Over the weekend, I was sad to learn that my favorite store, World Market, is closing! The entire chain isn't shutting down, only a few locations, but that includes the location which is two miles from my house. The next nearest one is miles away and would probably take me over an hour to get there, one way. I loved going to that store - I could always find an unusual and interesting gift item. A few times when I didn't have anything in particular in mind as a gift for a girlfriend, I set a dollar amount in my head and just wandered through the store picking up pretty trinkets, candles, kitchen items, candies, snacks and wine until I reached that amount.

I'll really miss the wine department. Besides having a wide variety of eclectic offerings, they put a little card in front of almost every wine that explained something about the taste and/or with what sort of foods it paired best. I liked that as a guide to trying something new. My mom and I bought a case each of this wine which we both love. It's cheap but oh, so luscious! And we've never found it anywhere other than World Market, even in larger wine stores.

They're having a clearance on everything so I bought a piece of furniture. My living room furniture is awful, but I keep trying to hold out on replacing it until we move because what will work in our existing living room probably won't work in our future living room. But I went ahead with this purchase because I thought this piece was versatile enough that we could use it in several possible places in our (still fictitious) new house. It's a love seat but both ends can unfold to a couch or daybed, or you can unfold only one end to create a chaise longue. Which incidentally brings me to a spelling peeve - the WM web site refers to it a "chaise lounge" (as do many stores, sites, people, etc.). It's not, it's a "chaise longue", French for "long chair" - not lounge chair. But anyway, I have one.

I bought some bright and colorful new pillows to go on it, too. I'll have to add a photo.