Update on Those Bloody Shelves

They are finally up.

Where was our drill? We still don't know, but we borrowed one from my boo's brother. We didn't have the right bit to drill through the bracket so we could have holes that matched up with the studs. Improvisation was required.

Then, after we were finished, he found the correct bit in a bag.

The shelves look nice I guess, but one is about six inches farther to the left than I wanted it to be. I measured where I wanted them to go before I found the studs, and then once the studs were found, things got wonky real fast. Oh well.

This is my only real concern.

Are all my beautiful vintage cocktail glasses going to slide off and crash to the ground?

The Tale of Everything Becomes Annoying

Alternate titles* - The Tale of When Romance Helps with Rocky Moments, Except That Those Moments Make it Difficult to Generate Romance and The Tale of These Bloody Shelves. Pick your angle. Choose your own adventure.

Sometimes being in a committed relationship is like torture, only it's torture that you signed up for. Some of us even spent years longing for it and thousands upon thousands of dollars celebrating it. But you better believe most of us didn't see shit like this coming.

Am I talking finances?

Am I talking about matters in the bedroom?

Am I talking about trust issues?

No, worse. I'm talking about my boo's inability to buy a freaking stud-finder when he says he will. Stick with me. There's a lot to go over.

if it wasn't clear, the gorilla is me.

Sunday evening - After many, MANY sweaty hours of working on some of my projects, I sat down to eat some dinner with boo. I desperately needed a shower, and it was getting late, so he offered to go to Home Depot for me to get the screws and a stud-finder for hanging the bloody shelves I bought from Ikea.  I read one too many horror stories about these shelves ripping out of people's walls, even when they used real bad-ass screws, because they hadn't screwed into studs. It was important to me that we find studs.  I made this very clear to him. Very clear.

Approximately 30 minutes later he returns. He says he's found just the thing. I say, great! With these screws and the studs we should be in business! He says, I didn't get the stud-finder.

HE DIDN'T GET THE STUD-FINDER.

I'll get it tomorrow, he says. He works next to a Home Depot, so this should be easy. It should take all of ten minutes.

Monday after work- I'm running approximately 8,000 errands while he is doing things like going for a freaking jog and nerding out to photoshop tutorials on youtube. I'd like him to find studs during this time, but he can't. And why can't he?

BECAUSE HE DIDN'T GET THE STUD-FINDER.

He forgot. So, that became errand 8,001 for me.

I finally got home at 8:15, one hour before I needed to get in bed, only to find that he hadn't thought to vacuum our horribly gross carpets before his mom's visit. (She stays over every other Monday.) He also hadn't thought to read my mind to know that he should do it.

Instead of screaming, “WHY DIDN’T YOU RUN THE FREAKIN’ VACUUM”, I managed to say “oh no, the carpets are so dirty! We need to vacuum before your mom comes”

He said it was okay, I said it wasn’t, he volunteered to do it. I sat in the bedroom eating gummy bears so as not to criticize him for not vacuuming to my liking.

Tuesday  - the shelves were not even close to being up, and the idea of getting dinner made and cleaned up AND putting up shelves made me feel stabby. That's when I remembered this -

My boo says, on multiple occasions, “I can help you with dinner so you don’t have to do everything yourself”

It occurred to me that if he helped my slow-ass with dinner, we could get to the shelf business a little faster.

I say, I need to ask you for help with dinner tonight.
My boo says, sure, I can help after my run.

AFTER HIS RUN?!

I just can't even. Before I even got a chance to post this last night, we realized we don't have the right kind of mothafuckin battery for the mothafuckin stud-finder. I do recall that several months ago I came upon some of these batteries on clearance, only for my boo to proclaim "when will we ever need those?"

The time is now, it seems.


*a thousand thanks to my friend Cristina for input and title ideas!

IKEA Survival Tips

I lost my blogging momentum. AGAIN! I hear blogs are dead, so it probably doesn't matter much anway.

I'm having friends over next Saturday which has prompted me to (attempt to) complete many, many little projects around this apartment. One of which required a trip to IKEA. If you've ever been to IKEA, you know it can be a unique and strange hell on earth. Here are some tips for getting through it alive and with your personal relationships in tact.

That door is like a mouth, ready to eat you. via ikea.com

1. If possible, go alone. 
If you don't really need help, go by yourself. Don't take your children if you can help it. You can move more quickly and don't have to worry about the potential fatigue, hunger, irritability, or generally otherwise unpleasantness of your companions.

1a. If you do go with other people, don't feel obligated to stick together.  Unless the other people are children.
This is especially true if you and the people in your group shop at different paces. Make a loose plan about when/where you will meet up periodically and/or keep your phones on you with the volume on if you need to call and find each other. Large groups move at a glacier pace, irritating themselves and everyone around them.

2. Eat first. 

50 cents to save your life

I swear, even if you ate at home, grab one of those 50 cent hot dogs BEFORE you shop. It may be located by the exit, but you can just cut over and grab one and then go back inside. This way, you will avoid becoming one of those people slowly floating around in some sort of hot-dog deprived, low blood sugar fog, running into people at every turn. (See number three below)

3. Watch where you are going! (Also known as, stop and look at the roses)
It seems like you should be able to walk at a leisurely pace while browsing the selections, but this is simply not reality at IKEA. You will bump into people. Other people will bump into you. I like to pick a little out of the way corner, stop, look around and survey the scene, and then walk over to particular items that look good to me. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

4. Skip the showroom

Here is where you get to business.

If you are going to IKEA for a specific item, go straight to it. If it's furniture, just make sure you know everything you need to know before you get there. (See number six below) If you do need to go through the showroom, try to stay focused. Save your energy for the actual reason(s) you're there.

5. Go rogue
Yesterday the aisles were packed with people. Large families mostly, and tons of children. Everywheres. In most spots, the areas where furniture and other items were on display were pretty empty. I skipped the aisles and walked through the display areas. Much easier. When I got to the marketplace area, I went against the flow of people and started at the end. People tend to follow each other, and if you break from the masses, you'll have more space to yourself to look around.

6. Be willing to accept the consequences of shopping at IKEA in the first place
IKEA products notoriously lack specific instructions, and all it takes is a quick google of "IKEA fail" to see that assembling and installing IKEA pieces can be a disaster. For example, I thought I had done plenty of research on the Lack floating shelves. One thing I didn't research was the best way to hang them or the required screws and such so they don't come crashing down. Of course IKEA does not provide the screws as there are all different kinds of walls requiring different screws! Of course! Wouldn't it have been nice if this had occurred to me yesterday? If you have your eye on a particular item, get Google's take before you buy. If you make an impulse purchase, be ready for it to be a more involved project than you realized.

A strong but understandable stance

If your trip is still a disaster after taking my advice, you can join the band* of people who've determined IKEA to be satan.



*they are, in fact, a band. as in one that plays satanic and bluesy music. they might not actually consider IKEA to be satan. learn about them and see original pic courtesy of the Icelandic Music Mafia. My ability to link disappeared halfway through this post so go to http://icelandicmusicmaffia.blogspot.com/2011/03/music-alliance-pact-map-30-march-2011_15.html.  Furniture pick-up area pic from here http://phoenix.about.com/od/shoppingandservices/ss/IKEA_9.htm