Spanglish Accent: HOMY

I mentioned awhile back that I love to shop. I love to bargain shop. Getting a good deal, while indulging in one of my favorite pastimes, is heaven for me. But here in Chile, that is very hard to do. If you need to refresh your memory as to why, click here. Or I can sum it up and tell you that there is no bargain hunting to be done at the southern tip of the world. Things are just so expensive here. Everything is imported and even if things are made locally, the things they use for materials may have had to have been imported, hence the cost goes up. Or they just like to charge twice as much because they can. And there is no such thing as a Sale. Oh sure, the stores advertise them, but when you go in you realize that the "Hasta 40% Descuento" (Up to 40% off) means that one thing in the whole store is 40% off and nothing else is even remotely on sale. They do not do end of the season/preview of next season/Christmas/it's our birthday/just for the heck of it sales. So, you either have to suck it up and pay full retail or, heaven forbid, not shop. For the past 10 months I have chosen the latter and it is killing me. Seriously, it is slowly eating away at my soul.

But now, I have to shop. OK, have to is a bit strong of a statement. I choose to shop and pay what I have to since we are moving and have somehow ended up with an extra bedroom and a small room/large closet in the new house. The large room I am turning into a playroom for the girls, the smaller will be their creative space. Money be damned when I can finally get all of the girls toys and crayons out of my living room! And my bedroom. And the linen closet. I can even unclutter their bedrooms and stuff it all in a room specially designated for toys and making messes. I have been dreaming of this day since right before MadHatter was born and she had already invaded my house. I had an excersaucer in my living room and a swing in my kitchen and I didn't even have a baby yet. It was killing me slowly, for if you must know anything about me, it is that I am a neat freak. I need order and organization. I need space and no clutter. And that just doesn't mesh with having kids. So I have tolerated it for the past 4 years. And I have done it by driving everyone batty (especially B). But no more. I am going to finally get the playroom I have longed for (and I am sure my girls will like it too).

But the problem is, where do I go to get the things I need for said playroom? There is no Target, no IKEA. There are specialty shops that I could go to and I know I said expenses be damned but let's be realistic. I am still me and will never bring myself to over pay. So I had a bit of a dilemma. And then I remembered HOMY. With a name like HOMY what would you guess I could find there? Yep, not much of a stretch - things for the home. So MadHatter and I made our list and headed to the store. (Stinkerbell was napping and I wouldn't let her loose in HOMY to save my life without reinforcements anyway. She is a bull in a china shop).

One word sums up HOMY - IKEA. The concept is almost exact. In fact, it is so close, it actually made me a bit homesick. My girlfriend S and I spent a lot of time at Ikea. The girls would go to the play place/babysitter and we would wander until lunchtime. We never really needed much - just went for ideas, or things we could find that we didn't even know we needed, or mostly if I am honest, for lunch. IKEA's meatballs rock. I still miss the meatballs. HOMY doesn't do them and an empanada just isn't the same. But I digress...

Shopping at HOMY is like being back in the states, except for the prices. These are no IKEA prices. But you take what you can get. And I did. Well, sort of. I made a list of all of the things I wanted to get and now will cull it until I have just the perfect things for the girls playroom and creative space. I am so happy to be shopping again I just couldn't let it end in one small trip.

I will head back to HOMY next week when we are getting ready to move things into the new house and I can set the rooms up before all the other clutter shows up. One nice thing about moving next door and having the keys a full 6 days before the moving company comes to pack you - you can set up some of the rooms without the clutter of boxes and paper all around you. Can you tell I am a bit excited??? (All pictures are from my iPhone so the quality is not great).