has a stunning variety of modular office furniture. It was easy to find something in their catalog that matches the color scheme of my new cubicle, and doesn’t break the bank.

Big part of the past Saturday was spent crawling around on the living room floor, assembling these boards into book shelves. Following along with the familiar instruction booklets full of drawings, but hardly any words, made me feel young again. Nothing really changed since I built my first “Billy” bookcase, over thirty years ago. That old shelf, by the way, is still standing in my bedroom today.

I hauled the pre-assembled furniture modules to work yesterday. They just needed a few brackets mounted on the backside, to keep them together. Now that my books and binders sit on display in style, this office feels almost like home.

Life is good!

After seven months of high productivity and a feeling of purpose, sitting in a quiet office with a real door, to be able to complete a highly important project with an extremely tight deadline, I have been relegated to my prior workspace in a cubicle.

While about 40% of US office workers sit in those contraptions invented in the late 60’s, 93% of those workers wish they were somewhere else.

The reasons have been researched, they are obvious, everybody knows – an average of 70 interruptions on any given day, 29% lower productivity compared to workers in an office with window and door, lack of focus, lack of privacy.

 Now, like most people I can’t pick where I sit when I do my job – but I can decorate my cubicle, organize my desk, and bring some of my own tools to work.

My latest find on Amazon is called a “privacy panel”. I call it “the ultimate do-not-disturb sign”. Now, if I could just learn to tune out noise, chatter, and other people’s phone calls, I’d be almost as productive as somebody with a real office.

When we moved to the USA in January 2006 we had most of the contents of our 840 squ.ft. condo shipped in a 40 ft. overseas container. Books, clothes, computers, dishes, kitchen wares, small electric appliances, and furniture had to come with us – because we figured shipping the household was still cheaper than buying all new stuff.

Our bed is a typical, standard German double bed: two seperate orthopedic cold foam mattresses on slatted bases, mounted next to each other in a 200cm x 200cm bed frame. Of course we brought all the bedding for it too, so we were in good shape.

Now, even expensive bedding that you take good care of will come apart after over ten years of continuous use. Some of those sheets and duvet covers started to look like the ones my mom would relegate to the weekend cottage in Austria. Just go buy new ones, you might say. It’s not that easy, though. Fitted sheets in Twin XL size work for our mattresses, but there is absolutely nothing that would fit our down covers.

That’s what Amazon Global was invented for! Here’s how it works: go to Amazon.de, search for “Bettwäsche” and then filter your results by “Amazon Global bestellbar” – bingo! My latest order arrived today, fits perfectly, and looks awesome.