A great find...

As you might remember, the colors of my kitchen are turquoise and red. I selected that color scheme in the summer of 2006, before I moved into the shoebox apartment I lived in during grad school. Trust me, at that time, those colors were not very popular, and especially not together. I did not let this get me down! At the time, Target wasn't selling anything red. I don't know what their problem was, but it just meant I had to get kitchen textiles at Wal-Mart. Turquoise was also on the outs, so I wound up with lots of things that are really just light blue, not actually turquoise. It was also this phenomenon that led me to get the Japan poster - the only piece of art I could find that featured red and light blue together - before I had any interest in learning Japanese or traveling to Japan.

Here's the rug I've had in my kitchen:

 Of course, there's nothing wrong with it. It has certainly cushioned my feet during some mega dishwashing sessions. But still: looks like something that belongs in a garage. (This is why, even though I took about a dozen pictures of my kitchen for the First Draft project, none of them include this rug.)

Imagine my surprise when, during my last regular weekly grocery trip to Target, I paused to look at the advertisement on display in the vestibule. What did I see? THIS!

WOW! And it was on sale for $10! YES! (I'm very sorry about this picture - I think it is an internet issue because there is no woodgrain or zebra coloring on the rug. The pic isn't like this on my computer, so I have no idea what's causing it.)

And here it is, happily at home: