A Million Pieces

What comes to mind when you think of a million pieces?

The answer:
Any piece of furniture from IKEA.

IKEA---the place I love to hate.

I love their prices, but I hate to watch my sweet husband assemble their stuff!

We looked and looked for a white dresser for the baby's room. I read reviews and checked out prices on stuff from Target, Wal Mart, Craig's List, Land of Nod, Pottery Barn....and anywhere else it seemed. We bought quite a bit of stuff from IKEA when we furnished our first house in 2001 so were familiar with their stuff. We ended up finding a dresser we liked that wasn't too pricey--- but looked like good quality. I am always thinking years down the road when it comes to decorating and I have decided that when the baby outgrows the crib we will not be sticking with the white furniture. For this reason I didn't want to invest in a white dresser from somewhere as expensive as Pottery Barn. (We ended up doing white furniture in the room because Luke's mom had a white crib she bought when we first had Bubba and she said we could have it).

Ok---back to the IKEA story.

We were looking online Friday night and came across the IKEA dresser. I suggested we pick up the dresser from an IKEA up north on our way home from my parent's house in a few weeks. Luke woke up Saturday morning and said he wanted to drive to the Burbank IKEA to pick up the dresser. Part of me was excited to get our first piece of furniture in the baby's room. But part of me felt bad because I didn't want him to spend half his Saturday on the road and in traffic. I stayed home with Bubba and Luke took Tubbs on his mini-road trip.

As a wise man who just moved to Littleton (and used to work at Thomasville) informed me, "I think the most cruel and unusual thing you can ask any husband to do is go to IKEA, especially if it's the one in Burbank on Saturday. That place is a nightmare and all of the customers speak 5 other languages, none of which are Spanish...and the parking is a nightmare, he must really, really love you."

I do think he must really, really love me....(and his daughter) since it was his idea.

On every trip we have ever taken to IKEA over the years their parking lot has been insane. You can only park in their parking lot (loading zone) when you are done shopping and ready to load up. So---when you get there you park up the street or in the mall parking garage around the corner. After you purchase your stuff you are supposed to go get your car and then head to the IKEA parking lot to load up. Well, we have made at least a dozen trips over the years and we got smarter about parking-----we would fib (a little). We would pull in the parking lot and tell the security guard we were loading up. We weren't lying exactly since we would be loading up---at some point. We would zip in the store, find our stuff, check out and load up.

Yesterday's trip was no exception. Luke went in to buy one item and knew exactly where he was going.

What was funny was honest Tubbs almost blew it for Luke. When Luke pulled in the parking lot (loading zone) he told the security guard his wife was inside with the receipt. Tubbs blurts out, "Mama is inside?!" I wish I could have been there to see Luke's face. Luckily Luke was able to park and the security guard didn't tell him to take a hike. I do think the parking situation there is a big joke, but luckily we don't head down there often...or will hopefully need to go again anytime in the near future.

Wa-la!

After 3 hours of listening to power tools and the boys fight over who can hammer next we have a dresser---- Now we just have to fill it! :)