Hey there adoring fans (Cathy Church)!

In order to better my 30 year old adult life, I have started organizing.  My roommates have advised  me that it is no longer kosher for me to use the living room as my office space, and that I’m probably not allowed to use the word kosher as it may or may not be racist.  So, it’s time to set up my bedroom as a home office.  The first step was to de-clutter my bedroom which I started on Day 18: Everyday I’m shufflin’ (what’s that?  You didn’t read Day 18?  Well fine, I don’t care what you did on Day 18 of turning your life around either…unless it was really good…oooohhh, did you do something really cool on Day 18?   Did you meet Tina Fey?  You did?!  I hate you….whoever you are…which I’m pretty sure is just a manifestation of my mind…what were we talking about?  Oh, right…I de-cluttered) my apartment last week, and yesterday my roomies and I took a huge hall to the salvation army…

That’s my tax write off receipt.  Can’t wait for June 27th (that’s when I do my taxes…what?).  Then the roomies and I rented a Zip Car and headed out to good ole’ New Jersey (aka “the armpit of America”) to go to…

As most of you (especially New Yorkers) I’m sure know, Ikea is the most amazing place on earth.  You can get a bed, shower curtain, or 10 thousand tea lights for like $4.99!  I had been excited about this trip all week but when the day finally came, I found myself super anxious and in a terrible mood.  After ruling out PMS (which will be in another 2 weeks…mark your calendars) I realized that this almost always happens to me when going on big shopping trips with other people.  I’m always fine when I go shopping by myself but for some reason group shopping always makes me want to reach for the xanax (don’t worry, I didn’t pop any pills Mom…jeesh).  Instead of just rolling with the bad mood as I usually do, I took a look back into little Sarah’s life and found exactly where the anxiety stems from.  As most of you know I’ve been dancing since the age of 5.  By the time I hit Middle School I started traveling with the other girls from my studio to dance competitions (did you all know that this blog was written by the former “Miss. Dance of the Mid-Atlantic, 2000”?  Which means I was the best girl out of a dozen girls between the ages of 15 and 17 one time.  Jealous?).   Every November we would go to this competition in Williamsburg VA which was located near a ton of Outlets (shopping not electrical…although there were plenty of electrical outlets too…how else could I plug in my Crimper).  Mind you this was way before my “Miss. Dance” title.  I was in middle school at the time and these were the days of name brand everything.  If you didn’t own Guess Jeans, an oversized Tommy Hilfiger T-shirt and Starter Jacket  (throw in a teal pager if you’re a badass…well, less of a badass if the only one that pages you is your mom) you were not one of the cool kids.  Our family didn’t have as much money as the other girls and I knew it, but my mother (god bless her) still took me out shopping with my friends and their Moms, made me try on the $60 jeans with the other girls, and bought them even though I tried to stop her by assuring her that I would grow out of them before the year was over (as I knew we couldn’t afford it…plus back then I had dreams of being a tall buxom bombshell…which were squashed after realizing that with a mother of 5’6” and a father of 5’3” the odds were against me).  I’m not telling this story for anyone to feel bad for me because we weren’t dirt poor or anything dramatic ( I did after all have a teal pager) but in reaching my goal of becoming a better person I think it’s important to recognize why we get in bad moods or anxious at times for seemingly no reason.  I have the most amazing parents who never let my brother and I live without, but somehow I can’t shake the feeling of not having enough money when I’m out shopping with other people, even my dear friends.  Anybody else out there feel that way?  The truth is, I’m doing ok enough with my finances to spend money on things that will improve my life or even things that won’t (like when I spent $6 renting Bachelorette OnDemand…it sucked), I just have a hard time not feeling guilty about it.  So you know what?  I’m working on that s*it.  I’m going to stop worrying about my money because “Worry is a prayer for Chaos in our lives”…which I just stole from this awesome spiritual coach…

Gabrielle Bernstein!

I know, barf if you want to, but I think she’s super cool.  I’ve never actually met her, but she has a bunch of youtube videos if anyone is interested at Spirit Junkie TV.  If not, just maybe watch some porn.  That puts me in a good mood too…just kidding…kind of.  So now that I’ve self therapized myself and gotten rid of my bad shopping juju (I hear people say “bad juju” all of the time and wanted to make sure I was using it in the right context so I looked it up on urbandictionary.com

…I’m going to go ahead and vote that I’m using the first definition for this circumstance.  Stand by for me spending the rest of my life trying to be the girl that they’re talking about in the second).

Back to Ikea!  Here we are having dinner.  Because you can have dinner at Ikea…’nough said.

I bought some sheets, organizational shelves, and curtains.  Side note: This was Abby’s first time at IKEA!  Can you believe it?  What did she use to furnish her college apartment?   Milk cartons, blow up furniture, and Nurtra-Grain bars????  She got a little overwhelmed when we got to the Ikea Self Serve Warehouse…

This is her classic W-O-W face.

How to make the Abby WOW face: Hold 3 fingers up next to each side of your face, and make an “O” with your mouth…what will these kids think of next?

Things were going well until we found that a piece Abby had written down from the show room was mislabeled.  I don’t remember what it was…but it’s description had 2 umlauts and 3 swedish meatballs.

So she and John went to find the missing piece (awww….remember that Shel Silverstein book The Missing Piece?  I loved that book.  There was a poem about a little girl who told her parents that if they didn’t buy her a pony she would die…and then she died because her parents wouldn’t buy her a pony.  Come to think of it, that is a terrible poem to put in a children’s book…and may have something to do with my anxieties about money and my parents*)

So while they were gone, I waited…

Finally everything was hunky dory and we made a pit stop at the bathroom before leaving…

Did youse guys know that public bathroom toilet seat covers are as good as using those fancy “oil blotting” papers when it comes to de-shining your face?  I’m not a hobo, it’s totally true…I read it in Cosmo.

Alright.  Now let’s load this s*it into our Zip Car.  Abby, could please hurry up.  It’s cold outside and we left our coats in the car…No Abby, you have to round the corners…get away from that giant inconvenient cement pillar.

Ok guys.  Now where’s the car?  I swear we parked it right outside of Ikea…Oh, crap…we’ve been in New York City for way too long…

After John ran around for 20 minutes clicking the panic button, we finally found the car.  Then comes the part where you have to play the “Jenga for your Life” game by figuring out how to arrange an 8ft bookshelf, 5ft dresser, 47cm Muster und Drucke mit Vergangenheit, 2 sets of 144 thread count sheets, and 20 tubes of crab spread…yes, Ikea has crab spread.

You guys are doing a great job…

No seriously, you guys are doing a great job…I swear…no, I can see better from here.  Keep it up!

Tadaa!

So ends our trip to IKEA.  I’ve learned a lot of life lessons today, the most important one being to remember where you parked your rental car…especially when you opt to leave your coats in said car after the temperature has dropped to 8 degrees.  Goodbye New Jersey!  See you when we’re in prison!

*the poem is titled A Little Girl Named Abigail and the Beautiful Pony…not from the book The Missing Piece, but the other totally good book A Light in the Attic.

*If any of you would like to subscribe to my blog to get alerted when I write new posts so that you don’t have to rely on Facebook or that batman like shadow that I post in the sky, please do.  I think there’s a ‘subscribe’ button somewhere.*