FLARG!

Guess where we went this weekend? Does this give you a hint?

Yes, we went to the mecca of home decor, IKEA.

I love IKEA. I could spend all

 day there.

Wait, we pretty much did.

It had been awhile since we browsed the showroom (and Bart had a secret plan in mind), so Saturday we trekked to Canton. I could tell it was going to be packed by the parking lot. Wowza there are a lot of cars in Southeast Michigan.

And guess what? We saw Carmen Harlan, of WDIV channel 4 fame. Shopping. Cool.

The plan was to get Emma the loft bed we promised her for her birthday (in September). To make a long story short, she doesn't take care of anything in her room, much to our great annoyance. We rearranged her closet to make it more user friendly. There are still clothes on the floor. So, she was told she gets the bed when she proves to us that she actually cares about her belongings. Still not great, but she has made an improvement.

We came across the home office stuff before the bedroom stuff, and Evan asked if he could have a desk. Sounds reasonable. He is better at taking care of his room, and he will need a place (without TV) to do homework. Or whatever. So we said yeah, let's pick one out.

At this point Emma turned green with Envy and declined to speak the rest of the shopping trip.We came to the part where the bedrooms were, and she wouldn't offer an opinion on any of them. We gave her like 10 chances to pull herself together but she chose to be miserable. We stopped for meatballs & beverages and she sat there miserably not eating or speaking. I cornered her and tried to talk her out of her funk, but she wasn't budging. She said "Dad won't let me have a loft bed so there is no point in even looking. I never get what I want". Even told point blank we came to buy one, she still was being a stubborn ox.

About an hour later (still in IKEA) she whispered to me that she knew she was wrong but couldn't admit it to her dad.

Dang, 10 year old girls are a pain in the butt.

I had my share of moments just like this as a young girl, but I was forced to go with my dad on the weekends, and there was a lot of animosity between my parents. I needed to rebel. What does she have to rebel against?

We also helped my Mom de-Christmas her house, so that was pretty much our entire weekend. I have packed up all of our things until next year. Just the tree is left, and I'm not about to take apart that sucker by myself. No way.

Tomorrow!