HOT: Vinnies Centre, 121 Johnston St, Collingwood

Yesterday a thought popped into my head that I should buy a baking dish.

Today I spotted the perfect dish in the window of my local Vinnies Centre. It was meant to be - a $2 white Corningware dish! My charitable contribution to St Vincent de Paul Society also extended to:

• one clip-lock plastic container $1;
• two glasses beakers to be used as bud vases $1 each;
  
• one set of plastic cup measures $1; and
  
• Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb $2 (a un-Valentines Day present for RM)
  

HOT: Melbourne Design Market, Federation Square, Melbourne

I adore markets, whereas RM isn't so much of a fan of the hustle and bustle (unless it's a book market, but there's not normally a noisy scrum of people at those). However, I did manage to drag him to one of my favourite Melbourne events - the biannual Melbourne Design Market at Federation Square - as it's full of cool stuff and cool people.
This year, our favourite finds included the ingenious stick-on photo display system from The Curator Company; the adorable and environmentally friendly KeepCup; racks of heavily discounted slinky dance-inspired clothing from well-known Melbourne label Body; the funky bowlboard, a wooden chopping board with four white bowls fitted into recesses, from Ute; and delicate pastel scarves from Ella Sanders.

HOT: Dogs Breakfast Trading Company, 245-247 Johnston St, Fitzroy 3065

I'm not sure why you'd call your stores such an unappealing name as Dogs Breakfast, but its name belies an appealing store if you're into homewares and replica furniture.

Unsurprisingly, I was browsing thoroughly aisle by aisle, picking up fabulous things like plastic microwave containers and sheet sets. RM flitted around uninspired until he spotted the 50% off Nood (New Objects of Desire) zebra magazine rack, which should go perfectly with our new black-white-silver apartment.

HOT: Lost and Found Market, 12 Smith St, Collingwood 3066

RM has been very patient with my new found penchant for retro lamps, so off I dragged him to Lost and Found Market. This indoor market is smaller than Chapel St Bazaar but runs on the same idea - stall holders have a small space to display their secondhand wares, ranging from clothes, accessories, furniture, books and prints. Obviously you need to have the patience to trawl through a lot of stuff, but there were lots of treasures to be found. Kartell cabinets and stacking tables, old school desks, Planet lamps, and a red toy car all caught my eye, but luckily RM was much more practical than me and we didn't end up buying anything

HOT: Chapel St Bazaar, 217 Chapel Street, Prahran 3181

Poking around a market is the perfect Sunday activity for me, and luckily RM was happy to indulge in my new-found passion for retro furniture. Chapel St Bazaar, a treasure trove of unusual vintage everything, yielded not one, but two wonderfully restored and reasonably priced 60s lamps - a blue one for him, a red one for me. I was thrilled with our purchases, but unfortunately it just got me started on the whole retro furniture thing. We've just begun our season of Mad Men, and while I enjoy the story and like the costumes, I've developed the annoying habit of squealing 'lamp!' 'chair!' 'table' every time I spot something I like...

HOT: IKEA, Victoria Gardens Shopping Centre, Cnr Victoria St and Burnley St, Richmond, 3121

So it's Easter long weekend, what are your plans? Facebook tells me that 'Jane is going to Paris', 'Michael is heading to Munchen', 'Ev is eating mochi in Japan' 'Caroline is getting ready for Stockholm' and 'Isabelle is in the Alps'.

And Jetsetting Joyce? She is going to IKEA. I've officially checked out of Life.

Being unemployed means that this is my third trip to IKEA in a week - but only because I wanted to lay the groundwork for RM's visit so he wouldn't have to deal with my in-depth specification, colour, style and price analyses. By my third visit I could just say 'what do you think of that' 'NO' 'and that?' 'NO' 'what about this?' 'YES'. It made for a remarkably argument-free furniture shopping first date.

IKEA does have some cheap, good stuff if you're setting up home. Like the Malm headboard, the Norden gateleg table, Solsta sofabed, Expedit TV unit, Lamplig chopping board and Idealisk colander. Unfortunately, it seems that everyone else wants to set up their home to look just like ours, as almost 50% of what we liked wasn't available by the time we got to the self-service section. Humph. Guess it'll be a fourth trip to IKEA then.