Yesterday, I was at The IKEA “Mecca”. It is located in Orange County, and  is huge! Instead of a food counter they have a full-on restaurant. We all ate for less than $20 and that included a full rack of yummy ribs. The only weird thing is that the cinnamon rolls my son loves are on a different level.

After lunch, while Hubby and the kids were in line for rolls, I wandered off to the side to check out the Swedish marketplace. I found myself in front of a “wall of glory”-at least it is for a kid. It was a floor to ceiling display of all this candy that I remember from my youth. I spent six years of my childhood in Germany. Europe holds for me idealic memories. The wall was called Lordagsgodis, this is Swedish for “Saturday Candy”. The idea is that Swedes would visit an old-fashioned candy store for a weekly treat.

I was entranced by the polychromatic bins eagerly seeking to find the favorites from my youth; gummy cherries and blue sharks were two of my faves that I did see. I didn’t see the little gummy bottles of Coke I remember-probably because these were technically Swedish picks;not German.

Suddenly, my eyes got misty. I started to think about how simple and sweet my life was as a kid holding a baggie of delight. At age six or seven I wasn’t worried about how the treats would affect my blood sugar or how many I could have in relation to the amount of sit-ups I was willing to do. My life was pretty divine then. On the whole, my current life is glorious in many ways, but there is something about that innocent time where you have so little to plan for, worry about, budget for, even pray for.

A worker asked me if I needed help with the rainbow-ed confections I told him “No, I ‘m just standing here crying over candy!” He laughed, and listened to my explanation, also sharing his beloved memories from a trip to Germany. He said “You should really get some!”

I told him “I would, but I have a temporary crown in my mouth and I can’t have sticky foods!”

Grown-up problems.