my love-hate relationship with ikea

Ikea and I have a love-hate relationship. I could spend countless hours walking around the store, and dreaming of how I would redo my bedroom or dining room etc. I look at a piece of furniture and say "you would fit perfectly in our home" and excitedly write down the aisle and bin number - I am now one step closer to my furniture victory as I race down the aisle to see if they have my item still in stock. I get a rush lifting my find into the cart - there is just something rewarding about doing it yourself. After everything is paid for, the fun really begins. I love love love placing my find in our vehicle, it is like my very own large jigsaw puzzle. Plus, I am not going to lie, I sometimes linger because I enjoy watching others work on their jigsaw puzzle too! Now it is back home I go, after several minutes my find is now in it's new home. This is where the hate part of our relationship begins to form. I open the box to see the million and one pieces I now need to put together. I open the instruction manual and notice the hundred steps I must take to get to my end result. I take a deep breath and begin the "oh-so fun project." This week I decided to tackle one of these projects.

I was lucky this week to have my good friend April staying at our home for a few days - I kind-of talked her into the trip to Ikea and then once we were home, I might have slipped in "Oh, this looks easy...I am sure we could put this together ourselves." I have a great friend because she was up for the task. It was going smoothly, it was teamwork all the way, we were on a roll, you could see the pure satisfaction on our faces as we were plowing through the steps as Little Miss L. did her Ikea dance (she likes to dance on all the pieces) to keep us motivated. The hubby came home half way through the process and we excitedly shouted out that we were doing a stellar job, and that we didn't need any help - we knew what screwdriver to use, and the hammer was a cinch. We were nearing the end, maybe ten steps left at the most. When pure panic set in as I watched my girlfriend's face as she looked at the manual and then back at the table, back to the manual, and then back to the table. I knew I wasn't going to like what was about to come out of her mouth. I remember the words "we have to take it apart," one of the pieces had been put in upside down! At that moment, fire was coming out of my ears - I hate you Ikea, I hate hate hate you! We needed to take the whole thing apart, we were now back at square one. All of our hard work had been for nothing, once everything was apart we started the process all over again, but our brains were fried at this point and we couldn't even repeat step one (no, I am not lying here). We had to declare Ikea defeat and walk away from our project. It was now the project for my fabulous hubby to tackle. Let's just say several hours later, and some not so nice words - we now have our new tv stand.

Ikea, there is just something about you, you keep me coming back for more. You're like a drug. You have me wrapped around your finger. Please, feel free the next time I purchase something from you.. send someone to put it together for free? I would love you even more!!

Little Miss L. breaks out her Ikea dance.

She's got the moves like Jagger!

I couldn't help but share a few photos of Baby D and Auntie April. He adores his auntie, and loves spending time with her. She always knows how to make him smile.