Finishing Touches

As I was unpacking boxes yesterday, I found myself getting slightly annoyed at the whole moving process. You spend, what feels like forever, throwing all your crap into a box, taping it up, and living without it for a few days, just to waste the same amount of time (if not more) undoing everything you just spent so long to do. Rant over. Anyway, I had every last box unpacked and the contents in their correct places (not organized, but in their spots) before 9:30 yesterday morning. Boy was I proud of myself. That high quickly faded when I realized that I still had to organize it all. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE organizing, or "tinkering" as I call it, but when it's someone else's stuff, it's not the same.

Dad worked from home yesterday, so when Lilly got up from her morning nap, we headed to IKEA. In my mind, this adventure was the one I was most excited about. I had a small (okay, pretty large) mental list going. On the top of that list was a new TV stand. My dad's current stand is wrong for so many reasons. First is because it's all glass and doesn't match any of his expensive wood furniture. Second is that it's a corner unit, and is triangle. And third is that the TV pedestal doesn't fit on it, so it freaks me out that one of these days, the TV will just commit suicide while we're watching it. No one wants that!

When we got to IKEA, I did a little happy dance when I saw that they had the most adorable kid carts. Even smaller and cuter than the ones at the grocery store. We had a tiny bit of a walk to get into the store, so I let Lilly push one inside. There was no way I was going to let her push it around the store. Everyone knows that IKEA is just a glorified, confusing maze, so we didn't need to complicate the experience more by having to deal with little Miss I'll-crash-into-whatever-I-want-and-throw-a-tantrum-if-I-feel-like-it. Well, blog readers, this IKEA trip rated probably about a 2/10. Here's why: 1) my dad didn't like any of the TV stands and insisted that the TV wouldn't fit on any of the ones I suggested. 2) They didn't have all of the cool, nifty things I imagined they had, so we didn't end up getting too much. And 3) about 3 minutes after arriving, I started to get a dull ache in the right side of my abdomen. I just brushed it off as cramps and put on a brave face. But when it started to get worse and worse, and actually prevented me from walking, that's when I started to have a mental freakout. I spent the whole time crunched over in pain, holding onto my side as if that actually did anything. By the time we left, it took all my might to not cry with every step. Ryan and I spent the whole time texting each other about what we thought it could be. The conclusion was that it wasn't cramps, but maybe my appendix? Who knows.

Despite feeling like I was dying, we still had lots of shopping to do. And fun shopping, so I didn't want to wuss out. After our trip to IKEA, we went to the store that sold my dad the problem-tv, in hopes that they had a TV stand. Well, we had three options. First was to get the exact same thing that we already had. Second was to get one my dad liked, but was ugly. And the third was to get one that I liked, dad sorta liked, but was wood and would fit. That was it. So we got the wood option. I don't know why he insisted that we get one from that store. I kept telling him that he could get something that would match better, fit better, would actually be cute, and would only cost about half as much as what he just spent. Didn't work. We had to cram the box (yes, on top of everything else I've had to do here, I now have to assemble a stinkin' TV stand) into the back seat with Lilly. She just propped her feet up and enjoyed the tapping sound that they made on the box.

Our next shopping adventure was an unexpectedly fun trip. And I say "fun" because I got to buy all the pretty things that I've always wanted to buy at Target, but I didn't have to spend a single penny of my own money. But, the downside is that it's all for my dad and not me. I'll just pretend! I had two favorite finds from this trip. First was a gorgeous, heavily-patterned, multi-colored rug. Secretly, it solved the problem that I was having with introducing a new color scheme into the living room. The rug had lots of dark red and teal, so now all of my dad's teal accents actually look like they belong. My second favorite find(s) were two red, glass lamps. Oh, they're so pretty, and they look so good in the room. They also got me one step closer to getting my dad to give me the Tiffany Blue lamp that they replaced. Soon, my pretty, you will be mine! After we got home, we started to realize that we forgot to get a bunch of stuff (I get that way when I'm overwhelmed with the excitement that Target brings me), so I ran back by myself. I left Lilly with my dad. He panicked and said "what if she poops?!" I reassured him that the experience wouldn't kill him, and reminded him that he'd done it before. She survived, and I even got a cute picture text while I was gone.

Anyway, everything is unpacked and today I was actually able to move from room to room and do the dreaded organizing. I'll post "after" pictures once it's all done. I can't wait!!

I liked that the bar had a parent handle to guide the kids. Granted, Lilly can always tell the second I place my hand on the cart, and instantly falls to the floor in a fit of dramatics.

She found her bucket

She loved the giant Christmas decorations at the furniture store. I literally couldn't get her to leave them alone. At one point, as we were checking out, we heard a kissing sound, and when we turned around, she was actually kissing him on the nose.

I was tinkering around, and all of the sudden I heard music coming from my dad's room. The little stinker was pushing the buttons on his alarm clock. Granted, she did pick a good station, so I left the music on.

Propped up on the TV stand.